They grew up in different places. Collecting by direct debit needs a sponsoring bank and a place in the Bacs scheme, so it became a payments business, while chasing invoices needs only access to your ledger and email, so it became a software business. The result is that many UK businesses run one tool to take the money and another to chase it, and the gap between them shows up most when a collection fails.
In this article
The short version
- Direct debit needs a sponsoring bank and a Service User Number, so it grew up as a payments business.
- Chasing needs only your ledger and email, so it grew up as software sold by subscription.
- When a collection fails, the bank tells your direct debit provider, not your chasing tool.
- Unsigned mandates and reminders for money about to be collected also fall between the two.
- Ask whether a failure changes what the customer is sent next, without anyone rekeying it.
Two products with different starting points
A direct debit is an instruction from your customer to their bank, allowing you to collect varying amounts from their account as long as you give advance notice. To collect under it, you need a Service User Number (SUN), the identifier the Bacs scheme issues to organisations that collect by direct debit, and a sponsoring bank willing to stand behind your collections. That bank carries the risk of refund claims under the Direct Debit Guarantee, so it looks hard at who it sponsors.
You probably don't have your own SUN; most small and medium businesses never apply for one. Instead you collect through a direct debit bureau or payment provider, which holds the scheme membership and the bank relationship and runs your collections under its own number. So the direct debit market grew out of payments companies: businesses whose core job is moving money, priced per transaction.
Credit control software came from the other direction. Sending a reminder needs no bank's permission. If a tool can read your sales ledger and send an email, it can chase, so the category grew around accounting software, with integrations, templates and schedules, and it's usually sold as a monthly subscription.
Each product still reflects where it started. Most direct debit providers collect on your mandates but won't chase the invoices that aren't on one: GoCardless, for example, collects by direct debit and bank payment and doesn't send reminders, take cards or add late fees. Most chasing tools can tell your customer what they owe and give them a link to pay, but can't take the money from their account on the 5th, because that's the part that needs a bank's permission. Accounting software is in the middle: Xero, for example, offers direct debit through GoCardless or Stripe rather than collecting it itself.
What falls between the two
The awkward moments are the ones that involve both sides at once.
Say one of your collections fails. When a direct debit is returned or a mandate is cancelled, the customer's bank sends the notice to whoever holds the mandate, which is your direct debit provider. Your chasing tool is looking at your ledger, where the invoice simply hasn't been marked paid. It doesn't know the mandate was cancelled at the bank three days ago, or whether the account was empty for a day, so it sends the same reminder it would send anyone, or nothing, until someone updates the ledger by hand.
Or a customer hasn't signed their mandate. Your provider knows the mandate is outstanding and your chasing tool knows an invoice is due, but neither asks the customer to sign, or to pay another way in the meantime, unless you connect the two.
Or your chasing tool, which can't see your collection schedule, emails a customer about an invoice that's due to be taken by direct debit on Friday.
Each of these is small on the day, but they tend to land on the same person in your team every week. In Adfin's own data, invoices set to collect automatically, which usually means a mandate is in place, are paid 98.0% of the time with 0.9% going overdue, against 90.8% paid and 5.3% overdue where the customer is asked to pay on demand. The gap reflects the mandate as much as the software, but it shows where the work is: in the invoices that aren't on a mandate, or that fall off one.
What a joined-up setup looks like
Whether you join the two yourself or use one platform, these are the questions that separate a joined product from two products with a shared login:
- Does a cancelled mandate or a failed collection change what the customer is sent next, without anyone rekeying it?
- Can a failed direct debit be paid another way, such as by card or a payment link, from the same request?
- Are customers who haven't signed their mandate chased to sign it, and offered another way to pay meanwhile?
- Do the invoice, the mandate and the reminder history sit in one record, so a payment stops the chasing the moment it lands?
- Does every payment, by whatever method, reconcile back to the right invoice in your accounting software?
Adfin was built to answer yes to each of those. It takes direct debit, card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, pay by bank and bank transfer, chases over email, SMS and WhatsApp from your own email domain, and matches every payment to its invoice in Xero or QuickBooks. A failed direct debit is retried for free and then the customer is asked to pay another way, and unsigned mandates are chased. Its collection agents decide the timing and channel of each reminder for each customer, within rules you set and approve, so the follow-up on a failed collection starts from what actually happened at the bank.
Common questions
Why can't a credit control tool take direct debit payments itself? Collecting by direct debit needs a Service User Number and a sponsoring bank, which most chasing tools don't have. They send reminders and payment links, and leave the collection to a payment provider.
Does GoCardless chase unpaid invoices? No. GoCardless collects by direct debit and bank payment, and doesn't send reminders, take card payments or add late fees.
Do I need my own Service User Number to take direct debit? No. Most businesses collect through a provider that runs collections under its own number, and some let you show your own business name on statements for a monthly fee.
What goes wrong when collection and chasing are in separate tools? Mostly the handover after a failure. The bank's notice goes to your direct debit provider, so your chasing tool may not know a mandate was cancelled or a collection returned.
Can one platform do direct debit and credit control together? Yes. Adfin collects by direct debit, card and bank payment and chases unpaid invoices in the same platform, reconciling to Xero or QuickBooks.
Is it cheaper to buy them separately? Not usually once you count both bills and the time spent keeping two systems in step. Direct debit is priced per transaction and chasing tools usually by monthly subscription, so you pay on two models for one job.
Sources
- Bacs - Direct Debit (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.bacs.co.uk/bacs-schemes/direct-debit/
- Bacs - Glossary (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.bacs.co.uk/resources/glossary/
- GoCardless - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://gocardless.com/pricing/
- Xero - Online invoice payments (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.xero.com/uk/campaign/online-invoice-payments/
- Adfin - Credit control (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/credit-control
- Adfin - Next-generation direct debit (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/direct-debit-payments
