# Bulk payouts and payroll runs

> Paying a whole team across four networks in one batch, and what to do about the one payment that fails.

Category: Getting your money · Last updated: 2026-09-16 · Source: https://ultraner.com/resources/payouts/payroll-runs

A payroll run is one instruction that pays many people. Up to five hundred in a batch, each on whatever network their own number belongs to, without you sorting anybody into columns first.

The value is not really the speed. It is that the run keeps its own record, so the question "did everyone get paid" has an answer that is not a spreadsheet somebody maintains by hand.

## Before the first run

1. Verify every number with the person it belongs to, not against your own records. Most failed payouts are a wrong number rather than a broken rail.
2. Decide who may approve a run, and make sure at least two people can. The usual disaster is not fraud, it is the only approver being unreachable on payday.
3. Fund the balance the day before, with a margin for fees.
4. Do one small run first, to two or three people who know it is coming.

## What happens when you submit

Each item is sent to the network that carries that person’s number. They arrive independently, which means the run completes progressively rather than all at once, and the list updates as each one lands.

Nobody being paid has to accept anything. Money arriving on a mobile money account needs no approval from the recipient.

## When one fails

Only that one fails. The money for it, including its fee, returns to your balance, and the run names the person rather than reporting a count.

Fix the cause, which is almost always the number, and pay that person separately. Do not re-run the batch: the people who were paid the first time would be paid again.

**Reconciling**

Reconcile from the run, not from the spreadsheet you built it out of. The run is what the money actually followed, and if the two disagree, it is the spreadsheet that is wrong.

## Where payroll reaches today

Mobile money payouts are live in Tanzania. For a team anywhere else, settlement to a bank account covers the same need, and payout markets open as each rail is verified end to end.

## Read next

- Who is allowed to move money: https://ultraner.com/resources/payouts/who-can-move-money
- Payouts and disbursements explained: https://ultraner.com/resources/payouts/payouts-explained
- How long money takes to arrive: https://ultraner.com/resources/payouts/how-long-money-takes

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Ultraner is the payment layer for Africa. https://ultraner.com