GoCardless

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Collecting money from customers is the lifeblood of your business, but getting paid isn’t always straightforward. 

From late payments and cash flow bottlenecks to awkward conversations about money, these challenges can hold you back. But late payments don’t have to be an inevitability of doing business. Here, we cover everything you need for an effective strategy to collect money from your customers, including essential invoice collection strategies, accounts receivable best practices and practical late money solutions.

Why does money collection matter to your business?

Effective cash flow management and robust invoice collection strategies are more crucial than ever for your business’s growth and stability. When payments are delayed, it doesn’t just affect your bottom line; it impacts your ability to operate, invest, and can even cause personal stress, not to mention the valuable time lost to chasing payments.

Source: GoCardless survey of 1,700+ small businesses

We conducted a survey with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) of over two thousand small businesses and found that 45% are experiencing more late payments than 12 months ago, with 50% concerned this trend will continue.

What if a late payment turns into losing a customer? The cost to acquire a new customer can be five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one, and 30% of churn is involuntary.

What are the most common challenges businesses have when collecting money?

If your business invoices for products or services after delivery, then unpaid invoices become your accounts receivable. Chasing these late payments and handling overdue accounts costs your business more than just missing funds.

Every delayed payment isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet; it’s a missed chance to invest in new equipment, launch that exciting marketing campaign, plan for the growth of your business, or hire the talent you need to scale. Healthy cash flow gives you the power to negotiate better deals with suppliers, make the most of unexpected opportunities, and you can better weather unforeseen storms in an unpredictable economy.

Payments fail and are delayed for a number of reasons, from credit cards being lost, stolen or expiring to insufficient funds in an account or even payment gateway errors (the systems that process payments).

We answer some common questions on the challenges of collecting money:

• How can I streamline my invoice collection?

• How can I use technology and AI to collect money faster?

• How do I create an effective communication strategy for collections?

• How do I juggle my cash flow with customer relations and have an effective debt collection policy?

1. How can I streamline my invoice collection?

Do you spend 24 days a year like other small businesses processing, chasing and reconciling invoices?

Save time with these best invoicing practices and invoice collection strategies:

• Standardise templates: Create reusable, easily editable templates. This saves time and provides customers with consistent information.

• Clear payment terms: Always set and communicate explicit payment terms, such as Net 30 (30 days). Being upfront about due dates makes it easier for customers to pay..

• Flexible payment options: Automate your payment methods to offer flexible money options like one-off payments, instalments, or customer money plans without extra admin. Money processing solutions like GoCardless empower you to leverage automated Direct Debit and bank payments, eliminating manual hassle.

2. How can I use technology and AI to collect money faster?

Automation is key to preventing late or failed payments. Automated money reminders using an email marketing tool can significantly encourage on-time payments. By automating emails or notifications about upcoming payments, you save time and move towards improving your cash flow.

Even with proactive measures, payments can fail. That’s where late money solutions come in. You can leverage money collection software to automatically retry failed payments when customers are more likely to have funds. This approach saves you from awkward conversations and helps maintain positive customer relationship management.

3. How do I create an effective communication strategy for collections?

Preventing the hard conversations. This could be as simple as asking your customers to move to a more reliable and automated payment method so you can avoid late payments altogether. We’ve built some great email templates, ready to copy and paste, to help small businesses using GoCardless encourage their customers to make the switch.

When a payment is late, a robust strategy for effective communication is crucial:

• Start early: Don’t procrastinate. When chasing an unpaid invoice, the payment is already late, and you can’t use this money to run or grow your business.

• Structure conversations clearly:

• One to three days late: A gentle, firm-but-friendly email nudge with the invoice attached is often enough for genuine oversights.

• Seven days late: Send a follow-up email stating the invoice is outstanding, requesting payment within, say, 14 days to avoid escalation.

• Twenty-one days late: Emails can be ignored, but a phone call is harder to dismiss. Prepare for potential excuses before making the call.

• Thirty+ days late: If no payment or meaningful contact, consider a formal letter before action or passing the matter to a debt collection agency.

4. How do I juggle my cash flow with customer relations and have an effective debt collection policy?

You don’t have to sacrifice customer relationships to maintain healthy cash flow. Customers can be late to make a payment for many genuine reasons, and a well-defined debt collection policy, approached with the right attitude, can contribute to long-term customer loyalty.

Five key elements of a fair and effective debt collection policy:

• Transparent terms: When you issue an invoice, clearly state all payment terms and accepted payment methods. This prevents misunderstandings and sets expectations.

• Consistent communication: Plan a system for consistent and effective communication, including automated reminders. Documenting these interactions protects your business and provides a clear history in case of disputes.

• Flexible payment options: Offering flexible money options like instalment plans for overdue payments can help customers pay and bring cash back into your business, boosting customer relationship management and improving payment rates.

• Clear escalation process: Define a clear process for escalating overdue accounts from initial reminders to final collection actions. Ensure this process complies with all relevant laws and regulations.

• Negotiating fair money plans: It’s best to handle these conversations calmly and empathetically. Bring different options for resolutions that you’re comfortable with to the table, like different repayment plans, but be clear about your boundaries. 

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

LONDON, UK – 12 June, 2025 – Late payments are imposing a significant financial and operational burden on small accountancy firms across the UK, according to research released today by bank payment company GoCardless. The study uncovers the pervasive and costly nature of the problem, with over half (56%) of accountancy practices resigning themselves to late payments as an “inevitable cost of doing business.”

The survey, which polled 100 leaders from accountancy and financial services businesses — predominantly one-person teams or micro-firms — highlights the severe impact of late payments on cash flow. Four in 10 (40%) respondents reported spending over an hour each week chasing overdue invoices, diverting crucial time and energy away from client work and business growth.

The issue is so critical that more than half (57%) of small practices admit to occasionally forfeiting payments entirely rather than go through the hassle of chasing. One in ten (13%) have resorted to debt collection services, indicating that even the smallest firms have started to rely on formal recovery methods.

Despite the mounting pressure, the adoption of proactive payment strategies remains inconsistent. While 19% now enforce stricter payment terms and 24% charge late fees, only a quarter (25%) have automated their payment processes. A small percentage (6%) have introduced early payment discounts, an incentive that, while beneficial for cash flow, often impacts net income.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, commented:

“Small accountancy practices are the backbone of the small business economy, often acting as frontline advisors. It’s deeply concerning to see how late payments are stifling their growth and forcing them to waste valuable time and resources. In addition, our customers tell us that late payments not only take a toll on their business, they also bring a lot of personal stress.

“Late payments are a complex issue, and there are many underlying causes. But we strongly believe that technology and modern payment methods in particular can help businesses turn them from ‘inevitable’ costs to something they can control.”

Case Study: TotalBooks Finds Freedom from Late Payments

For Buhir Rafiq, who runs TotalBooks in Cardiff, getting paid on time isn’t just about keeping his business healthy – it’s about getting his evenings and weekends back. For 16 years, his accounting firm has been busy, but before he sorted out his payment system, following up on invoices was a massive burden.

“Chasing clients for money months after I’d done the work, knocking on the door, repeatedly ringing them up — it was all a huge headache,” Buhir recalls. “This caused major cashflow issues and, honestly, it was hard not to take all that mental trauma home with me.”

He turned things around by integrating GoCardless’ direct bank payment solution into his accounting software and getting clients to switch to automated payments. “It takes seconds to sign clients up online, and with a couple of clicks I can either schedule automated monthly billing, take an up front payment, or bill them halfway through a project,” he explains. “I know that money will come in, with little intervention from me.”

This change transformed his practice, with Buhir estimating that he saved 200 hours a year on raising invoices and chasing payments. This positive experience was so impactful that when Buhir launched his new spin-off business, RX Virtual Finance, building the same system was “a no-brainer”.

Reacting to the survey findings, Buhir said: “More than half of an industry that is worth billions say that late payments are just the norm. If even one percent of those respondents cottoned on that automated payments can end this issue in an instant, that would translate into millions more for the accountancy sector.”

