1. Adfin’s direct debit product
1. Adfin’s direct debit product
We’ve built our direct debit product from the ground up for accountants and bookkeepers
Integration with Engager.app, Xero, and Quickbooks
Backup retries with card payments when direct debits repeatedly fail
VAT invoice creation to help automate bookkeeping (coming soon)
1% + 20p, capped at £4 - retries included for no additional charge
No add-on fees and all new value add features included as standard
2. Enabling direct debits
2. Enabling direct debits
To get started with direct debits, please reach out to our support team at [email protected] so we can enable the feature for your account. Additionally, please ensure that your KYB (Know Your Business) form is completed, as explained in this section .
3. Sending a direct debit mandate to a customer
3. Sending a direct debit mandate to a customer
Mandates are sent from the customer view tab, customers can either be synced from Xero, uploaded in bulk to Adfin using a CSV file or added in the console.
Syncing customers from Xero
If your Adfin account is connected to Xero, you can automatically sync your customer list, making them visible in the “Customers” tab.
You can edit your customer contact details within the “Customers” tab to ensure the direct debit mandate is sent to the correct email.
4. Sending direct debit mandates
4. Sending direct debit mandates
To send a direct debit mandate to a customer, navigate to the "Customers" tab, select the customer, and click "Send mandate." This will prompt a confirmation pop-up, and the mandate will be sent to the customer.
To send multiple mandates at once, tick the boxes next to the relevant customers and click "Send mandate" at the bottom of the screen.
5. Your customers’ experience
5. Your customers’ experience
Your customers will receive an email from Adfin prompting them to authorise the direct debit setup. Their name and email will already be pre-filled, so they’ll only need to provide their sort code and bank account number to complete the process.
Once they’ve submitted this information, you’ll see the status change to "Active direct debit mandate" in the "Customers" tab.
6. Mandate statuses
6. 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 complete the mandate every 7 calendar days.
Signed: The customer has signed the mandate with valid bank details, and we’re awaiting bank confirmation before we can submit a payment (usually 3 days).
Active: The mandate is confirmed and ready to collect payments. For a quick overview of specific actions, hover over a status. For example, hovering over “Awaiting signature” will show the date you sent the mandate to the customer.
7. Invoicing customers on direct debit
7. Invoicing customers on direct debit
If your customer has been sent or signed a direct debit mandate, any invoice you send to them will automatically schedule a direct debit payment 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.
Via Xero: When integrated with Xero, any approved invoices will follow the same process, scheduling the payment to be collected on the invoice due date.
Using Xero, you can also send a customer that has been sent / signed a mandate a one-time payment request. To do this, first configure Xero branding themes, and then select a one-time payment branding theme when creating the invoice on Xero.
8. Direct debit timings
8. Direct debit timings
Mandates:
Adfin confirms mandates as active as soon as the customer completes the mandate - we validate the bank account details are linked to a real account in real time.
Payments:
Direct debit payments will settle to you 4 days after your scheduled due date on those payments. This is a scheme limitation
Adfin have a regulatory requirement to pre-notify the customer of any payments to be taken 3 working days before their account is debited
We will send this notification 3 working days before the due date
2 working days before due date, Adfin will send a payment request to the customer’s bank
On the due date, the customer’s account will be debited
4 days after the due date, the funds will be confirmed as final by the customer’s bank and we will pay the funds out to you
In instances where the due date of the invoice falls in the past or before the required notification period we will schedule the payment for the nearest available collection date.
There may be additional delays when taking payments from a newly completed mandate, since Adfin must first wait for confirmation of the mandate from the bank (which takes 3 working days) until we schedule a payment.
9. Reconciling payments to Xero
9. Reconciling payments to Xero
Invoices paid via direct debit will only be marked as paid in Xero once funds are settled. We will transfer any funds for direct debits collected in a given day to your bank account and create a transfer from Adfin bank in Xero to your bank account.
Please note, if you also accept card transactions then this bulk settlement will also include card transactions.
You can then reconcile the amount you see settled on your bank account to the transfer from the Adfin bank.
10. Failed payments and cancelled mandates
10. 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 twice more via direct debit. If these payments also fail, we will send a one-time payment request 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 customer view.