A payment run is rarely "pay everything in full". Cash flow says pay half of the big invoice now and the rest next month. A vendor has four small bills that should go out as one deposit. Thirty vendors need paying and you want one file, not thirty. Partial payments and multi-bill batches are the two features that turn a list of Zoho Books bills into a payment run that matches what your controller actually decided. This article explains how they work in Zefty, what ends up in the EFT 1464 file, and what gets written back to Zoho Books.
Scenario: a Thursday payment run
Take a typical week. The Bills screen shows 22 unpaid bills from 9 vendors after this morning's sync. The decisions are:
- Pay 6 vendors in full.
- Pay Northshore Supply $5,000 against a $12,400 invoice; the rest after a delivery is confirmed.
- Pay all four of Duval Électrique's small bills together.
- Leave 2 vendors out until next week.
In Zefty that is a few clicks and one typed amount. Here is what happens at each step.
Step 1: Select the bills
Tick the bills to pay. Rows whose vendor is missing banking information are shown in red and cannot be exported, so fix those in Zoho Books first, resync, and they turn normal. As you tick, the Selected Total at the top of the table updates live, so you can watch the run against the cash you want to release.
Step 2: Enter partial amounts where needed
Each row has a Partial Payment column. It is a text field you can edit directly in the table. For the Northshore Supply bill, type 5000.00. Leave every other row blank.
The rule is simple: if the Partial Payment field has a value, that value is paid; if it is blank, the bill's full balance is paid. The Selected Total follows the same rule, so it now reflects $5,000 for Northshore instead of $12,400.
Two things to keep in mind:
- Enter partial amounts right before you generate the file. Every sync with Zoho Books clears the Partial Payment column and refreshes each balance from Zoho. That is deliberate: it stops a stale amount from being paid weeks later. If a sync runs between your edit and the export, re-enter the amount.
- A partial amount should be less than the balance. Zefty pays what you type; use the Balance column as your reference.
Step 3: Generate the file
Click Generate Payment File, confirm the Payment Date (it defaults to today), and Zefty builds the file. What it does with your selection is the interesting part.
What ends up in the EFT 1464 file
Zefty groups the selected bills by vendor. Each vendor gets one credit record (a C record) whose amount is the sum of the selected bills for that vendor, using the partial amount where you entered one and the balance elsewhere.
For the Thursday run:
| Vendor | Bills selected | Amount in the credit record |
|---|---|---|
| Northshore Supply | 1 bill, partial $5,000 | $5,000.00 |
| Duval Électrique | 4 bills, no partials | Sum of the 4 balances |
| Six other vendors | 1 to 3 bills each | Sum of their balances |
So the file contains 8 credit records, not 20, and each vendor sees a single deposit on its statement. The trailer (Z record) carries the count of credits and the total value, both computed from those grouped amounts, so the bank's consistency check passes.
The file number is taken from Last file number in the EFT 1464 File Settings and incremented for this run, and the payee name for each vendor is cleaned of accents and symbols before it is written.
What gets written back to Zoho Books
Once the file is generated (outside of test mode), Zefty posts one Vendor Payment per vendor to Zoho Books, with payment mode "Zefty EFT 1464", dated with the payment date you chose, and drawn from the Account Paid From you configured in Zoho Books Settings.
Inside that payment, the amount is applied bill by bill:
- Northshore Supply: one payment of $5,000 applied to the $12,400 bill. Zoho Books marks the bill Partially Paid with a $7,400 balance.
- Duval Électrique: one payment applied across four bills, each for its full balance. All four become Paid.
The payment ID Zoho Books returns is stored with each bill and shown in Zefty's History screen, so every credit in the file can be traced back to a Zoho Books transaction.
The next sync closes the loop
On the next sync, nightly or on demand, Zefty pulls unpaid bills again. The Northshore bill comes back with its new $7,400 balance, still listed because Zoho Books reports it as partially paid. The four Duval bills are paid and no longer appear. Nothing needs to be reconciled by hand.
Practical patterns
Split a large invoice over several runs. Enter the instalment in Partial Payment each time. Each run creates its own Vendor Payment in Zoho Books, and the balance decreases with each one.
Consolidate small bills. Select every bill from the vendor and leave Partial Payment blank. One deposit, several bills closed.
Hold back a disputed bill without blocking the vendor's other bills. Simply do not tick the disputed one. Grouping only applies to what you selected.
Check the run before uploading. Open the Report screen, download the PDF report for the export, and read the C records. Each one lists the vendor, the account details and the amount, so you can confirm the $5,000 partial and the Duval consolidation before the file goes to the bank.
Key takeaways
- The Partial Payment column is editable per bill. A value means "pay this much"; blank means "pay the balance".
- Every sync clears partial amounts and refreshes balances, so enter partials just before generating the file.
- Zefty groups selected bills by vendor: one credit record per vendor, amounts summed.
- One Vendor Payment per vendor is posted to Zoho Books, applied bill by bill, with the Zoho payment ID kept in History.
- Partially paid bills come back on the next sync with the reduced balance.
To see the whole flow from sync to bank upload, including where partial payments fit, read how Zefty works.