He offered another tip for practices struggling with late payments: making processes clear from the outset. At his firm, customers pay upfront and sign up for Direct Debit as part of their onboarding. Not only does it help him, it leads to satisfied customers too. “My clients are busy. So they’re happy that they already know their fee at the start of the year. They know it’s split over 12 months, and they know when each payment will be taken,” said Buhir. “They don’t have to chase me and I don’t have to chase them.”

Notes to Eds.

All figures in this release refer to an online survey conducted by the FSB. The survey ran from October to December 2024 and had input from 2,298 responders, including 100 in the accountancy sector.

For more information contact:
press@gocardless.com

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Across Europe, energy suppliers are going through turbulent times. Rising prices, increased competition, high churn rates and payment volumes are all making it harder to attract and retain customers. As a result, maintaining stable cash flow through regular payments has become more difficult than ever.

In light of these sector-wide challenges, suppliers should ask themselves whether their current processes are helping them adapt – or making matters worse. Manual payment processing often creates inefficiencies and adds to your admin burden, while also damaging customer relationships.

Here are five key payment considerations for energy suppliers looking to retain customers and protect their cash flow.

1. Are you still handling payments manually?

Manual payment processes can require more than 20 full-time employees. When payment collection demands significant in-house resources (not to mention the direct impact on your cash flow), your team is pulled away from more strategic and value-adding tasks.

Automated payments take the pressure off. They integrate with your existing tools and come with features that digitise the entire payment workflow, from invoicing to reconciliation. Your teams are freed from time-consuming admin, saving you money in the process.

2. Are you losing money to unpaid bills and fraud?

Payment inefficiencies are a common issue across the energy sector. Late payments, failures and fraud can carry a high cost, especially when suppliers are already under pressure to retain customers and preserve cash flow. Between 11% and 15% of failed payments turn into bad debt or customer churn.

Payment intelligence provides a solution. With tools that automate recovery and fraud prevention, you stay in control of your revenue and keep your cash flow safe from unexpected events.

3. Do you know the true cost of your payments?

Transaction fees are just the tip of the iceberg. With rising energy bills increasing the risk of non-payment, it’s just as important to consider the time and resources spent managing, processing and recovering payments. In fact, only 38% of failed payments are recovered manually – the rest is lost for good.

Automated solutions recover failed payments effortlessly and help prevent fraud before it happens. In doing so, they reduce the total cost of payment collection for your business.

4. Are you offering the best possible experience to your customers?

Most energy providers offer multiple ways for customers to pay their bills. But did you know that 46% of consumers prefer a bank-based method, such as Direct Debit, when paying for recurring products and services like energy? With prices rising and more customers choosing instalment payments, encouraging this payment method is more relevant than ever.

Automatic bank payments improve the customer experience, even when payments fail. Failed payments are automatically retried and recovered, eliminating the need for follow-up calls or emails.

5. Are your processes set up for growth?

Expanding into new markets, locally or internationally, means dealing with even higher payment volumes. Can your current systems handle the increased load efficiently, without requiring more staff?

Every time you enter a new market, your time and financial investment increases. So it’s worth asking whether managing payments in-house is really the best option, when outsourcing could bring greater efficiency, profitability and peace of mind for both you and your customers.

Transform your business with simpler, cheaper payments that deliver more.

Curious how better payments can help you thrive in today’s energy market? 

Speak to a payment expert today

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Managing a small business comes with lots of challenges. From tracking revenue from sales to managing expenses, the financial side can quickly become overwhelming. That’s why it’s essential to choose the right accounting package for your business.

In this article, we’ll explore the most popular accounting packages available for small businesses in the UK, as well as the benefits of using an accounting package and what to look out for when selecting the best option.

Why every small business needs an accounting package?

Running a small business often means managing finances manually, leading to countless hours spent chasing and reconciling payments.

An accounting package goes beyond simple bookkeeping. It’s a powerful tool designed to automate manual tasks, track income and expenses, manage invoicing, and simplify payroll. This automation doesn’t just save time — it provides real-time financial visibility, empowering you to make smarter business decisions and makes sure you’re always prepared for tax obligations. For accountants and bookkeepers in particular, these tools simplify the invoice and Direct Debit set-up process, freeing up more time to give strategic advice to clients.

Focus on your business needs

The reason why you use an accounting package depends entirely on your specific business needs, but some features stand out for most small businesses. 

Look out for user-friendly dashboards, customisable invoicing tools, and strong reporting capabilities that offer visibility of your profit and loss, EBITDA, and cash flow.

You’ll also need to consider integration capabilities. The best accounting software works easily with other tools you use daily, especially your payment systems. Meaning automatic reconciliation of transactions, fewer manual errors, and a real-time picture of your finances.

This is particularly important for businesses with niche needs, such as:

• Builders and construction firms that need detailed project-based tracking. 

• Gyms and personal trainers that manage sign ups and recurring memberships with varied payment schedules.

• Landlords that need to manage multiple properties and rental income in one platform.

  By focusing on these features, you’re more likely to end up with a package that truly supports your business, both now and in the future.

Popular accounting packages for small businesses

Accounting packages for small businesses vary depending on a number of factors, but let’s get started with a few examples from the UK market. Many of these accounting solutions are used by entrepreneurs, sole traders, and small firms. While each has its unique strengths, their main goal is to simplify financial management.

Here’s a list of some of the accounting package providers in the UK:

• FreeAgent is a popular choice for businesses on the smaller side (such as microbusinesses or freelancers) with good options for tax return submissions directly from the platform (self-assessment, VAT, Companies House). 

• QuickBooks offers convenient mobile features, enabling users to effortlessly upload photos of receipts and invoices for streamlined expense and bill management.

• Sage provides various solutions, from desktop software to cloud-based options, catering to diverse business needs from small businesses to large-scale enterprises. 

• Xero is one of the most popular choices among small businesses. It has a user-friendly interface offering real-time data insights as well as a high number of integration options.

These are just some of the accounting packages available on the market in the UK. You can find an extended list of those that integrate with GoCardless in this article. Choosing any of them should help you manage your small business finances easily.

Top five things to consider when choosing an accounting package

Next, you’ll need to determine the features that are non-negotiable for the accounting package of your choice.

Here are the top five factors to consider:

1. Cost: Beyond the monthly subscription fee, consider any set-up costs, add-on features, or potential charges for extra users. Look for transparent pricing that fits your budget.

2. Features: Prioritise the core functionalities your business really needs. Do you require inventory management, time tracking, multi-currency support, or advanced payroll features? Don’t pay for what you won’t use.

3. The learning curve: How intuitive is the interface? Will you and your team be able to quickly grasp the system, or will it require extensive training? Choose a package that minimises disruption.

4. Integration capabilities: This is vital for streamlining your operations. Make sure the software integrates seamlessly with your bank accounts, CRM, and, critically, your preferred payment processing provider like GoCardless.

5. Scalability: Will the software support your business as it grows? Look for a package that can handle increasing transaction volumes, additional users, and evolving reporting needs without requiring a disruptive system overhaul later on.

Choosing software that matches the nuances of your specific industry and offers relevant integrations will keep things simple for you.

Choose the right accounting package for your small business

Choosing the right accounting package for your small business is about more than just managing numbers. It’s making sure your business is maximising efficiency and has a strong foundation for sustainable growth. By focusing on integration, ease of use, and the specific needs of your business, you can transform your financial management from a chore into an advantage.

Don’t forget, GoCardless connects with multiple well-known accounting packages to help simplify your payment admin.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

In 2025, whether you’re a personal trainer, builder, or a landlord, sometimes the thought of managing invoices, tracking expenses, and reconciling accounts can conjure thoughts of endless spreadsheets and mounting paperwork.

This is currently the reality for many, as 28% of small businesses surveyed in a new report from GoCardless say they are forced to use short-term financing to cover everyday costs, because their payments are delayed.

However, the right bookkeeping and invoicing software can transform these daunting tasks into efficient processes, offering crystal-clear insights into your cash flow and freeing up valuable time.

Read on to find out which bookkeeping and invoicing software is right for your business in 2025.

Do small businesses need accounting and bookkeeping software in 2025?

Put simply, yes.

