Which switching route do you want?
This guide (bulk migration) — for 50+ mandates or Adfin Custom plan. Adfin moves the mandates for you via the Bacs Bulk Change Process; your customers don't sign anything.
Switch to Adfin direct debit (self-serve) — for under 50 mandates. Your customers re-sign a new Adfin mandate.
This guide covers:
Overview of the mandate migration service
Who can use mandate migration
How to request mandate migration
Before your change date: prepare your data
What Adfin manages on your behalf
On the change date
After migration: review and merge customers
Bonus: convert your invoices too
1. Overview of the mandate migration service
Our mandate migration service uses the Bacs Direct Debit Bulk Change Process, which enables a business to move mandates from one provider to another, without their clients having to authorise a new mandate.
We'll manage the process end-to-end, until your mandates appear in Adfin.
2. Who can use mandate migration
Mandate migration is supported for Adfin customers who either have more than 50 mandates to migrate or are using the 'Adfin Custom' plan (which allows you to show your name on the statement).
We can support migrations away from most providers, including GoCardless, London & Zurich and AccessPay.
Mandate migration is not currently supported by Ignition. Contact [email protected] if you are looking to migrate away from Ignition to Adfin.
3. How to request mandate migration
To request mandate migration, please email [email protected] with the following information:
Who your current provider is
If you are using GoCardless, please include an admin user's email address on your account.
How many mandates you will be migrating
Your preferred change date
Deciding on your change date:
Your change date must fall on a business day, and must be at least five weeks away (this is a requirement of the Bacs payment scheme).
We recommend choosing a change date during a quieter collection period, as you may experience a small delay in collecting payments around the change date.
You may continue to collect payments with your old provider up to one business day before the change date.
You can start submitting payments with Adfin three business days after the change date.
All unpaid invoices can still be collected by Adfin, so there will be no interruption to collections.
4. Before your change date: prepare your data
Your mandate data is securely shared with Adfin around one week before your scheduled change date. Before that happens, take these steps so the migration lands cleanly.
With your old provider
Cancel and delete any mandates that are no longer needed (e.g. clients you have disengaged with).
Cancel and delete any duplicate mandates (e.g. where a client has two mandates and only uses one).
Ensure that company names are in sync with the names on Xero / QuickBooks.
In your Adfin account
If you're using Xero or QuickBooks with Adfin, import all of your relevant customers to Adfin one week before the change date. Your incoming mandates will automatically map to those Adfin customers.
5. What Adfin manages on your behalf
We'll ask you for some simple information to start the process. After that, we manage everything with your old provider until your mandates appear in Adfin. You'll have visibility throughout.
Initiating the migration
We'll submit the request on your behalf. You'll be copied in all communications but do not have to do anything — we manage it for you.
Signing the Bulk Change Deed and Notification of Change Form
In the background we'll manage signing the forms between the relevant parties.
You do not need to sign or review these forms yourself. They're used to transfer liability for failed payments from your old provider to us.
Transfer of data
We'll provide your old provider with details to transfer your mandate data to us using a secure, encrypted service.
Notifying your customers about the change
It's a Bacs scheme requirement that your customers are notified about the change — even though they do not need to do anything.
We send these emails on your behalf on the change date, in your branding, from [email protected], with summary information and a PDF attachment for additional details.
Optionally, you can also send your clients a heads-up about the change before we send the emails.
Example email text
We are changing our payment processor for direct debit payments. You don't need to take any action and this change will not affect your service in any way.
From the 1st September, direct debit payments will appear on your bank statement as Your business name / Adfin.
All payments will continue to be covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee, and you'll always receive at least three working days notice before your account is debited.
6. On the change date
Your mandates will appear in Adfin and be removed from your old provider. Your old provider may also close your account a few business days later.
We automatically match mandates to your existing Adfin customers using, in this order:
Customer name exactly matching
Primary contact name exactly matching
Email exactly matching to a single Adfin record
If we can't match the mandate one-to-one to an existing customer, we'll create a new customer. This new customer will be pushed to your accounting software.
Where a customer has duplicate mandates, only a single mandate will be linked. The other will trigger the creation of a new customer.
We automatically add a tag to any customers with an imported mandate so they're easy to track:
Where a mandate has been matched to an existing customer, we apply the tag "DD Mig - Existing Customer".
Where a mandate triggers the creation of a new customer, we apply the tag "DD Mig - New Customer".
7. After migration: review and merge customers
Once the change date has passed, review your customers via the Customers view and check they're linked to the correct Xero or QuickBooks customer record.
To do this:
Filter on "DD Mig - New Customer" — these may not be linked to an existing Xero / QuickBooks customer and may need to be merged.
You'll be able to review their details and choose which components of the customer record you'd like to retain (e.g. the Xero link or the mandate).
8. Bonus: convert your invoices too
Use automatic invoice migration to automatically convert invoices on Xero / QuickBooks to be collected by Adfin.
This saves you time on manually switching invoice branding themes (Xero) or invoice terms (QuickBooks), and is managed in your integration configuration settings.