Adfin works alongside SAP and doesn't replace it. SAP stays where your jobs, stock, ledger and reporting live, and Adfin handles getting paid: you export invoices from SAP and upload them, and Adfin takes the payments, chases what's overdue and matches each payment to its invoice. There's no integration between the two, so your team records receipts back in SAP.
In this article
The short version
- Adfin works alongside SAP, which keeps your jobs, stock, ledger, VAT and reporting, while Adfin handles payments, chasing and reconciliation.
- There's no integration, so invoices are exported from SAP as PDFs or a CSV or Excel file and uploaded.
- Receipts have to be posted back in SAP by hand, and at 200 invoices a month even a minute each is over three hours of posting.
- Payouts arrive gross, so the amount in the bank equals the invoices paid, with no fees to back out before posting.
- Switch off SAP's dunning for uploaded invoices, or a customer can get two reminders for the same invoice with different interest figures.
What stays in SAP
Nothing about the way you run the business has to move. If SAP holds your service contracts, engineers' time, parts, purchasing, the general ledger, VAT and management reporting today, it still does after you start using Adfin. You keep raising invoices in SAP, because the job, the contract price and the parts used are all recorded there.
The same goes for any accounting system. Adfin isn't an accounting package or an ERP, so your chart of accounts, payroll, purchase ledger and year-end stay exactly where they are. Firms on Xero or QuickBooks get a two-way sync, so invoices come across and payments go back without anyone posting them. On SAP, which has no integration with Adfin, the link runs through a file upload instead.
What Adfin takes on
Adfin covers the part of the process that faces your customers, from the moment an invoice is issued to the moment the cash is matched to it:
- A payment link on every invoice, so customers can pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, pay by bank, bank transfer or direct debit.
- Chasing over email, SMS and WhatsApp on the schedule you set, sent from your own email domain and branded as your business.
- Statutory interest and fixed compensation on overdue invoices if you want to charge them, plus instalment plans for customers who need to pay in parts.
- Reconciliation that matches each payment to its invoice, including underpayments, overpayments and payments with no reference.
- Payouts every weekday, paid in full, with Adfin's fee invoiced separately.
Adfin's AI agents can also do the judgement parts of chasing: adjusting timing and channel to how each customer tends to pay, sending a statement when someone goes quiet and sorting incoming queries, all within rules you approve.
How invoices get from SAP to Adfin and back
The routine is the same whether you run SAP Business One, S/4HANA or a job system built in-house:
- Raise invoices in SAP as usual once the job is signed off.
- Export the batch as PDFs, or as a CSV or Excel file with customer, invoice number, amount and due date.
- Upload it to Adfin, which puts a payment link on each invoice and starts your chasing schedule.
- Customers pay however suits them, and direct debit customers are collected under their mandate.
- When payouts land, record the receipts in SAP against the invoice numbers.
Plan for step 5. Adfin knows an invoice is paid, but SAP won't until someone posts it. Because payouts arrive gross, the amount in the bank equals the invoices paid, so there are no fees to back out before posting. At 200 invoices a month, even a minute each is over three hours of posting, so check that against how your team already handles receipts from the bank feed.
If you move chasing to Adfin, switch off SAP's dunning for the invoices you upload. Otherwise a customer can get a dunning letter and an Adfin reminder for the same invoice in the same week, possibly with different interest figures. Decide which system talks to customers and which one holds the record, and stick to it.
When running the two side by side makes sense
It tends to be worth it when some of these are true:
- Dunning letters are the only chasing you have, and they only go out when someone remembers to run them.
- Customers ask to pay by card, pay by bank or direct debit, and you don't offer those today.
- You'd like reminders by SMS or WhatsApp as well as email.
- Your invoice volume keeps the posting step to a few hours a month.
It's probably not the right set-up if you need payment status to appear inside SAP in real time with no manual step, or if your volume is high enough that posting receipts would need extra staff.
Common questions
Does Adfin integrate with SAP? No. Invoices reach Adfin by export and upload, and your team records receipts back in SAP.
Will I have to change how I invoice? No. You keep raising invoices in SAP, and Adfin works from the files you upload.
Will SAP show an invoice as paid when the customer pays through Adfin? Not automatically. Adfin matches the payment on its side, and SAP shows it as paid once someone posts the receipt.
Does Adfin replace Xero or QuickBooks? No. It works alongside them with a two-way sync, and your ledger, VAT and reporting stay in your accounting software.
Can I use Adfin with a bespoke job-management system? Yes, as long as it can export invoices as PDFs or a spreadsheet. The upload and posting steps are the same as for SAP.
Should I keep SAP's dunning running as well? It's simpler to pick one. Running both on the same invoices risks a customer getting two reminders with different figures.
Sources
- SAP Learning - Generating the Cash Flow, Aging and Dunning Letters Reports (SAP Business One) (accurate as of September 2026) https://learning.sap.com/courses/handling-accounting-in-sap-business-one/generating-the-cash-flow-aging-and-dunning-letters-reports-1
- Adfin - Accept payments (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.adfin.com/accept-payments
- Adfin - Credit control (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.adfin.com/credit-control
- Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of September 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