While it might seem like an added expense or complexity, for any small business, dedicated accounting and bookkeeping software is no longer a luxury.

These platforms automate manual data entry, significantly reducing the risk of human error. Bookkeeping platforms provide real-time financial updates, making it easier to track profitability, manage outstanding invoices, and forecast future cash flow for your business.

Beyond daily operations, the right accounting software simplifies tax preparation, ensures compliance and saves you potential headaches down the line. It allows you to make informed decisions, driving efficiency and sustainable growth.

How much time do small businesses spend on invoicing and accounts?

Without dedicated software, the time spent on invoicing and accounts can be staggering. Businesses often dedicate hours each week solely to manual invoice creation, chasing late payments, reconciling bank statements, and categorising expenses. GoCardless found that in the UK, small businesses spend, on average, 6.7 hours per month chasing late payments but this was nearly halved to 3.5 hours (-48%) when they switched to GoCardless. 

This isn’t just about the direct time spent; it’s also about the opportunity cost – hours that could be invested in value-added activities like sales, customer service, or product development. This is especially important in a small business where your accounts team might also be your customer service team and your sales team. Automating these processes with dedicated bookkeeping and invoicing software frees up resources, allowing you to focus on what you do best: growing your business.

Best bookkeeping and accounting software in 2025

The market for bookkeeping and accounting software has many solutions for small businesses, whether you’re a sole trader, a landlord or a builder or anything in between. When reviewing options in 2025, remember to consider factors like scalability, reporting capabilities, and integration options.

Here are some popular choices that stand out for their features and intuitive UX:

• FreeAgent is ideal for UK freelancers and micro-businesses; one of their better features is its direct submission capability for UK tax returns (self-assessment,  VAT, Companies House). Its user-friendly design and potential free access via major banks make it easy to recommend for smaller businesses.

• Sage is perfect for businesses seeking scalable accounting solutions with a full suite of features to manage complex financial operations and growth. It’s ideal for businesses needing advanced inventory, project costing, or more traditional accounting depth.

• Xero has a clean and simple interface and an extensive ecosystem of connected apps, Xero is a favourite among many small businesses looking to grow.

• QuickBooks: It has extensive third-party app integrations and robust reporting tools. Providing a flexible, scalable solution for managing everything from basic bookkeeping to complex inventory and payroll for sole traders to enterprises.

Again, you’ll need to review each to see which one is the best fit for your business. Let’s show you what you should look out for.

Best bookkeeping and accounting software for small business

What bookkeeping and accounting software is best for small businesses? For small businesses, the ‘best’ software often comes down to simplicity, affordability, and essential features.

You’ll want a platform that offers:

• easy invoicing, 

• straightforward expense tracking, 

• bank reconciliation,

• and clear financial reporting (so you know your profit & loss from your EBITDA).

Choosing software that matches the nuances of your specific industry and offers relevant integrations will keep things simple for you.

Why it’s key to add a payment provider to your bookkeeping and accounting software

Having great bookkeeping and accounting software is a good first step, but its full potential is unlocked when seamlessly integrated with the right payment provider. This integration is not merely a convenience; it’s a strategic advantage that can dramatically improve your cash flow and reduce your admin burden.

One of the benefits of using payment providers for small businesses is that they connect directly with your accountancy software, and transactions are automatically reconciled. This eliminates manual data entry, drastically reduces errors, and ensures your financial records are always up-to-date, saving you hours each week. Imagine payments from your customers automatically matching up to their invoices in Xero, QuickBooks, or Sage, with GoCardless, it’s really that simple.

For business owners like gyms or landlords relying on recurring payments, a solution like Direct Debit ensures timely collections that are directly linked to your accounts. However, it’s also good to have a backup for situations where a payment might initially fail, Instant Bank Pay offers a swift, secure way for customers to repay instantly, improving recovery rates and speeding up cash flow.

This seamless connection between your accountancy software and payment solution creates a single source of truth for your finances. This really helps in a small business where there may not be a dedicated accountant.

How much time should it take to reconcile invoices and payments?

Research from Tide found that the average UK SME spends 30 hours a month chasing late payments. But how much should it really take you to reconcile invoices and payments?

Recent GoCardless data suggests that in the UK, small businesses spend around 5.6 hours per month reconciling invoices. However, for small businesses that switch to GoCardless to collect payments this time goes down to just 2.8 hours.

It’s important to note that time spent chasing payments is likely to increase as you scale without the right invoicing software or payment provider to help you.

Choose your invoicing software wisely

In 2025, the choice of bookkeeping and invoicing software will likely impact your business’s efficiency and overall financial standings.

While popular platforms offer excellent features, the key to success lies in selecting a software that not only meets your core accounting requirements but also integrates with your unique business needs and seamlessly with your payment processes.

Together, this ultimately provides you with the data you need to scale your business while saving you time by automating tasks and removing unnecessary errors.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

For small businesses and sole traders, simple accounting software can make a world of difference in managing finances efficiently. According to a recent GoCardless report, 63% of small businesses estimate they spend around £100 every week on managing late payments.

With the right software, you can streamline your accounting processes, reduce manual errors and late payments, and focus on what truly matters – growing your business. Read on to find out what you should look out for when choosing the best accounting software for your small business.

Simple accounting software in the UK

For accounting software in the UK, it’s best to keep it simple. Many small businesses struggle with complex accounting systems that require extensive training and time to manage. Fortunately, there are several options available that prioritise ease of use without sacrificing functionality.

What’s even better is that GoCardless integrates seamlessly with many popular accounting software platforms, which you might already be using, like Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage. By connecting your payment processing provider with your accounting software, it’s easy to automate invoicing and payment collection, so you spend less time on the admin and more time on what matters most to your business.

How to find the right accounting software

When choosing which accounting software is right for your business, consider the following criteria:

User-friendly interface: A clean and easy-to-use interface allows users to navigate the software without extensive training. This is particularly important if you’re a small business owner who might not have a background in finance.

Automation: Look for software that automates repetitive tasks, like invoicing and payment reminders. This reduces your administrative burden and means you can put any saved time and effort into growing your business.

Integration capabilities: The ability to connect with other business tools, like payment processing providers and CRM systems, is crucial. GoCardless integrates with over 350 different platforms, including top accounting software tools.

Real-time reporting: Access to real-time financial data helps you make informed decisions quickly. Your accounting software should provide easy-to-read reports that give you insights into your cash flow and overall financial health.

Customer support: Reliable support is essential for resolving any issues that might arise. Choose software that offers comprehensive support options, including tutorials, FAQs, and quick assistance.

You need to decide which of these is most important to your business. You might want 24/7 customer service, an instant heads-up display of key financial metrics, or to plug and play with any software you already use. Every business is different, so choose wisely.

Best connected accounting software

We already mentioned above that integration capabilities are important, so let’s look at why and a few examples.

The best connected accounting software solutions not only simplify your accounting tasks but also give you a clearer picture of your business’ finances. By integrating with payment platforms like GoCardless, these software options allow for real-time updates and accurate reporting.

• Xero is known for its user-friendly interface and robust features, making it an excellent choice for small businesses. When paired with GoCardless, you can automate your payment collection process, helping you to get paid 47% faster.

• QuickBooks is another popular choice, offering a range of features tailored to small businesses, including international payments. With GoCardless, you can easily set up Direct Debit payments for invoices in QuickBooks, so your customers pay automatically. Not only does this help boost cash flow, but it can also improve customer satisfaction by offering more convenient and flexible ways to pay.

• Sage is a trusted name in accounting software, offering solutions tailored for small and growing businesses. When integrated with GoCardless, payments are automatically reconciled in Sage 50cloud, allowing you to spend 90% less time on payment management.

• FreeAgent is ideal for UK small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. Its user-friendly invoicing, expenses, and VAT features, combined with GoCardless, make recurring payments easy.

These are just a few examples, and if that’s not enough to choose from, check out our other accounting software article.

Keep it simple: Three things to remember when choosing accounting software

Choosing the right accounting software is crucial for small businesses and sole traders looking to manage their finances effectively.

