Bill Pay integration issues in Relay usually stem from one of four causes: bills stuck in your accounting software, sync delays, vendor mismatches, or a disconnected authorization.
Relay's Bill Pay integration with QuickBooks Online and Xero pulls open bills from your accounting software into Relay, lets you pay them by ACH, wire, or check, and pushes payment status back to your books. When that sync breaks, work through the sections below in order.
What does the Bill Pay integration actually do?
The integration keeps bills and payment status aligned between Relay and your accounting software. When it is working, you can:
Import open bills from QuickBooks Online or Xero into Relay
Pay bills by ACH, wire, or check from your Relay Account
Push payment status and payment details back to your accounting software
Match payments automatically to vendors and your chart of accounts
If bills aren't syncing from QuickBooks or Xero into Relay
Bills typically fail to sync in when the bill itself is not in a state Relay can pull, or the vendor is not yet mirrored in Relay. Check three things:
Bill status. Open your accounting software and confirm the bill is saved and marked as Open or Unpaid. Draft or paid bills are not pulled into Relay.
Required fields. The bill needs a vendor name and due date. Bills missing either are skipped.
Vendor mirror. The vendor on the bill must exist in both QuickBooks Online or Xero and in Relay. If the vendor is new, sync it first.
Once all three are correct, go to Payments > Bills > Settings > Integrations in Relay and click Sync Now to trigger the pull.
If a bill payment in Relay isn't updating in QuickBooks or Xero
Payments made in Relay usually appear in your accounting software within 15 minutes. If a payment still hasn't updated after that window, one of the following is likely:
The integration has disconnected and needs to be reauthorized
The bill was marked paid manually in QuickBooks Online or Xero, so Relay's sync has nothing to update
More than one Relay account is sharing a single accounting connection, and the payment routed to a different Relay account
The sync queue is still processing (rare, but possible during heavy volume)
To resolve:
Go to Settings > Integrations
Click on the QuickBooks Online or Xero tile
Click Sync Now to trigger a manual update
Reauthorize the connection if Relay prompts you to sign in again
Going forward, originate payments in Relay rather than marking them paid manually in your accounting software
If a bill isn't marked as paid in QuickBooks after syncing
The most common cause is that the bill was already marked paid manually in QuickBooks Online before Relay synced. Relay cannot override a manual status change. Work through this sequence:
Confirm bill status in QuickBooks Online. If the bill still shows Open, the sync has not landed yet. If it shows Paid but not by Relay, the manual entry is blocking the sync.
Run a manual sync. Go to Payments > Bills > Settings > Integrations, click the QuickBooks Online tile, and click Sync Now. Wait a few minutes, then refresh QuickBooks and recheck.
Check for duplicate bills or vendors. Relay may be syncing to a different instance of the same vendor. In QuickBooks Online, look for two versions of the bill or vendor record. In Relay, open Payments > Bills and view the linked bill details.
If duplicates exist, merge vendors in QuickBooks Online first, then run the manual sync again. Cleaning up QuickBooks first prevents the same mismatch from recurring on future bills.
What other sync errors can happen, and how do I fix them?
Less common sync issues fall into four buckets. Match the symptom to the fix:
Issue | Likely cause | Fix |
Vendor mismatch | Vendor name is spelled differently in QuickBooks Online or Xero than in Relay | Rename or merge the vendor so the name matches in both systems |
Currency mismatch | The bill is in a currency your Relay Account does not hold | Bills must be in the same currency as the Relay Account paying them |
Deleted bills | The bill was deleted in QuickBooks Online or Xero after syncing to Relay | Void or remove the bill manually from Relay |
Partial payment not syncing | Partial payments are not yet supported on all integrations | Coming to the Grow Plan and Scale Plan; pay the bill in full for now |
How do I keep the integration healthy?
A few habits prevent most sync issues from starting:
Run a sync at least once a day if you process a high volume of bills
Avoid editing Relay-linked bills directly in QuickBooks Online or Xero once they have synced; make changes in Relay instead
Review your Payees list regularly and merge duplicates before they cause vendor mismatches
Use Relay's bill creation tools or the Bills Inbox to bypass sync entirely when a bill only needs to live in one place
Still not resolved?
If the sync is still broken after working through the sections above, send Relay's Customer Experience team the following:
A description of the issue
A screenshot of the bill in Relay
A screenshot of the same bill in QuickBooks Online or Xero
The timestamp of the last time you clicked Sync Now
That package gives the team enough context to trace the sync path end to end without a second round of questions.
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