How to collect with Multibanco references

What is it for?

A Multibanco reference (entity and 9-digit reference) lets the customer pay the invoice at a Multibanco ATM or in home banking. fiscaldoo issues the references from the invoice, in one or more instalments, and, when you import the channel's collections file, creates the customer's payment and links it to the invoice.

When to use it?

• When you want to give the customer a reference to pay an issued, unpaid invoice in euros.
• When you have received the collections file from the Multibanco channel and want to record what was paid.
• Do not use it for online payments connected to a provider (Eupago, ifthenpay): those have their own path. To collect by direct debit, see direct debit batches.

Where to find it?

• Issue: on the invoice, Multibanco references button.
• See the references: the invoice's Multibanco button, or Accounting › Record › Sales and collections › Multibanco references (except for the Administrator, only in developer mode).
• Import collections: Accounting › Record › Collections from customers › Multibanco collections.
• Payments received: Accounting › Review › Taxes and treasury › Multibanco receipts by period (except for the Administrator, only in developer mode).

Before you start

• Your profile is Accountant (or Treasury: Manager).
• The invoice is issued, unpaid and in euros. A draft or paid invoice, or one in another currency, has no references (product rule, not tested on screen).
• The company has a Multibanco channel. In the demo the channel is a test one (mock, entity 00000) and the reference only works in this database: it cannot be paid at a real Multibanco. Pending validation on screen: real channel (the entity and the reference algorithm depend on the contract with the managing entity or with the provider; the demo does not have them).

How to use it

1. Open the invoice and click Multibanco references.
2. In the Issue Multibanco references window, look at the Open amount (€104.55), choose the Installments (for example 2), the Value type (fixed amount, where only the exact amount pays the reference, or variable) and the Validity (days). The window explains: “One reference is issued per installment; the last one takes the rounding. Nothing is sent to anyone.” Click Issue.
3. The invoice now has the Multibanco button with the number of references (2). Click it.
4. The list shows one reference per instalment: Entity, Formatted reference (groups of three digits), Amount and Valid until. With two instalments, the first, for €52.28, is valid until 01/12/2026 and the second, for €52.27 (the rounding), until 31/12/2026. They are all Active.
5. Open a reference: it shows the Value type, the amount, the validity, the Instalment and the Channel. To stop accepting it, click Cancel the reference, type the Reason in the window and click Cancel the reference: it becomes Cancelled (a reference cannot be edited or deleted).
6. When the customer pays, import the collections file. Open Multibanco collections: in a company with no imports the list says “No collections file imported yet”. Click Import collections file.
7. In the Import Multibanco collections window, choose the Bank journal and the file (Choose a file) and click Import. The window warns: “The file is only read (nothing is fetched from any service).”
8. The import (MBI/…) opens: Paid, Exceptions and Received amount, and, under Payments, each line with its result. A paid reference shows Paid and the note “Payment … created and reconciled.” All the other lines are exceptions: see the import results.

Expected result

• For the €52.28 reference paid on 01/11/2026 a €52.28 payment is created in the bank journal, with the entry: debit of €52.28 in “Recebimentos Pendentes” (120002) and credit of €52.28 in “Clientes gerais” (2111). The payment is reconciled with the invoice.
• The money is not yet in the bank account: the debit stays in “Recebimentos Pendentes” (120002). The bank account (121 Depósitos à ordem) only receives the amount when you import the bank statement. Then, when you reconcile the statement line with this payment, the amount is no longer pending: fiscaldoo debits the suspense account (120001) and credits “Recebimentos Pendentes” (120002).
• The invoice is partially paid (Partially paid), with €52.27 due, and the invoice's Payments button at 1.
• Multibanco receipts by period adds up the amount per month (November 2026: €52.28).

The imported payment has no certified receipt

The import creates a plain payment. It does not issue the certified receipt (RG): the payment has no series or ATCUD, unlike a receipt issued on the invoice, which has them.

Issue receipt does not issue the receipt for what Multibanco has already collected

The invoice's Issue receipt button issues the receipt for what is still unpaid (here, €52.27), with no link to the Multibanco payment. Do not use it for the payment already imported: if you change the amount to €52.28, you record the same payment twice.

• Today, fiscaldoo does not yet issue the receipt for the Multibanco payment: on the payment record there is no button to certify it: only Reset to Draft, Mark as Sent and Cancel with reason.
• Pending validation by a certified accountant: whether the company must issue a receipt for each Multibanco payment and, if so, how to regularise it while the product does not issue it (for example, cancel the payment with a reason and issue the receipt with the correct date and payment method). Ask the certified accountant before acting.

The import results

Each line of the file ends up in one of 9 results. Only Paid creates a payment; in the other 8 (the exceptions) fiscaldoo creates nothing and the invoice does not change. The table shows what the screen says in each case and what to do.

Result	Note on screen	What to do
Paid	“Payment PBNK1/… created and reconciled.”	Nothing. Check the payment on the invoice.
Reference not found	“No reference of the company has this entity and reference.”	The entity is the company's, but no reference has that number. Check the number with the customer and in the list of references.
Other entity	“The entity is not the one of the company.”	The payment is for a reference of another entity. Check with the channel; it is not a payment to this company.
Value differs	“The reference is for 104.55 and 50.0 was paid.”	Only happens with a fixed amount reference. Talk to the customer: if the amount paid is right, cancel the reference and issue another, with a variable amount.
More than the invoice owes	“200.0 is more than the 104.55 the invoice still owes.”	The customer paid more than the invoice owes. Settle the difference with them.
Reference expired	“The reference was valid until 02/11/2026.”	The payment is after the validity. The invoice is still unpaid: talk to the customer and, if you still want to collect by Multibanco, cancel the reference and issue another.
Reference cancelled	“The reference was cancelled:” followed by the reason you typed when cancelling it.	The customer paid with a reference fiscaldoo no longer accepts. Talk to them and handle the payment.
Already paid	“The reference was already paid.”	The reference already has a payment. fiscaldoo does not create a second one.
Repeated transaction	“A payment with this transaction id was already received.”	The same movement was already imported before. It is not duplicated; nothing to do.

Important notes

A cancelled or expired reference does not accept payments

Cancel the references the customer should not use (for example, after giving them a single one). A reference already paid cannot be cancelled. The collections file only links the payment to an active reference with the same entity and reference, with the right amount (for a fixed amount one) and with the payment date within the validity: the date does not have to match the issue date. The rest stays as an exception and fiscaldoo does nothing with it.

• Fixed amount only accepts the reference's amount; variable accepts any amount up to what the invoice still owes, but only one payment: after the first (for example, €40.00 of €104.55) the reference becomes Paid and the next payment gives “Already paid”. For the customer to pay in parts, issue instalments.
• fiscaldoo does not send the reference to the customer: copy it from the list or print it, or send the invoice by another means.

Common problems

“The file cannot be read by the channel … (bad_amount)”

• Symptom: when you import a file with the amount written with a comma: “The file cannot be read by the channel Test channel (mock) (bad_amount): Line 1: invalid amount '52,28'. Nothing was changed.”
• Cause: the test channel reads amounts with a decimal point (52.28). A real channel's file has the format of the contract.
• What to do: correct the file or ask the channel for it again.

A line ends up with “Reference not found”

• Symptom: the file is imported, but the line has the result Reference not found, the note “No reference of the company has this entity and reference.”, Exceptions at 1 and Received amount at €0.00.
• Cause: the entity is the company's, but no reference has that number. A cancelled reference does not give this result: it gives Reference cancelled, and one from another entity gives Other entity (see the import results).
• What to do: check the reference with the customer and in the list of references; no payment is created.