Keep these three things in mind when deciding on which accounting software is right for you:

1. Ease of use: You shouldn’t have to dig through spreadsheets to know if your business is struggling month-to-month or year-over-year. Choose a platform with automation and clean visuals that alert you to anything unusual so you don’t need to worry about things going off track.

2. Integration options: Again, make things easy for you. Check if the accounting software integrates with your existing software or payment processing provider.

3. Scalability: Choose accounting software that can grow with your business  – you don’t want to have to find another platform if your business grows faster than you can handle.

Making informed choices in these areas will help you optimise your financial processes and support your business growth. By opting for simple invoicing software that connects easily to platforms like GoCardless, you can automate your payment processes, reduce admin, and enhance your overall cashflow management.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

New payouts product enables businesses to both send and collect payments via GoCardless 

LONDON, UK 2 June 2025 – Bank payment company GoCardless announces the launch of Outbound Payments, a significant expansion of its platform that will enable merchants to send money directly to customers, suppliers, and third parties via GoCardless. 

Merchants will be able to use GoCardless to manage both account-to-account collections and payouts within a single platform, streamlining operations, simplifying reconciliation and enhancing payment visibility. The introduction of payouts will also help merchants save time and money as they eliminate costly set up, maintenance, and contractual processes by managing both collections and payouts in the same place. 

Outbound Payments provides built-in payment security as merchants can reuse stored bank details from payment collections to reduce manual errors when paying out. In addition, Confirmation of Payee helps to ensure that payouts reach the right recipient by confirming that the payee’s name matches the registered bank account details before funds are transferred, helping reduce the risk of accidental or fraudulent transfers.

For Clay, a fintech that helps tech-enabled businesses launch and fund their own lending programs, the new product will streamline their operations. Andres Castaño, Co-founder & CTO of Clay, said: “As a B2B2C lending platform, Outbound Payments are core to our operations — whether we’re disbursing loan funds to customers or issuing refunds. Our credit operations rely on these flows running smoothly. Having a single platform that handles both outbound and inbound payments simplifies reconciliation and reduces operational overhead. 

“Working with one provider, rather than stitching together multiple payment suppliers, saves time and complexity — which is critical for a lean team like ours. The ease of onboarding and the reliability of GoCardless give us confidence they can scale with us as we grow.”

Outbound Payments is a direct result of the strategic acquisition and rapid integration of Nuapay, which has a proven track record of processing billions in payout volume. Adding payouts to the GoCardless Payment Platform marks a significant milestone in the company’s 14-year history and strengthens its competitive positioning in the market. 

Pat Phelan, Chief Commercial Officer at GoCardless said: “Thanks to the rapid integration of Nuapay we can now offer an ‘all-in-one’ bank payment platform that serves all payment flows. From reducing costs and simplifying back-end processes to increasing payment visibility and protecting against fraud, there are now even more reasons to use GoCardless.

“Adding payouts to our platform also means we can serve new vertical sectors and use cases. For example, we can now streamline claims processing for insurance companies and disbursement of funds for lenders. This is a significant step as we pursue our vision of becoming the world’s bank payment network.”

Click here to find out more about Outbound Payments.

Notes to Editors

For more information, contact:

press@gocardless.com 

About GoCardless

GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.

GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use data and insights to improve payment success, reduce fraud and, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

GoCardless Ltd, Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7EN, United Kingdom

GoCardless Ltd (company registration number 07495895) is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, registration number 597190, for the provision of payment services.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Adoption of open banking has been showing steady growth since its inception in 2018 but some sectors are adopting faster than others.

Why? At present, open banking offers the greatest opportunity for businesses that collect one-off, large value transactions where it’s much cheaper and more efficient than the alternatives.

Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) offer the potential to collect recurrent payments for different amounts. This will be powerful for businesses who collect card-on-file style payments or recurring payments such as ecommerce or utilities.

At the time of writing, VRPs are only available in a limited form and there’s still much speculation about exactly when new use cases will open up. So when will we see the wider rollout of VRPs? And what is holding us up at the moment?

How can VRPs be used today?

VRPs enable recurring account-to-account payments in a similar way to Direct Debit or card-on-file payments. The key difference is that they are powered by open banking, meaning that businesses can collect recurring payments with the increased speed and security that open banking offers. Businesses will also be able to vary the amount and timing of the payment.

This functionality is only available in ‘sweeping’ use cases at the moment. This is where a transaction is made between two accounts owned by the same person. Examples of this are regular deposits to savings accounts or loan repayments on credit cards. Because of this, the financial services industry is leading the charge on adoption of VRPs.

Yonder is one of those businesses already leveraging VRPs. They use VRPs to offer their customers flexibility with their card repayments.

“In these economic conditions, consumers want more control over their finances. VRPs are the perfect solution. Since we’ve introduced them, we’ve seen many members move from monthly to weekly or even daily repayments.

“The instant nature of VRPs means they can immediately free up their credit line and take full advantage of our rewards. Simply put, VRPs allow our members to manage their repayments in the way that works for them.”

Tim Chong, Co-Founder and CEO, Yonder

What’s next for VRPs?

The next milestone in the development of open banking payments is commercial VRPs. It essentially means the opening up of VRPs to be used in a commercial setting i.e. payments going from a customer account to an account owned by a business.

Enabling transactions to go between accounts owned by different entities will throw the use cases for VRPs wide open. Businesses such as the utilities sector or ecommerce will be able to use open banking in place of Direct Debit or card-on-file payments.

When will commercial VRPs happen?

The CMA9 banks (nine largest banks in the UK, as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority) and Revolut currently support VRPs for sweeping use cases.

A wider rollout of VRPs for commercial use cases in the UK is due to happen in the second half of 2025, likely autumn at the earliest. Banks such as HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest and others like PayPal, Monzo, Revolut and Starling are set to support the roll out.

Initially, commercial VRPs will be available to a select number of industries such as government agencies, FSCS-protected services and charitable organisations. Industries such as energy and utility are tipped to follow with the hope of expanding to e-commerce early next year.

What is being done to help get us there?

GoCardless has co-founded an initiative to create a new company that will drive the creation of commercial VRPs.

This newly established entity will act as an independent VRP scheme, owned and managed by the payment industry.

Working alongside 30 other organisations, including FinTechs, high street banks, challenger banks and payment providers, GoCardless will accelerate the development of commercial VRP use cases for finserv, utilities, charities and others in the ‘first wave’ sectors.

This sort of collaboration, as we outlined in our research with 11:FS, will help us to drive a better commercial model to incentivise the banks and create a better infrastructure for businesses and consumers.

What can you do now?

Commercial VRPs are due to happen towards the later part of 2025 and will continue to develop from there. We know that British businesses want a way of taking payments that are cheaper, faster and more secure than many options available on the UK payments market.

To find out more about VRPs and how they could work for you, get in touch with our team of payment experts.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Open banking adoption is on the rise and you may be considering different providers to help you offer open banking capabilities to your customers. And you’re not alone, 93% of businesses surveyed by Mastercard believe that the momentum of open banking will continue to grow over the next five years. 

Once implemented, businesses are quickly seeing the value. 25% of merchants say open banking payments are already one of their most important payment methods, particularly in industries like construction and financial services.

There are a lot of different payment providers in the market and it’s a varied landscape. In this article, we look at the key things you should look for and the different types of providers on the market. 

Important criteria for an open banking provider

Breadth of payment options 

Open banking has come a long way since its inception in 2018 but adoption has not gone mainstream quite yet. Some sectors are adopting faster than others. Significant developments such as commercial Variable Recurring Payments, that will expand open banking use cases, are yet to be fully realised. 

Whilst open banking is still developing, you need to make sure you’re providing back up payment options where open banking might not work for a particular use case. Ideally this would be within one integrated payment flow so you don’t have to build in-house payment flows or disrupt the customers journey. 

Optimised checkout conversion 

We partnered with YouGov to understand the influence payments have on the buying journey and found that 67% of payers will stop a purchase if their preferred payment method isn’t available. Respondents listed security, ease of use and money leaving their account in a timely manner as top things they look for when choosing a payment method. 

