“I’m not great at chasing money. I wanted the system to say it, not me.”
Lara Manton has been in practice for nearly 15 years. She runs a modern, cloud-first bookkeeping practice built around flexibility, automation, and conserving energy - both hers and her clients’.
Health, energy, and sustainability are central to Lara, and they shape how she chooses tools, prices her work, and builds workflows that last. That mindset is what led her to Socket for proposals - and later, to Adfin for payments. Her workflow now combines Socket, Xero and Adfin for streamlined invoicing that gets her paid faster, without the awkward chasing.
Before: payments worked, but they created friction
Lara’s practice was already highly systemised: Clients were on Xero, bank feeds were in place, and cloud tools were standard.
Payments, however, were still a source of friction. Most of her clients are B2B, and since many paid by bank transfer, some paid late - not out of bad intent, but because paying wasn’t frictionless.
Chasing money did not sit comfortably with Lara. She understood her clients and often knew when someone was having a tough month, which made follow-ups feel personal and awkward.
“When you’re a sole practitioner, who’s that person for me? Who chases on my behalf?”
What changed: proposals and payments became one flow
Lara was already using Socket to move away from hourly pricing and create clearer, more flexible proposals. When Adfin integrated directly with Socket, it completed the workflow she had been building towards.
Now, when a client receives a proposal through Socket, they review it, accept it, and are immediately guided into setting up a direct debit via Adfin. For most clients, it is a simple, two-click process.
“They click accept and go straight through to the Direct Debit. I don’t have to think about it.”
Once set up, payments run automatically in the background. Reminders are handled by the system, not Lara, and expectations are set at the point of agreement rather than chased later.
Why Adfin works for LJM Bookkeeping
For Lara, the biggest benefit was the ease and consistency of getting paid.
Taking herself out of the process removed emotional weight from payment conversations, which meant that payments felt neutral and professional rather than personal.
“Taking myself out of it made a huge difference. The system says it, not me.”
Results: No awkward conversations, and a single, joined-up workflow
Lara uses Socket and Adfin together as part of her ongoing client renewals and onboarding process, using proposals as a natural point to review pricing and set clear expectations around how clients pay.
By connecting proposals directly to payments, the combined workflow delivers benefits for both her practice and her clients:
- A more consistent onboarding experience, where clients can agree terms and set up payment in one flow
- Fewer awkward conversations about money, with the system handling reminders and collections
- Clearer payment expectations set at the point of agreement, rather than enforced later
- Proposals, direct debit mandates and payments now sit in one joined-up system
“It doesn’t feel like two systems. It feels like one big workflow.”
If chasing feels awkward and harder than it should be, it may be time to let the system do the talking. See how Adfin can take care of credit control for you.
