I would like to have some of my customers pay their bill by Direct Debit.
However, I think I am too small for my bank. Something to do with the guarantees, which is fair enough.
Doing an internet search turns up companies that provide some type of bureau service.
Does anyone have any experience of these services? Are there any plus or minus points with them?
Replies (12)
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Gocardless again
No hesitation 2nding above, been using it independently, and via FreeAgent for ages, and it's a great, easy to use, system with charges of 1% per transaction or £2 if higher. Whilst the majority of my clients pay by STO and I trust them to continue to do it, DDR is a much better option.
SO is a safer option though as a DD can be flawed back by the bank under the DD Guarantee scheme. I've read of cases where a buyer said the amount was incorrect and been refunded leaving the business to chase them for the outstanding balance
Also worth watching the skies for....
that stray meteorite with your name on it :o)
We don't sell hardware supplies or mobile phones, plus I agree the fee upfront with clients so I'm sleeping soundly.
In reality, and with a decade of taking STOs I'm at more risk of a client cocking up or forgetting to set up the STO. For those clients DDRs have been a boon, for them and us.
I suppose the best advice is, don't knock it till you've tried it.
Another vote
for Go Cardless.
I've been looking at implementing it for a year or so, just not got round to it. I have several clients who use it and have no issues. The process works well and if you use cloud software it should integrate with it.
I use standing orders and am very happy with the process. I don't reply on the client to set it up though.
What I do is draft the SO and get the client to sign and return it, along with the rest of the engagement paperwork. I then take it to a branch of their bank and hand it in - had no issues with this.
Changes to the SO - easy to do it annually when agreeing the fee for the next year.
The reason I haven't moved to using Go Cardless is mostly because SO's work fine for me.
SmartDebit
My company use SmartDebit and have done for the last 9 months with no problems whatsoever. Simple to use and a reasonable price IMO.
Although, GoCardless looks equally as simple.
Fastpay
I've heard good things from others re GoCardless, but we use Fastpay which I think is a more traditional direct debit business.
We get mandates from clients, each month we send off a spreadsheet with all the bank details and cash we want to take. They take the cash from client accounts and put it into ours.
...and re reclaims, we've been using this for ~3 years now, not a single reclaim. Inevitably a fair few have bounced, either due to insufficient funds, client cancelling it late (deliberately or accidentally) or simply giving us wrong bank details...but the pain of that compared to other collection methods is trivial.
Re standing orders...they're kinda good, but it was the VAT rate changing that made me decide to move to DDs. Trying to get all your clients to amend their SOs by a trivial amount due to VAT increase/decrease was a massive pain, as many ignore you as they have an "it's close enough" attitude. PITA for bookkeeping, lots of minor over/underpayments.
First Capital Cashflow
Have a look at First Capital Cashflow.
They've been around a long time, work with SME's right through tot eh corporate space and are extremely reliable.
GoCardless & sage 50
tried it on myself, so simple- and about to install in a client who has several hundred monthly / 4-weekly customers. Agree as above, they still have some customers who never changed their standing orders from the first VAT change in 2009 & the ledgers are a real mess. Also getting people to pay in advance - they drag it out, so it becomes in arrears and trying to explain to some of them that 4 weekly does NOT equal monthly when they indignantly state 'but I paid every month'. Lord help me!
So looking forward to trying GoCardless for a debtors list of less than 3 pages (for advance service that will be so great!)
However funds are NOT ring fenced in case they fail (like the big banks are), so there is (at the moment) that few days when your funds are at risk. However, the FCA did explain to me that once an institution reaches a certain size they will be covered, so perhaps if we all use them, it will happen?
GoCardless did tell me that they do ringfence the cash as if they were under the guarantee even though there is no obligation on them to do so.Not sure that would stand legally but they are obviously trying to do the right thing.
Other systems are available!
GoCardless also has a seamless integration with Sage50 which is just brilliant!
London & Zurich
We use London & Zurich here. The service is very good, setting up a new DD is easy, charges are at the lower end of the scale etc. all the good stuff. Above all no software to install. If you need a contact there just send me a PM