Clearly customers value their checkout experience. When looking for an open banking provider, you need to understand what capability they have to enhance the customer experience using payment data and trends they have seen through their platform. 

By recognising a payer from a previous transaction, details can automatically be filled out creating a seamless experience for the customer. GoCardless, for example, has a 78%+ likelihood that we have seen a customer’s bank account before. Open banking only providers would have limited payer data after only being in operation since open banking was first introduced in 2018. 

Platform reliability 

Platform reliability goes beyond just API uptime or volume of payments collected. These are important but you need to get a full picture of their reliability, including ability to resolve issues as they arise. 

These include: 

Coverage and connectivity – do they offer connections with the banks your customers actually use? A wider network of banking connections means you can access the necessary data and accounts of your customers. 

Processing capability – how many payments can the provider handle and does this match your needs? A payment provider that’s only been in operation for a few years may not be able to handle large scale, complex payment collections. 

API uptime and reliability – do they have a strong API uptime? A strong API uptime means you’re not likely to get unexpected outages that impact the service you offer your customers. 

In-house payment capabilities – do they own and build their payments infrastructure? If a provider is dependent on third parties that supply their payments infrastructure, they may not be as responsive or capable to solve any issues as they arise. 

Payments experience 

Compared with well established bank payment types such as Direct Debit, open banking has only been around for a relatively short period of time. As open banking develops and new payments technology emerges, choosing a provider with bank payments expertise can help you navigate the evolving landscape with ease.

A provider with a long operating history and a large number of customers will likely have encountered any questions or unique challenges your business may have. They’ll also have strong relationships with the banks and regulators involved with developing open banking. A long operating history also means they have a proven track record of stability to cope with any market fluctuations. 

Open banking providers compared

If you’d like any more support with implementing open banking payments for your business, speak to our payments experts today. 

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

If you want to grow your business, you’ll need a suitable payment processing provider by your side.

Payment processing providers don’t just handle transactions, they can directly impact the customer experience, too. Choose the wrong one and your customer might abandon their purchase resulting in lost sales. But get it right and your payment processor could unlock more revenue, valuable insights, and help protect against fraud and security risks as your business scales.

Key factors when choosing a payment processing provider

Whether you’re a new or well-established business, it’s important to ask yourself the right questions. Your ideal payment solution will depend on a few factors, including:

1. What you’re selling – do you sell online or in-person? Do you offer one-off or subscription-based products, or both?

2. How big is your business and what’re your expansion plans?

3. Where are your customers, what digital payment options are available to them and which do they prefer to use? 

4. How robust and secure the system is – will it protect your business against fraud? Is the payment gateway easy for your customers to use?

5. The pricing structure* – what are the transaction fees for each payment processing provider?

6. What specific features and integrations your business and customers need? For example, buy now pay later (BNPL) options or reporting tools.

7. How easy is the system to use and integrate with existing business tools, like an accounting software?

8. What kind of support is offered to you and your customers?

The good news is there’s plenty of digital payment options to choose from. The bad news is it can take a while to narrow them down. 

To help you make the right choice for your customers and business, check out our payment processing provider comparison below.

A payments solution comparison

Let’s take a look at each provider in a little bit more detail:

1. Stripe

Overview: A fully integrated suite for accepting payments online and in-person using mainly credit and debit cards in multiple currencies. Also supports other payment methods like buy now, pay later.

Features and integrations: Online and in-person payment processing, recurring subscription payments, one-off invoicing, fraud prevention, and tools for platforms and marketplaces.

Pricing: 

• Transaction fees: 1.5% plus 20p per card transaction (UK), fees vary based on payment method and country

• Fee-free period: No

• Monthly fees: None

• Pay-as-you-go pricing: Yes

• Additional fees: Advanced features, chargebacks

Typical use cases: Startups and tech companies, including subscription-based businesses (SaaS platforms, gyms, etc.), retail, e-commerce, and online marketplaces.

2. Adyen

Overview: Provides one solution to accept payments and control finances on a global scale.

Features and integrations: Online, in-person or cross-channel payment processing, fraud prevention, data-driven business insights, and physical or virtual cards for corporate expense management.

Pricing:

Typical use cases: Large e-commerce platforms, multi-channel retail, subscription services.

3. PayPal

Overview: Offers a global payment solution for businesses to accept payments online and in-person, one of the most well-known payment processing brands.

Features and integrations: Tools for online checkouts, recurring payments, one-off invoicing and point-of-sale (POS) systems, including various payment methods like “Pay in 3” and QR codes.

Pricing: 

• Transaction fees: 1.2% plus 30p (UK), fees vary based on payment method and country

• Fee-free period: No

• Monthly fees: None

• Pay-as-you-go pricing: Yes

• Additional fees: Advanced features, chargebacks

Typical use cases: Small-to-medium-sized businesses, freelancers, e-commerce sites.

4. GoCardless

Overview: Helps businesses to collect one-off and recurring bank payments using methods like Direct Debit and open banking. Covers international payments in over 30 countries.

Features and integrations: Automated payment collection for subscriptions and one-off products or services, instalment payments, failed payment retries, fraud prevention, can integrate with 350+ partner apps from accountancy software to sports management.

Pricing: 

• Transaction fees: 1% plus 20p (UK), fees vary by country but capped at £4 (domestic only)

• Fee-free period: 90 days

• Monthly fees: None

• Pay-as-you-go pricing: Yes

• Additional fees: Advanced features, chargebacks

Typical use cases: Subscriptions or memberships (gyms, sports clubs, SaaS platforms, streaming services, etc.), professional services (accountants, consultants, etc.), utility providers, educational institutions and charities.

5. Braintree

Overview: An integrated platform owned by PayPal which supports a wide range of global and local payment methods including credit cards, debit cards and PayPal.

Features and integrations: Flexible payment options – including digital wallets, robust payment gateway, fraud prevention.

Pricing: 

• Transaction fees: 1.9% plus 20p per transaction (UK), transaction fees vary by payment method and country

• Fee-free period: No

• Monthly fees: None

• Pay-as-you-go pricing: Yes

• Additional fees: Chargebacks, card transactions issues outside the UK

Typical use cases: Online marketplaces, mobile apps, e-commerce. 

6. Square

Overview: Offers in-person and online payment solutions, giving customers the option to pay by chip and PIN, mobile or contactless card payments. 

Features and integrations: Point-of-sale (POS) solution for in-person payments, inventory management, and customer engagement.

Pricing: 

Typical use cases: Brick-and-mortar retailers, food and beverage businesses.

No one-size-fits-all, but we can help

Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to choosing the right payment partner, but assessing your specific business needs is a good place to start.

Factors like what you’re selling, your business size and growth plans, your customers’ location, security requirements, and the system’s pricing structure will all have a big influence on the right choice for you, your customers, and ultimately your future success.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Bank payments have come a long way since 1997, when online banking was first made available in the UK. Thanks to continued innovation, bank payments are now one of the most flexible and efficient payment methods. For small businesses, setting up bank payments is a key way to ensure you get paid on time and minimise the extra time, admin and cost of collecting payments..

Whether you’re new to payments or looking to streamline your processes, we’re here to help you navigate the process of accepting bank payments, including setting up bank payments via open banking and accepting international bank payments. Let’s explore how you can get started.

Understanding bank payments in the UK

Before you begin, it’s helpful to understand what bank payments are and how they work. They’re transactions that move money directly between bank accounts, removing the need for card networks or third parties. Some bank payments are done manually, like bank transfers or standing orders, with the payer responsible for entering the payment details and sending the money out of their account each time. Some bank payments can be automated, like Direct Debit, which means the pre-agreed amount is pulled out of the payer’s account regularly.

There are also bank payments powered by an innovation called open banking. Open banking moves money directly from one bank account to another as normal, but behind the scenes, the money can move faster and even more securely, with added verification checks. Examples of open banking payments from GoCardless include Instant Bank Pay and Instant Bank Pay for Recurring Payments.

Establishing bank payments for your business

Establishing bank payments so that your customers can use them to pay you involves a few straightforward steps.

1. Register your business: Make sure your business is registered with a UK bank account to receive payments. This can be a personal or business bank account.

