BM Technologies swapped manual mandate-chasing for automated reminders, slashing late payments from 69 days to 7 and while increasing payment volume through the platform 8X.
"If you've got those niggles about late payments and fees, and the ability to get people onto direct debit, I wouldn't hesitate to switch."
How manual chasing became a hands-off, automated system
Before Adfin, BM collected direct debit payments through another provider, but the system wasn't intuitive and didn't give the team the insight it needed.
Mandates were sent manually, and if a customer didn't complete one, there was no automatic follow-up. This meant many stayed off direct debit altogether and paid late, not out of reluctance, but because the request got missed.
Adfin replaced that manual process with automatic reminders, continuous mandate prompts and same-day settlement - cutting BM's average days late from 69 to 7, well below the 23.4-day average for UK MSPs, while payment volume through the platform grew 8x.
BM had been looking for an alternative solution provider for a while. The team found the previous platform wasn't intuitive, and it didn't give them the information or insights they needed as quickly as they needed them.
Signing up to direct debit meant manually sending a mandate and hoping the customer completed it. This meant many never did, not through any reluctance to pay, but because the request got missed or buried in an inbox.
The result: many customers stayed off direct debit altogether and consistently paid late, simply because chasing them required constant manual admin the team didn't always have time for.
“Everything with the previous provider was very manual. We'd have to manually send a direct debit mandate and own all of the chasing ourselves."
Rather than migrate the whole customer base at once, BM moved a handful of customers across first, to test the platform's data, speed of settlement and ease of use.
Adfin managed the entire migration, including carrying over existing direct debit mandates, without any of BM's customers needing to do anything themselves.
“It was a very hands-off approach for us, which was really smooth. Everything went over as it was."
Before Adfin, getting a customer onto direct debit was a one-off effort: send the mandate, and hope. Adfin's automatic reminders and continuous sign-up prompts changed that.
“The automatic reminders and the continuous prompts for signing direct debits have increased sign-ups massively...What we noticed was that a lot of our customers went onto direct debit because they were continuously reminded, and that wasn't a manual process we needed to do."
With more customers collected by direct debit and everything running on the same schedule, money reaches BM faster and more predictably.
“The money's collected and returned quicker. It's improved our cash flow, being able to access that money quicker."
Payment volume through the platform has grown 8x since BM joined Adfin, driven by automatic reminders that pushed far more customers onto direct debit without the team lifting a finger.
“You don't have to worry about the switch because it's entirely hands off. No one had to re-sign their direct debits. We weren't going through an admin process that was disturbing our current customers or creating more work for them."
For MSPs sitting with the same niggles BM had, late payments, high fees, low direct debit take-up, James's advice is not to let inertia be the reason to stay put.
“Change can be uncomfortable, but sometimes you just have to look for something different and expect more from the solutions you implement. If you've got those niggles about late payments and fees, and the ability to get people onto direct debit, I wouldn't hesitate to switch."