← User guide

ABO Payment Files

Domestic CZK credit transfers exported as an ABO file for upload to the bank, from an OCA payment order or an Enterprise batch payment.

What it is for

ABO is the fixed-layout text file that Czech banks accept for a batch of domestic credit transfers (hromadný příkaz k úhradě). Instead of keying payments into internet banking one by one, you collect the vendor bills you want to pay in Odoo, generate one ABO file and upload it to the bank.

This module writes that file from an OCA payment order (account_payment_order), so it works on Community without any Enterprise module. On Enterprise, account_abo_batch (delivered separately) writes the same file from a batch payment instead — see below.

What it writes:

The file is not sent anywhere: you download it and upload it in your bank's internet or direct banking yourself. With Fio banka you can also send it from Odoo — see account_payment_fio.

Setting it up

1. The bank journal (Accounting → Configuration → Accounting → Journals) must have its bank account filled in, as a Czech IBAN or as prefix-number/bank code. This is the account the money leaves.
2. A payment mode (Accounting → Configuration → Accounting → Payment Modes): choose the payment method ABO (Czech credit transfer) and the bank journal from step 1.
3. Every vendor you pay needs a bank account in Odoo, again as a Czech IBAN or prefix-number/bank code.
4. Recommended: install l10n_cssk_payment_symbols. Its add-on l10n_cssk_payment_symbols_payment_order then installs itself and copies each bill's variable, constant and specific symbol onto the payment order lines, so you do not have to type them.

Paying bills with a payment order

1. Accounting → Vendors → Payment Orders, New, choose the ABO payment mode.
2. Create Payment Lines from Journal Items and pick the bills to pay.
3. Check the lines. Each has Variable Symbol, Constant Symbol and Specific Symbol next to Communication.
4. Confirm Payments, then Generate Payment File. The .abo file is attached to the order.
5. Upload the file in your bank, authorise it there, and mark the order with File Successfully Uploaded.

Where the symbols come from

For every line, each symbol is taken from, in this order:

1. the symbol field on the payment line;
2. a token in the line's Communication: VS:12345, VS 12345, VS=12345 (likewise KS: and SS:);
3. nothing — the file then carries 0.

A symbol field accepts digits only, up to 10 for VS and SS and 4 for KS. How the symbols get onto the bills in the first place is described in l10n_cssk_payment_symbols.

The Communication also becomes the message for the beneficiary: whitespace collapsed, characters that banks reject in ABO messages (such as @ # ; § ! & _ * = + ? [ ]) removed, and cut to 35 characters.

What is checked

Generating the file stops with a message when:

• a line has no beneficiary bank account;
• a line is not in CZK;
• the journal's or a beneficiary's account is not a Czech account (a Slovak IBAN is refused);
• the journal has no bank account.

The payment order stops at the first problem; fix it and generate again. The Enterprise variant lists every problem at once — see below.

Enterprise batch payments

account_abo_batch (delivered separately) produces the identical file from an Enterprise batch payment (account_batch_payment).

• When it is installed, the bank journals of companies whose fiscal country is the Czech Republic get the outgoing payment method ABO (Czech credit transfer) (on the journal's Outgoing Payments tab). Bank journals created later for such a company get it too; another country's journals can add it by hand.
• Register vendor payments on that journal with that payment method, put them into a batch (Accounting → Vendors → Batch Payments) and press Validate. The file is generated and attached to the batch's chatter.
• The symbols come from the payment's own VS/KS/SS fields (l10n_cssk_payment_symbols fills them from the paid bill), else from a VS: token in the Memo.
• Before writing the file, the batch lists every payment that would make it unusable: no recipient bank account, not in CZK, recipient account not Czech, zero amount.
• It warns, without blocking, about payments with no variable symbol (they go out as VS 0, which the bank accepts but the payee cannot match) and about payments dated differently from the batch.
• All payments are executed on the batch date, because an ABO file has one due date for all its items.

Both modules can be installed side by side.

The shared builder

The ABO and MultiCash writers live in account_cz_bankfile_base, so the Community and Enterprise variants produce byte-identical files. The same module reads Czech account numbers in both spellings (IBAN and prefix-number/bank code) for the KB BEST and Fio modules and for the MT940 and KB statement imports. It has no screen of its own.

Limitations

• A credit note grouped with its invoice on the payment order (the payment mode's Group Transactions in Payment Orders) becomes one item of the net amount — the amount of the payment the order books. It carries the invoice's variable symbol; when one credit note is netted against several invoices their symbols differ and none is sent. Groups without a credit note keep one item per invoice. Without grouping, a credit-note line is refused.
• CZK and Czech accounts only. The file refuses any currency other than CZK and any non-Czech account, Slovak IBANs included. Pay in EUR through SEPA (ISO 20022) or account_multicash (CFA).
• One due date per file. A payment order whose lines carry different dates is refused with a message listing them, rather than executing every line on the first one's date. The default Payment Execution Date Type, Due Date, gives every line its own bill's due date — so set it to Fixed Date or Immediately when paying by ABO, or split the order.
• Only credit transfers. ABO direct debits (inkaso) are not written; use MultiCash CFD or KB BEST for those.
• A line with a zero or negative amount stops the export with a message naming it (banks reject such a file).
• The file is not uploaded to the bank automatically (except through Fio, as above).