Expert Support: How to Manage Direct Debits

Long established as a clear and efficient payment system for businesses, Direct Debits are also popular with customers who appreciate an easily understandable payment method.

In truth, Direct Debits supports businesses to create consistent financial streams and help customers manage their money and balance budgets. In the 12-month period to May 2024, £1,464,321 was transferred from customer accounts to businesses, an increase of 5% from the previous year.

Plus, the total monthly average Direct Debit transaction amount was £103.42 in May 2024, up from £97.30 in January 2020. These statistics clearly show that the transaction system is trusted by both customers and businesses.

Contents

• - What is Direct Debit management?
• - Do customers benefit from paying by Direct Debit?
• - How Direct Debits help businesses manage financial streams.
• - Interbacs management for businesses.

What is Direct Debit management?

If your business has been manually organising customer Direct Debits, there is no doubt that you understand how time-consuming and admin-heavy this process can be. The paperwork for setting up these types of payments manually can take up a substantial amount of time for your employees.

When an organisation turns to a Direct Debit management service to create a more secure payment system and reduce the administrative load, they realise that significant cost savings can be achieved.

Working with a management system creates fresh opportunities for businesses, such as the ability to easily and securely edit, cancel and create new debits without extensive additional paperwork.

Some management services can provide you with collated data sets derived from customer behaviour and payments, enabling you to make more informed decisions and deliver improved services to benefit your customers.

Do customers benefit from paying by Direct Debit?

Offering your customers the ability to pay by Direct Debit has clear advantages. Firstly, all they have to fill in to set this up with you is a Direct Debit Mandate form. Once this is completed and approved by the customer’s bank, a payment can be organised.

Secondly, your customers do not have to do any extra work when it comes to repeat payments, as their mandate sets up their transactions on the required dates. This reduces the time your customers have to pay you, making the process as frictionless as possible.

As a result, it’s more likely that customers will organise their payments with you as the process is simple, potentially attracting a larger customer base. Finally, if they have to cancel their payment, it involves a quick procedure that won’t take up too much time for your employees or customers.

How Direct Debits Help Businesses Manage Financial Streams

Regarding business benefits, Direct Debits can help you save time, create consistent financial flows to support business growth and provide insightful data sets for your teams to leverage for greater customer satisfaction.

Unreliable and erratic financial streams can be damaging to your business. If you can’t rely on a certain level of monthly, quarterly or annual revenue, then it can be virtually impossible to plan for the future or succeed in goal attainment. As Direct Debits are automatic, you don’t have to chase late payments or worry about payment collection.

Your employees can channel their valuable time and resources away from payment processing to more important business priorities, including the evolution of customer services, which benefits both your business and your customers.

A managed system supports organisational security and helps you meet compliance regulations, such as Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. KYC standards protect your business against fraud as you have to establish customer identity, which can be completed through the organisational process.

Interbacs Management Systems for Businesses

Our powerful software is a complete suite of systems that enables you to set up automatic payment services and take advantage of a data-rich landscape.

Cutting edge in nature, this management solution validates customer data and digital banking details according to Bacs regulations, but it also enables you to create and edit payment plans with ease. As a highly configurable tool at your fingertips, our DDMS is adaptable to suit your specific organisational needs.

Features of DDMS

• - Enjoy a cloud or desktop solution to suit your business size and requirements.
• - Access automated email facilities to eliminate manual customer notifications.
• - Gain automatic notice services so that changes to payment dates are shared in advance with customers.
• - Achieve Bacs approval by being able to validate all bank account data.
• - Benefit from reporting insights by importing and actioning common DDMS reports, including ADDACS, ARUDD, AUDDIS and DDICs.

Reduce stress, increase convenience and improve security with Interbacs, your ideal BACS accredited Facilities Management provider. Widely recognised as a professional, experienced and user-friendly service for your business and customers.

If it’s time for your business to streamline payment solutions, visit our solution finder to discover the right payment solutions to match your goals with helpful advice to get you up and running in no time.