Paybill, Till and Merchant Codes: Reading the Mobile Money Record

What does a mobile money confirmation prove, which payment types can be reversed, and how should a laboratory file it?

A mobile money confirmation proves that a specific amount moved from one account to another at a specific time under a specific transaction code. It does not prove what the payment was for, that the receiver is the business named on an invoice, or that anything is owed in return. Whether it can be reversed depends on the payment type: a mistaken transfer has a narrow process, a deliberate payment to a seller generally does not.

Currency conversion and transaction limits are covered in the article on paying for imported reagents, FX and limits, and are left out here. This article is about the domestic mobile money rail only, using Kenya's paybill and till structure as the worked example and noting where other markets use different names. It describes how to read and file the record. It does not describe how to structure or split a payment.

Paybill, till and send money: three types, three records

In Kenya the dominant operator offers a business payment product with two main forms. A paybill number identifies a business that collects payments with an account reference, which the payer types to say what the payment is for. A till number (the buy-goods form) identifies a merchant at a point of sale, and the payer enters only the till number and an amount. A third type, sending money, moves funds from one personal account to another and is not a business payment at all.

The central bank's national payments system page sets the licensing frame in which these operate, and its directory of authorised payment service providers lists the licensed entities, dated 10 August 2026 in the edition read for this article ^[1][2]. A business that collects payments through a paybill or till has been issued that code by the operator, which has carried out some onboarding of it. A personal send involves no such step.

That difference is the first thing a buyer should note about a supplier's payment instruction. A business code means the operator knows who the business is. A phone number means only that someone holds a SIM.

Anatomy of a confirmation and what it does not prove

A confirmation message generally carries five things: a transaction code, an amount, the counterparty (name, and for a personal send a number), a date and time, and the sender's remaining balance. The code is unique and is the handle an operator uses to find the transaction.

What it does not carry matters as much. It does not state what was bought. It does not state the invoice number unless the payer typed one into the account reference. It does not state that the receiver accepted the payment as settlement. And the name shown is the name on the receiving account, which may be a company, a trading name, or an individual who operates the business.

Reversal: what operators say they can and cannot unwind

Operators publish a process for reversing a transaction sent to the wrong number or paid in the wrong amount. As a rule it depends on reporting quickly and on the receiving account still holding the funds or the receiver agreeing. It is an error process, not a dispute process.

We could not confirm an operator's current reversal rules for this article, so no time window, short code or fee is stated here. Read the current rule from the operator's own page, or from its customer care line, before relying on any reversal.

What can be said without a figure is the principle. A reversal request about an error is a different thing from a complaint about a seller. A buyer who sent the right amount to the right business, and then did not receive the goods, has made no error that the operator's process addresses. The remedy lies with the supplier, then with consumer-protection channels, then with the courts. Where the amount is material, that is a reason to prefer a rail with a dispute right.

Account references: matching a payment to an order

A paybill's account reference is the single most useful free field in the whole transaction. Use the supplier's invoice or order number exactly as printed, with no extra characters. A reference of that kind lets the supplier's finance team match the payment automatically and lets your own file prove which order it settled.

A till has no such field, so the link between payment and order has to be made outside the transaction. The usual fix is to attach the confirmation to the invoice the same day and to record the transaction code on the invoice itself.

Do not let a supplier tell you to leave the reference blank or to put something unrelated in it. A payment with no reference is harder to match, harder to defend and easier to dispute from the supplier's side.

Limits and identification tiers

Mobile money accounts are generally held at tiers tied to how thoroughly the account holder was identified, and each tier carries its own per-transaction and daily ceilings. These differ between Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania and have been revised more than once. We tried to confirm current figures for this article and could not, so none are given. The ceilings are a matter for the article on paying for imported reagents, and for the operator's current published schedule.

The practical point for record-keeping is that a business account usually carries different ceilings from a personal one. If an institution pays through a personal wallet because the business account's ceiling seems inconvenient, the record will show an individual rather than the institution, which is the wrong evidence for an audit.

Filing mobile money records in an institution's books

The message on a phone is not a record an auditor can inspect. Convert it into one the same day.

1. Request the operator statement for the account that paid, or export the transaction from the business portal, so that the record comes from the operator and not a screenshot alone.
2. Attach the confirmation to the supplier's invoice and write the transaction code on the invoice.
3. Record the payee name exactly as the confirmation shows it, and note if it differs from the invoice.
4. File the purchase order, invoice, confirmation and delivery note together, in that order.
5. Where the payment was made by an individual and later reimbursed, file the reimbursement against the same invoice so the two records can be reconciled.

None of this needs software. It needs a habit of attaching the proof of payment to the document it settles before moving on to the next task, and the habit is cheapest to form when the order is small.

When a supplier asks for a personal send

Some legitimate small sellers do collect payments on a personal number. It is also the instruction most often attached to a fraudulent listing, because a personal send is the transaction type with the least onboarding behind it and the weakest operator process afterwards.

If a supplier that presents itself as a company asks for a personal send, ask for a business code and an invoice in the company's name. If neither is available, treat that as information about the supplier. The central bank's national payments strategy sets out the licensing and oversight framework within which merchant payments sit ^[3]. A known merchant identity is what makes any complaint route usable.

Before any payment of consequence, confirm that the business exists on the relevant company registry, using the registry article in this cluster. Then pay to the code or account in the registered name, with the reference the supplier gave, and file the record the same day.