2. Choose a payment provider: While you can use a high street bank to send and receive bank payments, specialist payment providers can offer you extra tools and reporting features all in one place. For example, GoCardless is a bank payments provider that enables you to set Direct Debit mandates, accept international bank payments, create subscription templates and access customer payment reports. It means you can manage more aspects of your payments in just one place.

3. Set up a digital infrastructure: In simple terms, this means integrating your chosen payment provider into your website or app, making it easy for customers to know how to pay you when placing an order.

4. Test your setup: Before going live, run test transactions to ensure everything works smoothly and your customers can make bank payments easily, and that your business is receiving bank payments as needed.

How your customers can make bank payments

Once you’ve set up a business bank account and chosen a payment provider, it’s simple for your customers to make bank payments to you.

Customers can set up Direct Debit mandates

Direct Debit is ideal for recurring payments, such as subscriptions and memberships, as they can be set up once and then continue to pull the money from your customer’s account until cancelled. Your customer will initially need to fill in a Direct Debit mandate form to permit you to collect the payment automatically, but then you can essentially set and forget.

Customers can pay you with an instant bank payment

Customers can pay instantly via secure links or QR codes. These are quick, convenient, and ideal for one-off payments; all your customer needs is access to online or mobile banking. An instant bank payment is verified in seconds, but because it sends money directly from a bank account, there are no slow intermediaries or added charges that can come with one-off card payments. That means escaping high credit card fees.

Setting up bank payments online

We’ve created a full guide to setting up payments online, but we’ve also created a snapshot of how simple the different online bank payment methods are to set up below.

How to set up instant bank payments with GoCardless

Instant Bank Pay is available to all UK businesses and can be set up in just a few steps. Once you’ve created your GoCardless account, you have the option to enable Instant Bank Pay in your dashboard. You can then add a fixed one-off amount to your online checkout, for example, if you have a fixed joining fee, or you can choose to create a unique payment link with an amount specific to a customer or order.

Once a customer clicks the payment link, they’re connected to their banking app to instantly authorise the bank payment. Once this is done, you both receive a payment confirmation within seconds. Watch a demo of the payer experience.

Setting up bank payments via open banking

Open banking is transforming how businesses and customers manage payments, and you can use it for instant one-off payments or faster, more secure recurring payments. At the moment, recurring payments via open banking are limited to specific use cases, like savings and lending, where two accounts are owned by the same person or business. Whilst this is due to broaden by the end of 2025, right now the most common way to set up and use open banking payments is through instant bank payments, like Instant Bank Pay.

Accepting international bank payments online

Expanding globally? Here are the key considerations you need to think of before accepting international bank payments:

• Support multiple currencies: Choose a provider that allows payments in various currencies, making it easier for international customers.

• Understand transfer fees: Be aware of costs associated with receiving international payments to manage your margins.

• Implement cross-border solutions: Use tools that comply with international regulations and simplify the process.

• Offer local payment options: Incorporate popular methods like SEPA transfers to improve the customer experience.

• Monitor transactions: Use reporting tools to track international payments, fees, and customer behaviour for better decision-making.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

LONDON 16 May, 2025 –  GoCardless has deepened its relationship with iplicit as it helps the cloud accounting fintech introduce  a new update to its product. 

iplicit, which is purpose-built for the UK and Ireland’s mid-market, will bring GoCardless’ Direct Debit capabilities to customers using its cloud accounting platform.

The arrival of GoCardless’ Direct Debit features follows the successful roll-out of its open banking-powered Instant Bank Pay (IBP) to iplicit customers in the first quarter of 2025. 

Organisations using iplicit will now benefit from a simple in-app interface for managing and automating their Direct Debit payments, powered by GoCardless, with features such as:

• Automated payment collection and reconciliation, reducing time-consuming financial admin thanks to connections with  via connection to over 350 GoCardless partners integrations, reducing time-consuming financial admin

GoCardless Direct Debit payments are pull based, meaning that iplicit users, as merchants, initiate the payment once given a mandate by their customer. Direct Debit payments are also bank-to-bank, with no card networks — and the associated high fees — involved. 

By adding GoCardless’ Direct Debit capabilities to Instant Bank Pay, iplicit can now offer busy businesses one place to manage recurring and one-off payments, helping them streamline their operations to save time and money. saving time and money.

iplicit announced the extension of its partnership with GoCardless at Accountex in London’s ExCel. 

Having collected its own payments via GoCardless since 2019, the award-winning accounting software provider is confident that the partnership will answer the Direct Debit needs of its midmarket customer base.  

This includes customers across a variety of verticals, such as non-profit, recruitment, education, fintech, SaaS, and multi-academy trusts. 

Tom Metcalfe, Director, UK&I Partnerships at GoCardless, said: “We’re excited to follow our successful introduction of Instant Bank Pay with this Direct Debit integration. iplicit customers now have an all-in-one solution for recurring and one-off payments, directly within a platform they know and trust. This will help them get paid on time, save time and money, and win and retain more customers.” 

Paul Sparkes, Chief Product Officer at iplicit adds: “At iplicit, we prioritise listening to the needs of our midmarket customers to continually refine our product and identify ways of improving their day-to-day financial admin and cashflow.” 

“Our ongoing partnership with GoCardless, a leader in the payments space, allows us to offer exactly what these customers need, which is a straightforward, seamless, and reliable solution for automating and collecting Direct Debit payments. This eliminates the inefficiencies and errors common with manual payment collection and chasing of failed or missed payments. Merchants using iplicit can now enjoy reliable cashflow and added confidence when managing their recurring payments.” 

Born in the cloud, iplicit’s state-of-the-art platform is specifically tailored for businesses that have outgrown basic entry-level systems or grown frustrated with legacy on-premises vendors. It delivers the advanced functionality and performance of upmarket systems at a fraction of the cost and complexity.

Press contact

press@gocardless.com

About GoCardless

GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Nearly 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.

GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use data and insights to improve payment success, reduce fraud and, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless.

About iplicit

iplicit is intelligent, powerful and intuitive true cloud accounting software for frustrated users of old legacy on-premises and fake cloud systems. Its user base, consisting of medium-sized businesses and nonprofit organisations, is expanding rapidly. 

Launched in January 2019, iplicit now has more than 38,000 daily users in 103 countries. The software integrates with other cloud applications and provides users with real-time reporting capabilities, automated data migration, rapid implementation and a public API to break down data silos. 

iplicit was rated 18th among UK businesses on the FT1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies and achieved 40th place in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50. In February 2022, iplicit was voted AccountingWEB’s best Enterprise Accounting/ERP 2021 (beating six other finalists into runner-up position). In 2021, iplicit was named Accounting Excellence Mid-Market & Enterprise Accounting Software of the Year 2020. 

With over 150 employees, iplicit has three offices in London EC1, Poole and Dublin.

For more information about iplicit, visit the website (www.iplicit.com), and follow the company on LinkedIn and X.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

LONDON, 20 May 2025 – Policy Expert, one of the UK’s leading personal lines insurers providing home, motor, and pet insurance to over 1.5 million customers has selected bank payment company GoCardless to offer a simpler way for customers to pay their pet insurance premiums.

The partnership will give Policy Expert customers that prefer to make monthly payments a way to pay on their terms each month, thanks to GoCardless’ Direct Debit payments.

Partnering with GoCardless will also allow Policy Expert to fully automate its payment collection services, saving time and money on the administrative task of following up with customers on late or missed payments. 

Policy Expert is committed to offering customers a more seamless experience and a variety of payment solutions that customers prefer to use. It forms part of the company’s mission to disrupt the insurance industry through the use of technology. 

Rick Wilton, Head of Product (Payments) at Policy Expert said: “As a forward-thinking insurer, we are always looking for ways to make our customers’ lives easier. GoCardless offered an easy-to-integrate solution for our new pet insurance line, allowing us to remain competitive in the market by offering customers monthly payments.”

