Adfin bills its fee separately. It pays out every weekday at the full amount your clients paid, and its fee arrives as its own invoice. Stripe and GoCardless take their fees out before paying you, so each payout lands short of what clients paid and someone has to split the fees out before the bank line reconciles.
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The short version
- Adfin pays out the full amount clients paid every weekday and sends its fee as a separate invoice.
- Pay by bank arrives the same day, cards and bank transfer in two working days and direct debit in three, with no charge on failed payments.
- Stripe and GoCardless deduct their fees before paying out, and GoCardless also charges its fee on payments that fail.
- Net payouts mean splitting fees out through a clearing account every day, a step gross settlement removes, although every receipt is still matched to a matter.
- With any of the three, a disputed payment is recovered from a later payout, and for law firms your COFA still has to assess where payments land.
How Adfin pays out and bills its fee
If your cashier spends part of every week working out why a card payout doesn't match any of the bills it covers, the settlement model is usually the cause. Adfin settles gross. If a day's payouts cover £6,400 of client payments, £6,400 reaches your bank, and Adfin invoices its fee separately.
Payouts are made every weekday. Pay by bank payments arrive the same day, card and bank transfer payments two working days later, and direct debits within three working days of the collection date. The fee follows Adfin's published pricing of 1% + 20p per successful payment, with the percentage capped at £4 for bank payments and direct debit, so a bank payment costs at most £4.20. Direct debits over £2,000 carry an extra 0.3% on amounts above £2,000, and failed payments aren't charged.
Disputes work differently. If a client disputes a payment, the amount goes back to them and Adfin recovers it from your next available payout.
How Stripe and GoCardless take their fees
Stripe puts each card payment into your balance with its fee already deducted. What reaches your bank is a lump sum of many payments, net of those fees.
GoCardless groups each day's collections into one payment and pays it out minus its transaction fees. It also charges its fee on every payment submitted, including those that fail, and adds VAT to its fees.
What gross settlement changes for your accounts team
Take one day. Three clients pay bills of £1,800, £2,500 and £640 by card.
With a net-settling provider, the payout arrives as £4,940 less that day's fees, a figure that matches none of the three bills. Your team downloads the provider's report, posts £4,940 of receipts to three matters, posts the fees to an expense code, and checks a clearing account is back to zero. Then it does the same tomorrow.
With Adfin, the payout is £4,940. The three receipts post straight to their matters, and Adfin matches each payment to its bill, including part payments, overpayments and payments with a missing reference, syncing both ways with Xero and QuickBooks. If all three paid on standard cards, Adfin's fee invoice shows £50.00 for them, and it goes through the purchase ledger once, like any other supplier bill.
Your team still matches every receipt to a matter under either model. Gross settlement takes away the fee split on every payout and the clearing account that holds it.
Client money and the provider's fee
For a law firm, the settlement model also affects client money accounting. Money a client pays on account of costs before you've delivered a bill is client money under rule 2.1(d) of the SRA Accounts Rules, and client money has to be kept separate from the firm's own money.
A net payout complicates that. If it lands in client account, it is already short by the provider's fees, which are the firm's cost, and those fees may relate to payments from several clients. Your accounts team then has to work out how each difference is recorded against each client ledger, and your five-weekly reconciliation has to account for it.
With gross settlement, the amount that arrives equals what each client paid, and the provider's fee is a separate bill the firm deals with as a business expense.
Chargebacks need the same thought whichever provider you use. Stripe, GoCardless and Adfin all recover a disputed payment from a later payout, which may carry other clients' money, so agree with your accounts team how a recovery would be recorded.
Settling gross doesn't decide where money lands, whose name the receiving account is in, or whether it reaches client account promptly. Those depend on how your firm sets up its payments and on the provider's terms, and whether any arrangement, Adfin's included, fits your accounts procedures is for your firm and its COFA to assess. Adfin's payment services are delivered by FCA-regulated partners Adyen N.V., Stripe Payments Europe Ltd and Tink Financial Services Ltd.
The same references help at the chasing stage. Adfin's AI Customer Agents can chase unpaid bills over email, SMS and WhatsApp on a schedule your firm sets, from your own email domain, with a payment link that carries the matter and bill reference so the receipt matches when it lands. Your team sets the rules and approves what goes out.
Common questions
Does Adfin deduct its fee from payouts? No. Each payout is the full amount of the payments in it, and Adfin invoices its fee separately. If a client disputes a payment, the disputed amount is recovered from a later payout.
How often does Adfin pay out? Every weekday: same day for pay by bank, two working days for cards and bank transfer, and within three working days of the collection date for direct debit.
Does Stripe pay out gross or net? Net. Stripe deducts its fees from your balance before paying it out.
Does GoCardless take its fees before paying out? Yes. GoCardless pays out each day's collections in one lump sum minus its fees, and charges its fee on failed payments too.
Why does gross settlement make reconciliation easier? Each bank credit equals the client payments inside it, so receipts post at the amount paid and the fee is posted once from the provider's invoice.
Does gross settlement make a provider suitable for client money? Not on its own. Where payments land, how client money is kept separate and how it is reconciled also depend on your firm's set-up and the provider's terms, and your COFA should assess them.
Sources
- Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
- Adfin Help Centre - What happens if my customer raises a dispute (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.adfin.com/en/articles/15555834-what-happens-if-my-customer-raises-a-dispute
- Stripe - Balances and settlement time (accurate as of October 2026) https://docs.stripe.com/payments/balances
- GoCardless Support Centre - Receiving a payout (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.gocardless.com/hc/en-gb/articles/17485089478940-Receiving-a-payout
- GoCardless Support Centre - Payout deductions (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.gocardless.com/hc/en-gb/articles/17143453091868-Payout-deductions
- SRA - SRA Accounts Rules (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/accounts-rules/
