1. Sending direct debit mandates
1. Sending direct debit mandates
To send a direct debit mandate to a single customer, navigate to the Credit control view, select the customer, and click "Send direct debit mandate." This will prompt a confirmation pop-up, and the mandate will be sent to the customer. It is optional, but you can provide a custom message if you would like.
Here's the guide to send direct debit mandates in bulk. This will send a direct debit mandate request by email to all of the selected customers.
2. Understanding mandate statuses
2. Understanding mandate statuses
No mandate: A mandate has not yet been sent to the customer, or the previous mandate was cancelled.
Awaiting signature: The mandate has been sent, but the customer hasn’t yet completed it. We will automatically remind the customer to authorise the mandate according to your Auto Collect workflow.
Active: The mandate is signed and payments will be scheduled automatically. Please note, for newly signed mandates there will be a three business day delay until the first payment can be collected.
3. Invoicing customers on direct debit
3. Invoicing customers on direct debit
If your customer has signed a direct debit mandate and it is 'Active', any invoice you send to them can be automatically schedule for a direct debit collection on the due date (occasionally this may be later than the due date - see direct debit timings below).
Via Adfin: If you manually upload an invoice, Adfin will automatically match the invoice to the corresponding customer and schedule the direct debit. When sending the invoice you must choose Auto Collect as the collection method.
Via your Accounting Software: Any approved Auto Collect invoices will follow the same process, scheduling the payment to be collected on the invoice due date.
4. Direct debit timings
4. Direct debit timings
Where possible, we will always schedule a payment to be debited from your customer’s bank account on the invoice due date - this may be delayed if a mandate is not yet signed or we need more time to pre-notify the customer of the payment.
Invoice is uploaded to Adfin and will have the status “scheduled”
Working day -1: (15:00 UK time) customer notified of direct debit payment - invoice still shows as Scheduled
Working day 0: (16:00 UK time): payment process initiated - invoice status transitions from Scheduled to Submitted
Working day 2: customer has funds debited from their bank account
Working day 4 (18:00 UK time): funds are paid out to your bank account
Please note, new mandates need to be confirmed by the payer's bank before any payments can be initiated - this typically takes 3 working days.
If a payment fails, we will notify you and your customer and try the payment again. The process will start again from the working day 0 step above. We will automatically retry a failed payment twice on direct debit and then send a card payment link instead.
5. Syncing payments to your accounting software
5. Syncing payments to your accounting software
If you raise the invoice using Xero or QuickBooks:
Adfin will mark each invoice as paid when the payment is submitted
If the payment fails, we will automatically remove and undo this payment
When Adfin makes a payout, we will initiate a ledger transfer on Xero / QuickBooks between Adfin bank and your external bank.
This transfer amount will be for all invoices collected in a given day.
You should reconcile the payout received from Adfin on your bank statement to the transfer between Adfin bank and your external bank ledger on Xero.
You will see details of the payout for a given day for cards and direct debit in the Transactions view.
6. Failed payments and cancelled mandates
6. Failed payments and cancelled mandates
Failed payments
If a payment fails (e.g. insufficient funds on customer account), we will notify you and the customer and then attempt to collect the payment according to your Auto Collect retry configuration. If the retries also fail, you have the option to configure a card payment to automatically be send to the customer.
Cancelled mandates
If a mandate is cancelled we will send you an email notifying you of this. If you wish to send a new mandate then you can do this again from the Credit control view.