How payments work

Open banking payments are live. Paying by bank on QSME is out of beta and running in production, connected to New Zealand's banks through Akahu, a New Zealand open banking provider. There are no payment fees for paying by bank at the moment.

Money on QSME moves between you and the other party. On every project running on QSME today, the platform is not in the middle of it: it is not a bank, it does not hold your money, and it is not a party to your payments. What it does is keep one record both sides agree on, so nobody is arguing from two different spreadsheets six months later.

Where a contract comes from

A payment contract is the agreement money hangs off. There are two ways to get one:

Milestones are set when the contract is created, from the schedule the two of you agreed. There is no add-a-milestone button afterwards — the only things that happen to a milestone later are progress, payment and confirmation. So it is worth getting the payment schedule right on the tender or the bid, while it is still a conversation.

Retention, if the contract sets one, is the last milestone, Retention (release). The stages before it add up to 100% less the retention, and it is paid and confirmed like any other stage when the time comes to release it.

The two ways to pay

Every payment on QSME happens one of two ways — open banking, or outside QSME and recorded. Both are open to you on every job, and both end with the same record. They differ in who has to confirm what.

Open banking — pay straight from your bank

One tap opens your bank's app, you approve it there, and the money goes from your account into theirs. No card, no payment fees, nobody holding it in between. The bank payment is the record: the milestone marks itself paid for both sides, and nobody has to confirm receipt.

Once you have approved it, the pay button locks — "Your bank is processing this payment" — until your bank says it has gone through or failed. Some banks take a few minutes. Nothing you tap in that time can start a second payment, so there is no way to pay twice by accident. If it fails, you can try again straight away.

What it needs:

• The receiving side must have a verified bank account. They verify it once, in their payout settings, by connecting their bank — their bank confirms the account number and name, and no money moves. Only a verified account can be paid by open banking.
• New Zealand dollars.
• Under your bank's single-payment cap. Banks differ: ANZ caps at $5,000, Westpac at $30,000. Over that, use another bank or pay outside QSME and record it.

QSME also caps a single open-banking payment at $100,000. Over any of these limits, pay another way and record it — the money is the same money either way.

Where open banking is not available to an account yet, QSME says so plainly instead of offering a button that fails.

Paying from an ANZ account. Until ANZ meets the open banking standard (expected 1 December 2026), ANZ only lets its customers pay accounts it has approved in advance. QSME sends every newly verified account to be approved, which takes ANZ 1 to 5 working days. In that window an ANZ customer may not be able to pay that trade by open banking — pay another way and record it. Every other bank works straight away.

Outside QSME — pay however you like

Bank transfer, cash, cheque, whatever suits. You settle up off the platform and record it here:

1. The payer marks it paid, with the reference, and attaches the invoice or receipt.
2. The other party confirms the money cleared.

That second step is the point. Only the paying side can mark it paid, only the receiving side can confirm it, and one person cannot be both.

Saying in advance which way you will pay

A job can carry a plan — "pay with open banking" or "settle outside QSME" — so both sides know what to expect from the start.

It is only a plan. Nothing is locked to it: when the payment is actually made, either way is still open. If you have not said, that is fine too — both stay open.

Paying QSME — your plan and AI top-ups

The payments above go between you and the other party. Two things are paid to QSME itself, and both can be paid by bank:

• Paying by bank works the same way as everywhere else on QSME: approve it in your banking app, and the money goes from your account straight into QSME's. No card, no payment fees.
• One bank payment at a time. While one is with your bank, the bank buttons wait for it — a second would be a second charge.
• If a bank payment fails or you cancel it in your bank, your plan and wallet stay exactly as they were, and you are told why.
• Bank payments are limited by your bank's own single-payment cap and QSME's $100,000 cap per payment.
• Paying QSME by bank is done on the website (Billing). The phone app pays QSME by card.

Invoices and GST

When a contractor submits a milestone, the invoice they attach is filed into the project's Documents → Invoices along with their proof of work, so the paperwork sits with the job rather than in somebody's inbox.

GST is handled by knowing, not asking. QSME knows whether a seller is GST registered and settles what their price means — exclusive, inclusive, or not registered — at the moment they bid. That is frozen onto the bid, carried onto the contract, and printed beside every amount on the contract and the invoices. It is the single most common way construction quotes go wrong, and it is worth checking it says what you expect.

What it costs

QSME charges a success fee of 1% of the contract, per side, capped at NZ$2,000 each side. It is charged separately, on QSME's own invoice — it is never taken out of the money you send.

It is not charged on everything:

It is worked out per winner, not per tender.

Seeing the money

The project's Money page shows:

• SOQ estimate against actual — what you allowed, against what has really gone out.
• Every milestone across every contract, each marked whether it was settled through open banking or outside QSME.
• A complete trail — contracts, and any ad-hoc entries you record yourself.

Not everyone on a project sees this. Money is visible to the project owner, to members given manage or investor access, and to nobody else — not to subcontractors, not to people invited to tender. The same rule follows the figures everywhere: into reports, into the schedule, into a Sheet and out to a connected AI assistant.

If a payment goes wrong

• A payment that fails or is never approved in the bank can be retried, or paid another way and recorded. If you leave the bank without approving, coming back and tapping pay again reopens the same payment — it never starts a second one.
• A payment your bank is still processing keeps the pay button locked until the bank finishes. If it is taking a while, you will be told when it lands — there is no need to pay again.
• A dispute can be opened on a milestone. It stops the contract completing, and the success fee is waived when one is upheld.
• Marking something paid that you have not paid is the one thing the screen warns you about before you do it. The record is what both sides rely on.

Words you will see

More on the words: the glossary.

Still stuck? hello@qsme.co.nz, or +64 27 338 8500.