If your customer says the money has left their account, or shows as pending, but the invoice in Adfin still looks unpaid, this is usually down to normal payment timing rather than a lost payment. Here's what's happening.
Why your customer sees it before you do
Direct debits run on the UK Bacs cycle. The money leaves your customer's account on the collection day, but that's the middle of the process, not the end. It then takes around 2 working days for the funds to settle to you, and a little longer before the payment is fully confirmed, because the banking system uses that window to report back any payments that fail or are returned. Weekends and bank holidays aren't working days, so a collection around then takes a bit longer.
Because of this, your customer will often see the payment as pending, or already gone, a day or two before it shows as paid on your side.
Check the invoice status in Adfin
The invoice status is the source of truth, not your customer's bank statement. A direct debit moves through three stages:
Scheduled: the collection is lined up but hasn't started.
Submitted: the collection has been sent to your customer's bank and can't be stopped. A pending debit at their bank usually lines up with this status.
Settled: the collection has succeeded and the funds have been paid out to you, around 2 working days after they're debited.
You can see each step, with dates, on the invoice's activity log.
Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and pay by bank payments are different: these confirm in real time, so the invoice shows as Paid as soon as your customer completes the payment.
A couple of other things worth knowing
Card payments: a "pending" amount on a card can be a temporary authorisation hold rather than a charge. If the payment wasn't completed, the hold drops off on its own, though some banks show it as pending for a few days.
Marked paid outside Adfin: if the invoice was paid another way and marked paid in Adfin or your accounting software, Adfin stops collecting it, so it shows as Paid but no Adfin payout follows. See Why is my payout delayed, missing, or a different amount?
If the timings have passed
If the invoice is still unpaid well beyond the windows above, or your customer has been debited twice, contact [email protected] with the invoice number and we'll trace it.