1. Sending direct debit mandates
1. Sending direct debit mandates
To send a direct debit mandate to a customer, navigate to the "Manage customers" tab, 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.
To send multiple mandates at once, tick the boxes next to the relevant customers and click "Send direct debit mandates" at the bottom of the screen.
This will send a direct debit mandate request by email to 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.
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.
3. Invoicing customers on direct debit
3. 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 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.
When a new mandate and an invoice are sent at the same time:
Working day 0: customer signs mandates
Working day 3: mandate confirmed by customer’s bank and mandate issued
Working day 4 (16:00 UK time) : Customer notified of direct debit payment
Working day 5 (16:00 UK time): payment process initiated - invoice status transitions to Submitted
Working day 7: customer has funds debited from their bank account
Working day 10 (18:00 UK time): invoice status transitions to Paid. Customer is notified of success.
Working day 11: funds are paid out to your bank account
For customers with an existing mandate:
Invoice is uploaded to Adfin and will have the status “scheduled”
Working day 0 (16:00 UK time) customer notified of direct debit payment - invoice still shows as Scheduled
Working day 1 (16:00 UK time): payment process initiated - invoice status transitions from Scheduled to Submitted
Working day 3: customer has funds debited from their bank account
Working day 6 (18:00 UK time): Invoice status transitions to Paid. Customer is notified of success.
Working day 7: funds are paid out to your bank account
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
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.
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 customer view.