“We anticipate that in 2025, leading UK banks will be mandated to allow companies like us to collect recurring payments via open banking. This means that we’ll be able to instantly collect monthly payments from customers’ bank accounts, without waiting for several days to know if a customer payment has cleared or not. As experts in bank payments, we’re confident that GoCardless will be a great partner to help us offer more payment options to our customers.”

Pat Phelan, MD of UK & Ireland and Chief Customer Officer at GoCardless, said: “We’re excited to collaborate with Policy Expert, a fast-growing company that is raising the standards of customer experience in the insurance industry. GoCardless is proud to power the payments for its new insurance line and we can’t wait to see the results. We look forward to strengthening our partnership in the future with the potential addition of Variable Recurring Payments and the capability to send payouts, further empowering Policy Expert’s customers with the flexibility to pay on their terms.”

Notes to Editors  

For more information, contact:
press@gocardless.com  
Policy Expert 
Tom Grant 
+447493867440
policyexpert@instinctif.com

About GoCardless

GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Nearly 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking.

GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use data and insights to improve payment success, reduce fraud and, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless.

© 2025 GoCardless Ltd. All Rights Reserved. GoCardless is a registered trademark of GoCardless Ltd in multiple countries. Third party trademarks mentioned above are owned by their respective companies. Unless explicitly identified as such, nothing in this press release should be construed to the contrary, or as an approval, endorsement or sponsorship by any third parties of GoCardless Ltd. or any aspect of this press release.

About Policy Expert

Policy Expert is one of the UK’s leading personal lines insurers, providing home, car, and pet insurance to over 1.5 million customers. 

Having achieved rapid growth since it was founded in 2011, Policy Expert is a forward-thinking business that loves to get things done, leveraging proprietary technology and smart data to offer reliable products and exceptional service. Ranked the UK’s number one home insurer by Review Centre since 2013 with over 59,000 reviews, Policy Expert holds a 4.5 ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

LONDON 8 May, 2025 — Global bank payment company GoCardless has announced a new integration with Giacom’s Cloud Market Tools billing platform. The integration enables Giacom channel partners to manage Direct Debit payments from within their billing system, helping them simplify collections, improve cash flow, and reduce operational overheads.

This integration is part of Giacom’s wider strategy to help partners reduce their reliance on manual processes and scale more efficiently. Many channel businesses rely on disconnected systems and manual workarounds that slow operations, delay payments, create inconsistent customer experiences, and ultimately slow down growth as they scale. Giacom’s Cloud Market Tools were built to address these challenges by integrating core business systems, streamlining processes, and automating every stage of the lead-to-cash journey.

Tom Metcalfe, Director, UK&I Partnerships at GoCardless, said: “We’re excited to work with Giacom to simplify payments for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) so they can focus on what they do best. Bank payments are cheaper, safer and more reliable than cards — which is why we believe they’re the ideal way to increase revenues while cutting down on costs. From popular forms of bank payment like Direct Debit to new, cutting-edge methods like those powered by open banking, this partnership allows our joint customers to access best-in-class payments directly within a platform they know and trust.”

Ant Molloy, Managing Director of Cloud Market Tools said: “With GoCardless now fully integrated into Cloud Market Tools, we’ve created a fully automated payment collection service. This enables partners to manage collections and reconciliations without ever having to leave their billing system. That means no more switching between systems, no more rekeying data, and no more chasing late payments. Just faster, easier, and more reliable cash flow.

“MSPs are under pressure to do more with less, but fragmented processes are still holding many back. Collecting and chasing payments can be a major drain on time and resources. GoCardless removes much of that hassle, giving partners a simpler, smarter way to stay on top of their billing and payment processes. Since launching the integration, we’ve seen strong demand from partners looking to remove complexity and gain more control over their billing and payment workflows.”

Cloud Market Tools is a modular software suite designed to support every aspect of an MSP’s operational journey – from quoting and ordering to billing, support, and now, payment collection. The GoCardless integration joins a growing ecosystem of strategic technology partnerships, including connectors for finance systems like Sage and CRMs like The Layer. These integrations are designed to bring siloed data together, reduce duplication, and ensure MSPs have a single source of truth across their operations.

Giacom’s investment in platform development is focused on giving partners the tools they need to improve their operational maturity, drive sustainable profitability, and deliver a consistently excellent customer experience. By streamlining the quote-to-cash process and removing unnecessary friction, Giacom enables its partners to grow faster and serve more customers without scaling complexity.

For further information contact:

press@gocardless.com 

Notes to Editors

About GoCardless

GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking. GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless. 

About Giacom

Supporting a UK-wide network of over 6,000 local, expert technology providers, Giacom is a 100% channel focussed specialist marketplace and software provider. Our platform, Cloud Market, enables technology resellers and MSPs to access cloud, comms and hardware products and services from the world’s leading vendors and carriers to create brilliant technology solutions for UK businesses. 

• Working with its network of expert technology resellers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Giacom’s mission is for every small business to buy its IT products from a local expert technology provider.

• Giacom’s expert team works as an extension to its partners’ businesses, bringing a deep understanding of products and services as well as commitment to excellence.

• Giacom supports its partners with every aspect of running a successful technology solutions business – from guidance on product selection, training and enablement, to advice on accelerating business growth and support to resolve a technical issue.

• In July 2023, Giacom, Digital Wholesale Solutions (DWS) and Union Street came together under one single brand – Giacom. In Giacom and Cloud Market, the business has a recognised and trusted brand that will take the company forwards into the increasingly cloud-first future of the IT and Telecoms market.

About Giacom’s Cloud Market Platform

• Giacom has invested extensively in its digital platform – Cloud Market – a partner portal which delivers a unified experience across its entire product portfolio. 

• Giacom is the UK’s only provider of Comms, Cloud, Hardware and Billing solutions through one platform, Cloud Market, helping thousands of UK businesses grow by being more organised, mobile and productive.

• Cloud Market features intuitive navigation, unbeatable performance, and the ability to explore all the company’s offers in one place, making it increasingly easy for partners to deliver a broad range of products and services to customers.

For more information about Giacom, visit Giacom.com

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

LONDON, 2 May 2025 — Bank payment company GoCardless has co-funded an initiative to create a new company that will drive the creation of commercial Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs). 

This newly established entity will act as an independent VRP scheme operator, owned and managed by the payment industry.

Working alongside 30 other organisations, including fintechs, high street banks, challenger banks and payment providers, GoCardless will accelerate the development of commercial VRP use cases for financial services firms, utilities providers, charities and others in the “first wave” sectors. cVRPs in these areas will give consumers better control over regular payments, as well as a frictionless payment experience when buying goods or services from websites. 

The announcement builds on GoCardless’ long history in open banking, reaching milestones including:

GoCardless has specialised in account-to-account payments since its inception in 2011. The fintech offers open banking payments alongside Direct Debit, maximising payer coverage for the 100,000+ merchants that use its platform.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said: “Open banking gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way we pay and get paid. In the UK, accepting digital payments often means putting up with high fees because the market is heavily dominated by cards. Commercial VRPs offer merchants a chance to break that strangle-hold and replace card-on-file with ‘bank-account-on-file’.

“By committing funds to this new industry initiative for commercial VRPs, we’re doing our bit  to deliver the UK’s National Payments Vision for more competition, innovation and choice for businesses and consumers.” 

Notes to eds.

For more information please contact

press@gocardless.com 

About GoCardless
GoCardless is a global bank payment company. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking. GoCardless processes US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries; helping customers collect and send both recurring and one-off payments, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over 2,500 banks, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.

We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless. 

© 2025 GoCardless Ltd. All Rights Reserved. GoCardless is a registered trademark of GoCardless Ltd in multiple countries. Third party trademarks mentioned above are owned by their respective companies. Unless explicitly identified as such, nothing in this press release should be construed to the contrary, or as an approval, endorsement or sponsorship by any third parties of GoCardless Ltd. or any aspect of this press release.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

Once your business is up and running, it’s essential to look at ways that you can minimise manual tasks and admin, and maximise your return from every sale. How your business is taking payments, both online and in-person, and the payment platforms you use to manage them can have a big impact on the rest of your business. Failing to do due diligence to understand what suits your business model and customer base best can result in late or failed payments, extra admin and resources to manage, and even create friction with customers. This guide explains the foundations of taking payments, comparing payment methods, payment gateways and processors, and explains the key factors you need to review.

