Frost made Direct Debit the default for every client without asking anyone to pay monthly. Active mandates went from around 400 to more than 1,000 in weeks, and late one-off invoices fell from 1 in 5 to 1 in 14.
At a Glance
How Frost moved every client to Direct Debit without making them pay monthly
Frost Chartered Accountants has supported individuals and small business owners since the 1930s, and Mr Frost's granddaughter is still a client. After a merger and a couple of small acquisitions, the practice spent 18 months getting its systems in order: TaxCalc first, then Engager, then Adfin.
In July 2026 Frost made Direct Debit its default way to pay, with Adfin running payments inside Engager.
Before Adfin
With Adfin
Challenge
Bringing clients billed in different ways onto one way to pay
Frost already collected some monthly fees by Direct Debit, but everything around it was manual. When a payment failed, the team chased it. Clients who paid one-off invoices could pay several ways, and around 1 in 5 of those invoices was paid late.
Ryan, the MD, wanted every client on a mandate, but the practice works mostly with individuals and small business owners, and he didn't want to overwhelm them. With the old set-up, tracking a firm-wide push would have been close to impossible, and slow support made the team nervous about anything going wrong.
“We very much work for individuals and small business owners, and we didn't want to overwhelm them with lots of information about things they didn't want. Being able to roll it out to a large number of people was something we were waiting for, to be able to find a provider that could help us do that.”
Ryan Lewis · Managing Director, Frost Chartered Accountants
Solution
A mandate that doesn't mean paying monthly
A switch clients didn't have to act on
Frost moved its 170 existing mandates in December 2025. The switch date was 16 December and the mandates were live by 19 December. Clients didn't re-sign anything.
“We had to export a list from our old provider, send that to Adfin, and all the rest happened in the background. If there were any hiccups, it was dealt with really quickly, and we were always dealing with real people.”
Daisy Harrison · Admin and Marketing Manager, Frost Chartered Accountants
Direct Debit as the default, not a monthly plan
On 16 July 2026 Frost asked every client to set up a mandate. The message was simple. A mandate doesn't commit anyone to paying monthly. It means a bill is taken care of whenever it's raised, even if that's once a year.
“We've got lots of people that say they're against Direct Debit. They're not. They're against paying monthly or paying quarterly. They just want to pay when they get an invoice.”
Ryan Lewis
Direct Debit set up at the proposal
Adfin runs inside Engager, so new clients set up a mandate when they sign their letter of engagement, and the accounts team can see in a click whether a mandate is active.
“It sets the tone that that's our preferred method of payment, and they can expect that invoices will be collected that way.”
Daisy Harrison
Chasing that tells you what it's done
Adfin retries failed payments, offers other ways to pay and sends reminders. Clients who haven't signed a mandate can still pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank payment or bank transfer.
“It feels very much like you're checking in with a colleague almost. You're being told the actions and what's being done to rectify it, and you can deal with it once it gets past that point.”
Daisy Harrison
Results
Mandates more than doubled in a fortnight
Frost sent 1,075 mandate requests on 16 July. Active mandates went from around 400 to more than 1,000 within weeks. Ryan describes the rollout as “relatively low touch” once Daisy had the set-up in place.
Late one-off invoices fell from 1 in 5 to 1 in 14. Since the rollout, average monthly collections through Adfin have grown 54%, and 96% of payments now come in by Direct Debit. One client who took six months to pay last year paid within the day this year.
“We'll find that a lot of the improvement will generally take six months to wash all the way through. So to have that in just a couple of months is something that was really satisfying for us.”
Ryan Lewis
For the team, the difference shows up as time and a clearer view of cash coming in.
“It has freed up time, in that we're only dealing with issues in terms of collection rather than keeping on top of everything and even checking what's running properly.”
Daisy Harrison
“It's not about not having problems. It's about how the problems are solved. Adfin is definitely up there with probably one of the best for dealing with an issue, understanding our issue, and understanding the urgency of that issue.”
Ryan Lewis
Sources: Adfin platform data for Frost Chartered Accountants, December 2025 to October 2026. Late payments are one-off invoices paid after their due date, before and after the 16 July 2026 rollout. Collections exclude payments recorded from accounting software.