Take control of your cash flow with Bottomline’s powerful Direct Debit solutions. Whether you're collecting fixed or variable payments, subscriptions, or one-off bills, our automated platform makes it simple, secure, and stress-free.
Let us take care of your payments – so you can grow your business.
Regardless of how long your business has (or hasn't) been collecting money via Direct Debit, we're here to help.
Workflow automation reduces manual effort and errors through automated notifications and collections, configurable exception handling with smart retries and alternative payment links, and automated application of Bacs account updates.
Our Confirmation of Payee for Business* helps ensure you collect from the correct account holder. Not only helping Bacs scheme compliance but also reducing the risk and costs of misdirected and fraudulent Direct Debits.
Sign up customers online, in your call centre, or anywhere in between using our APIs or brandable Direct Debit form. With built-in account holder verification, every interaction is quick and secure.
Although Direct Debit scheme rules clearly outline how to validate and verify customer details during onboarding, the data coverage of legacy solutions has made this a challenge for some businesses.
Bottomline has enhanced our Direct Debit Management (DDM) service to provide customers with the ability to access Confirmation of Payee (CoP) through the Bottomline CoP for Business service enabling verification of account holders at the point of capture or change.
Failed Direct Debit payments are a fact of life. UK businesses typically experience failure rates of 1–6%, depending on sector, with an average of 2.3% across all industries. Each failure can cost more than £50 to resolve, even before considering the impact on cashflow or customer relationships.
Receivables Automation with Bottomline Direct Debit Management helps you take control. With intelligent workflows and configurable automation, you can repair failed payments quickly, consistently and at scale.
Key Capabilities
Automate timely customer notifications via email or export for out-sourced distribution
Automatically update amended bank details
Reduce payment delays and manual chasing with automated resubmission or an alternative payment request email with a secure, convenient payment link
Verify account holders across over 99% of UK bank accounts, plus address validation
Capture new mandates over the phone or on your website, whichever best suits you and your customer
Our Receivables Automation solution gives you the option to generate payment links for one-off collections
Store and secure sensitive customer data off your network
Set up the users you need to manage your Direct Debit process
Create, verify and retrieve mandate data via API allowing your business to smoothly integrate Direct Debit Management and Confirmation of Payee for Business into your workflows and your Direct Debit onboarding journey.
Use our hosted webforms to provide an off-the-shelf customer facing webpage, allowing you to outsource capture, verification and management of your Direct Debit data.
Post capture, our enhanced user interface allows your receivables team to manually add, update and verify your Direct Debit mandates.
Hit the ground running with our feature-rich user interface to manage your Direct Debits process end-to-end, and keep sensitive data off your infrastructure too. Alternatively you can build to our APIs for deeper integration into your systems. Whatever suits your way of working.
Better Visibility and Control Over Your Cash Flow
Secure and Compliant with Industry-Leading Security
Cloud-Based Platform with Flexible Access and Ease of Use
Our facilities-managed Direct Debit service caters to businesses that do not have a Service User Number (SUN) or prefer not to use theirs. This outsourced service grants indirect access to Bacs, enhancing cash management capabilities, reducing costs, and improving cash flow visibility.
To run your business you need to know what cash is coming in. Our Direct Debit Management dashboard shows you, at a glance, what payments are on the horizon.
For any business collecting payments by Direct Debit, there are a number of requirements, dictated by Bacs, that need to be met on an on-going basis. And the rules change over time so it isn’t a case of “file and forget”.
Whether it's Direct Debit Compliance, assistance with your AUDDIS Application Form or insights into Direct Debit scheme, we're here to support you.
A range of available options to help streamline and improve your Direct Debit management.
Advance notice is one of the protections provided by the Direct Debit Guarantee. Customers must be notified when a Direct Debit mandate is set up, or when payment amounts or collection dates change.
Bottomline Direct Debit Management (DDM) automates advance notification and collection by email, in line with your agreed notice period. Emails can be sent using your own domain, increasing brand recognition and customer confidence. A paper based print and mail service can also be automated where required. DDM’s exceptions feature additionally automates alternative payment request emails with embedded links, improving payment recovery through convenience and reducing manual chasing by your finance team.
If your collections data sits within multiple systems such as a CRM platform, Membership, Billing or ERP system, then you’ll need to bring this together to produce a single collection file. We can take the hard work out of this by introducing automation.
PTX Data Processing will monitor for new files, extract the data from multiple platforms and reformat it into a single file so that you are ready to import this into your Direct Debit Management (DDM) platform.
If your business receives a high volume of AUDDIS, ADDACS or ARRUDS reports or has multiple Service User Numbers (SUN), then you’ll know how difficult it can be to maintain an accurate database of customer bank details.
If you need to distribute these reports to internal stakeholders to review then our solution, PTX Report Processing, can help to automate this process. We can monitor for new Bacs reports, merge duplicate files, and distribute them to internal or external stakeholders.
Bottomline’s Direct Debit service is for any business looking to automate and streamline its recurring payment collections. Businesses of any size and in any industry can start collecting Direct Debits from their customers with us.
By starting to collect Direct Debits from your customers, you can save money on card fees, avoid the hassle and cost of dealing with cash or cheques, and easily manage any late payments.
Direct Debit is perfect for businesses that want to collect regular payments from customers—like a monthly subscription or charitable donation. It’s also suited for businesses with ongoing customer relationships where regular invoicing is required.
This is the unique identifier that all businesses use to collect Direct Debit payments from their customers. This number is stored to record each transaction and is used by banks to find the business name displayed on the bank statement of the Direct Debit payer.
No, you don’t. As a Direct Debit provider, Bottomline can arrange one for you as part of our service, so you can start collecting Direct Debits from your customers immediately.
Yes, you can easily change your Direct Debit payment provider. If you want to switch to Bottomline, simply use our contact form, and our team will guide you through the process.
Yes, Bottomline Direct Debit is designed specifically for both one-off and recurring payments.
You can access the money as soon as the Direct Debits have cleared—normally three days after collection.
There is no charge for changing the number of Direct Debits your business collects from your customers.
Where the mandate is still 'live' you can attempt to re-try the unpaid collection. You can configure PTX to do this automatically up to three times in 30 days. In addition, PTX has the capability to email a convenient link for alternative payment, reducing effort and delays.
Yes, of course. Depending on how many Direct Debits you wish to collect from your customers, Bottomline can arrange a SUN (Service User Number) and register it to your company, ensuring your company name will appear on your customer’s bank statements and all of your Bacs reports.
No, you don’t. As a company regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Bottomline Payment Services can arrange your managed Direct Debit collection service for you directly so you can start collecting Direct Debits from your customers immediately.
Yes, you can. Simply use our APIs to automate your workflows and synchronise data across your ERP, CRM, finance and other systems.
Facilities-Managed Direct Debit is provided by Bottomline Payment Services Ltd (Registered in England no: 3986072), who are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations for the provision of payment services with FCA registration number 616279 and whose registered office is at 1600 Arlington Business Park, Theale, Reading, RG7 4SA.
Let's discuss how we can help
Streamline your payment collections process and achieve greater cashflow visibility.