The different payment methods you can use for taking payments

Let’s go back to the start. There are several common payment methods available to choose from when taking payments.

Cash and cheques

Since the start of the pandemic, the UK has had a significant shift towards digital payments, with cash usage halving and cheque usage dropping by more than two-thirds. Despite this, a recent GoCardless survey, conducted through the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), found that small businesses in the UK are still using both in their payment mix – with 34% still taking cash payments and a further 28% accepting cheques.

Credit and debit cards

Card payments filled the gap that cash and cheques previously occupied, with 163.4 million debit and credit cards in circulation across the UK by the end of 2024. Whilst cards can be easily used for in-person and online purchases, offering convenience to payers, taking credit card payments can come with a variety of drawbacks for businesses. These include an extensive list of add-on fees, including merchant service fees, authorisation fees, gateway fees and even terminal charges for point of sale transactions.

E-wallets

When it comes to taking mobile payments, e-wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay can be great. If a payer has their e-wallet set up, then they can use it for both online purchases that are made on a phone or tapped at a point of sale terminal in person. The downside is that adoption is predominantly amongst younger generations and is more desirable in a select number of use cases. For example, an e-wallet can be used on a desktop or laptop to pay an invoice with a payment link attached, but it will still require authentication and verification steps even if the payer is logged in or using a compatible device. This can create a poor customer payment experience, and is one of the contributing factors to e-wallet users having an average churn rate of 16%.

Manual bank transfers

Bank payments are the most trusted payment method in the world, but there are multiple types of bank payments. Manual bank transfers are considered a ‘push payment’ as they rely on the payer remembering to log into their banking app, enter the right details and total amount, and hit send – pushing the payment into a business’s bank account. This leaves businesses with little control over the payment process, making cash flow hard to predict.

Automated bank payments

An alternative way of taking bank payments is to use automated bank payments, such as Direct Debit. Unlike manual transfers, Direct Debit is a ‘pull payment’ as the payer pre-authorises a business to pull money out of their bank account on a specific date and frequency. This gives businesses greater control and it can be included as part of an online checkout in the same way as other payment methods, which makes it easy to use for businesses taking online payments. Plus, advances in AI and banking technology mean that there are accessible ways to intelligently retry failed banking payments. For example, GoCardless offers Success+, which automatically retries a failed payment up to three times to reduce manual chasing and increase success rates without added friction.

How to choose which payment method to use for taking payments

We’ve created a full guide that details all of the pros and cons of each payment method, but to help keep it simple, think of the following:

1. You can use multiple payment methods – there isn’t always one way to collect payments that suits your whole customer base. And that’s ok!

2. Do you have customers who have subscriptions, repeat orders or rolling memberships? If so, choosing a payment method you can automate will save you time and make it easier for your customers.

3. Does the way you take payments set you up to grow? If you’re using payment methods that require manual admin, lots of manual inputting into software or sheets, and need to be constantly checked to make sure they’ve been processed, that time and effort will only grow with you and become harder to manage.

Choosing the right payment processor and payment gateway for taking payments

Now you’ve decided which ways you want to take payments, you need to decide on payment processors and gateways. Payment processing solutions and payment gateway solutions are both essential when taking online payments, but they don’t do the same thing.

Payment Gateway:

The payment gateway acts as a bridge, collecting and encrypting customer payment information (like bank account details) and then sending it to the payment processor. It’s the payer-facing part that your customers interact with in the checkout experience, allowing them to enter their payment information securely.

Payment Processor:

The payment processor’s role is to verify the transaction, authorise it, and then facilitate the actual transfer of funds from the customer’s bank to yours. It also handles tasks like managing refunds or payment disputes.

If you’re thinking ‘how do I set up a payment gateway? What’s the best approach to choosing a payment processor?’ Don’t worry! We’ve highlighted a few key details to help you.

1. There are payment platforms out there that act as both payment processors and payment gateways. This means you can have all the functionality you need in one place. Examples include GoCardless, Stripe, PayPal, Adyen and WorldPay.

2. Check which payment methods a payment platform offers you. Some may only support card payments, others bank payments, and what you need will vary depending on whether you’re taking digital payments, mobile payments, or payments in-store at the point of sale.

3. Use platforms that offer a wide range of easy integrations. GoCardless has over 350+ integrations, from accounting software to CRMs (customer relationship management platforms). If you’re using multiple software tools to manage orders, consider how you could streamline the end-to-end management of your sales and payments by integrating everything into one login.

4. Prioritise payment security. Compliance in payment processing is really important, as taking payments isn’t just about moving money; it’s about making sure both the payer and your business’s payment details are kept safe. To make sure you’re taking payments securely, you should make sure you only use a provider that’s level one compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and that offers built-in security capabilities (such as tokenization).

5. Consider your customer payment experience. You want to keep your checkout as easy as possible, minimising the number of steps your customers have to take to complete a purchase. That’s why it’s important to use a payment provider that only requires essential details and doesn’t ask your customers for pages of fields to fill out.

6. Payment acceptance rates – but this one is so important that we’re going to go into a bit more detail on it.

Payment acceptance strategies when taking payments

The final part to understanding the basics of taking payments is acceptance rates. Your payment acceptance rate is the percentage of transactions that are successful out of all payments you attempt to collect. It’s an important metric as it can indicate that a payment method or provider isn’t suitable for your business, it can also help highlight fraud or where you’re spending most of your time and resources.

Common factors that can impact your payment acceptance rates are:

• Lack of funds in a customer’s account

• Incorrect or expired details are input by the customer, causing it to decline

• Technical issues. Some payment methods use several intermediaries to move and send money, which can increase the chance of one of them failing or having an outage

• Verification failure when a customer fails to pass two-step authentication or use matching security details

• Poor customer payment experience caused by a complicated or long checkout, resulting in abandoned orders and potentially churn

Both the payment methods and the payment providers you select can influence your payment acceptance rate. For example, card payments have an average failure rate of 10-15%, compared to around just 2% of GoCardless Direct Debit, and failed payments have a direct correlation to customer churn. In addition to a 10-15% failure rate, cards also have an 11-15% customer churn rate. That’s customers and money lost just because of the payment method.

Summary: Optimising taking payments

To make sure the way your business is taking payments minimises overhead costs and creates room for scaling, just remember three key things.

1. Make sure the way you collect payments suits your business and your customer needs, with low manual admin and high success rates. And remember, you can use more than one payment method

2. Choose a payment provider that can be your payment gateway and payment processor, combining as many elements as possible in one place to cut admin, costs and to streamline processes

3. Payment acceptance rates are influenced by how you’re taking payments and who you use to help move the money – think of expiry, fraud and ease of use for your customers

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.

Our view at Stack - GoCardless is a payment services provider - highlights include low processing rates, no monthly fee for the basic account, month-to-month billing without early termination fees, and extensive support for international payments. It’s optimized for direct bank payments, offering security and flexibility

How long does it take for you to get paid?

Waiting a long time to get paid and chasing customers for payments can impact your cash flow which can leave you without much available cash to reinvest in the business or pay suppliers. To first understand the whether you have a problem with cash flow you need to understand how long you are typically waiting to get paid.

Cash flow is usually measured in Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), where you calculate the full period of time it takes to get paid.

Why is it important?

Cash flow has a huge impact on businesses of all sizes as it impacts the money you have available to reinvest in the business and to pay suppliers. When you’re waiting to get paid for work you’ve already done or goods you’ve already sent out, it could cause bad debt and negative cash flow.

Calculate your cash flow

Metric: number of days to actually get cash in the bank after payout

A report from Forrester found that 52% of Aussie businesses wait up to 30 days to receive payments after the arranged due date.

Calculate your DSO

DSO = Accounts Receivable at the end of the period/Gross revenue over the period X Number of days in the period

Once you have your DSO calculated, use our calculator below to calculate how much revenue you have held up and how you are waiting to get paid.

If GoCardless is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.

Credit: Original article published here.