ABA Bank File Checker
- Australian direct entry layout
- Totals recalculated
- Your file never leaves your browser
Drop your ABA file here
The direct entry file you upload to your bank, or choose a file
Net total of the detail records
Add a file to check it
File total record check
- Detail record count
- Credit total
- Debit total
- Net total (credits less debits)
Checks every 120-character record, field by field, and recalculates the file totals from the payments.
What an ABA file is, and where it breaks
Plan managers pay providers in batches through a direct entry file, usually called an ABA or Cemtex file. It is plain text in a fixed layout: a descriptive record with your bank and user details, one detail record per payment, and a file total record. Each record is exactly 120 characters, and every field lives at fixed positions, so one stray character can move an account number or an amount.
What this checks
- Record lengths and order: 120 characters each, one record 0 first, record 7 last, payments in between.
- Every field: BSBs as 000-000, account numbers right justified, transaction codes, amounts in cents and greater than zero, names and references from the allowed characters.
- The totals: the net, credit and debit totals and the record count in record 7, recalculated from the payments themselves.
- The descriptive record: a valid DDMMYY processing date, the six-digit user identification number and the bank abbreviation.
The layout is the industry standard that the major banks publish; this tool follows Westpac’s current guide. Banks can add their own rules, such as a balancing debit line, so check yours. In Rostery, the ABA file for a payment run is built from reconciled invoices and refuses to build if a BSB, account or amount is invalid.
What this tool follows
- Westpac: Import file format for Australian direct entry files (effective June 2026): field positions and rules for the descriptive (0), detail (1) and file total (7) records, valid characters, transaction codes and line endings
General information only, not financial, legal or claiming advice. Always check a claim against the current official documents.
Questions people ask
Is my ABA file uploaded anywhere?
No. Your browser reads the file with FileReader and every check runs on your own device. Nothing is sent to Rostery or anyone else, stored or logged, so the BSBs, account numbers and names in it stay with you.
Why must every line be exactly 120 characters?
An ABA file is fixed width: the bank finds each field by its position, not by a separator. If a line is short (an editor stripped the trailing spaces) or long (an accented letter or curly quote took two bytes), every field after that point shifts, and the bank rejects the file or reads the wrong account or amount.
What are records 0, 1 and 7?
Record 0 is the descriptive record: your bank, your name, your user identification number, a description and the processing date. There is one record 1 for each payment, with the BSB, account, amount and reference. Record 7 is the file total: the net, credit and debit totals and the count of record 1 lines, which must match the payments above it.
Which transaction code should a provider payment use?
The specification lists 13 for debits and 50 to 57 for credits, where 50 is a general credit and 51 to 57 are particular kinds of credit such as pay (53) or pension (54). Paying a provider is normally code 50, which is what Rostery writes.
What is the user identification number?
A six-digit number allocated to your organisation for direct entry, originally by the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA). It sits in positions 57 to 62 of record 0, right justified and zero filled. Your bank can confirm yours; a wrong one is a common reason a whole file is rejected.
Does the file need a balancing debit line?
The published layout does not require one: the file total record simply reports credits, debits and the difference. Some banks ask for a self-balancing line that debits your own account for the total, using transaction code 13. Check your bank’s guide.
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