Setting up a client's payments while you set up their Xero or QuickBooks often makes sense, because invoices, bank details and chasing are being decided at the same time and payments can be marked paid in the books from the first invoice. It works best when the client clearly owns the payments account, verified in the business's own name and paying out to its own bank account, and when you've agreed in writing what you'll run for them. Where a client isn't ready to change how customers pay, it can wait.
In this article
The short version
- Setting up payments alongside Xero or QuickBooks avoids reopening invoices later.
- The payments account belongs to the client's business, paying out in its own name.
- A practice can manage clients as separate businesses under one login.
- Agree chasing rules, interest, queries and access before running credit control.
- Statutory interest and compensation apply to business customers, never consumers.
Why set up payments alongside the books
When you move a client onto Xero or QuickBooks, you're already deciding how their invoices look, what payment terms they carry and which bank account money goes into. How customers pay, and what happens when they don't, belongs in the same conversation. Coming back to it six months later can mean reopening invoice templates, changing payment instructions customers have already saved and explaining a second change to the client's team.
If you do both together, your client's books can be right from the first invoice. If payments are taken through a tool that's connected to Xero or QuickBooks and marks invoices paid automatically, the client's debtors list reflects what's been collected without anyone matching transfers by hand. For a client who's just come off spreadsheets or a desktop package, that can help keep the ledger tidy through the year, so less is left for you to clean up at the year end.
It gives you a clearer view, too. If you're doing the client's bookkeeping or management accounts, you'll see overdue invoices, failed SEPA collections and payment patterns in one place rather than piecing them together from bank lines.
In Xero Ireland, clients can take card payments through Stripe and SEPA direct debit through GoCardless, which is two providers to set up and connect. A combined tool takes both in one place. Adfin, a certified Xero app and a certified QuickBooks app with two-way sync, takes SEPA direct debit, card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, pay by bank and bank transfer to unique bank details for each customer, and sends payment links by email, SMS or WhatsApp.
When it's better to wait
Some of your clients will have enough change on their hands with new accounting software, and asking them to change how their customers pay can be one thing too many in the same month. If your client's team is still learning to raise invoices, you may want to let that settle first.
Other clients already collect by SEPA direct debit and are happy with it. You can still move them later, and customers moving from GoCardless to Adfin keep their existing mandates, so there's no need to rush it into the set-up.
It also depends on what your client's customers expect. A business selling to a handful of large companies on purchase orders may get little from payment links, while one with dozens of small customers on monthly fees is likely to get more from SEPA direct debit and automatic reminders.
Who owns the payments account
Even if you set it up, the payments account belongs to your client's business. In Adfin, the client is set up as its own business, goes through the same checks as any other, and pays out to one bank account in its own name. Customers pay the client, not the practice, and payouts are gross, with Adfin's fees invoiced separately, so what lands in the client's account matches what their customers paid.
You can set up and manage clients as separate businesses under your practice's login and move from one client to the next without signing out. Changes you make stay with the client you have open, and each client has its own Xero or QuickBooks connection, customers, chasing rules and team members. The client can have their own people on the account too, and there's no licence for each client, because pricing is per payment: 1% + 20c, with the 1% part capped at €2 on SEPA direct debit and bank transfer. Card payments aren't capped.
What to agree before you run credit control for a client
If you run a client's credit control, you're providing a service, and it helps to write it down in your engagement letter like any other. You'll usually need to agree these points up front:
- Which customers are chased, and any the client wants handled personally, such as a large customer or a family connection.
- The tone and timing of reminders, and who approves changes to them. Adfin's collection agents can adjust timing, channel and tone customer by customer, but only within rules the client has approved.
- Whether statutory late payment interest and compensation are added to overdue invoices from business customers, and for whom it's waived. They can't be added for consumers.
- Who answers when a customer replies with a query or a dispute, and how quickly the client wants to hear about it.
- Who can change bank details or payout settings. Keeping that with the client can protect both of you.
- What happens to your access if the engagement ends, with the account staying with the client's business.
- How you'll charge for the work, as part of your own fee.
Essential credit control in Adfin is free, with unlimited reminders by email, SMS and WhatsApp, statements and debtor reporting. Enhanced costs 0.3% per paid invoice, only where an enhanced skill was used, and covers the collection agents, automatic statutory interest and compensation on business invoices, and emails sent from the client's own address.
Common questions
Should accountants set up payments when they set up a client's Xero or QuickBooks? It often makes sense, because invoice templates, bank details and chasing are being decided at the same time. Where the client already has enough change to absorb, it can follow later.
Who owns the payments account if the practice sets it up? The client's business does. In Adfin it's verified in the business's own name and pays out to a bank account in that name.
Can a practice manage several clients' payments from one login? Yes, each client can sit under the practice's login as a separate business, which you set up and manage. Each client keeps its own payout account, accounting connection, customers and chasing rules.
Does the practice pay a licence for each client it manages? No, there's no per-business licence. Adfin is priced per payment, at 1% + 20c, with the 1% part capped at €2 on SEPA direct debit and bank transfer.
Can a practice add late payment interest to a client's invoices? On invoices to business customers, Enhanced credit control can add statutory interest and compensation automatically, if the client agrees. Consumers are outside the late payment rules.
Do the client's customers have to sign new mandates if the client already uses GoCardless? No, customers moving from GoCardless to Adfin keep their existing SEPA mandates.
Sources
- Adfin Help Centre - Managing multiple businesses from one login (accurate as of November 2026) https://support.adfin.com/en/articles/15888939-managing-multiple-businesses-from-one-login
- Xero - Accept online payments, Ireland (accurate as of November 2026) https://www.xero.com/ie/accounting-software/accept-payments/
- Irish Statute Book - S.I. No. 580 of 2012, European Communities (Late Payment in Commercial Transactions) Regulations 2012 (accurate as of November 2026) https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2012/si/580/made/en/print
