What is AUDDIS? It’s simply how the payments industry refers to the Automated Direct Debit Instruction Service, a system which takes paper and pain out of the way Direct Debit Instructions are exchanged between the biller and the customer’s bank; Direct Debit Instructions, of course, are the first step in collecting regular Direct Debit payments.
Challenge
Rokeby School is a leading independent preparatory school in Kingston, Surrey. Its small finance team is responsible for the smooth collection of £4.5m in fees every year. But the established paper-based process for setting up Direct Debit Instructions was neither efficient nor error-free, something that added to the workload of the team as well as affecting relationships with customers.
Finance manager Tara Chasteau said: “The old system was painful, hugely time-consuming and a very manual process. We had to send the mandate to the parents, wait for it to be returned, read the document, scan it, key in the information, and then post the thing out to the bank. We’d see around 30% failing on set up, from going missing in the post to having the wrong details – something as simple as a transposed digit in the account number meant the process ground to a halt.
“The result was cross parents and delayed income – we were either chasing replacement or corrected forms or explaining to them that fees they thought had been dealt with actually hadn’t been paid, neither of which looks great from a customer perspective. The whole process was clunky, inefficient, and not at all client-friendly.”
Solution
Tara felt moving to AUDDIS would bring harmony back to the school / parent relationships and take some pressure off the finance team at the same time. She put her case to the school board and received their full endorsement.
Working with the HSBC, the school’s sponsoring bank, and its bureau ClearDebit, the migration was completed in just three months, from application to testing and go-live; training the finance team on the new system took only 20 minutes.
Benefits
Tara said: “It’s all so easy now. Instead of manually keying in data, with the risk of errors, we’re simply uploading the information and not relying on the post for it to reach the bank. If a mandate is rejected, we are aware and can address the problem quickly – all of the information is now at our fingertips, and we have sight of everything.
“Moving to AUDDIS has saved us time, enabled us to be far more efficient, and has given us more control and security. On top of that, this system now looks and feels so much more professional for our parents.
“Why would you not want that?”
Why should you switch, too?
There are many benefits in moving to AUDDIS. It’s:
- Faster – set up and first payment collection is quicker through AUDDIS
- Smoother – AUDDIS reduces chances of keying errors which have a detrimental impact on smooth payment collection; it also avoids DD Instructions being lost in the post
- Cheaper – AUDDIS cuts the number of payments returned unpaid; and unpaids cost businesses valuable time to resolve (multiples can affect cashflow)
- Better – a better customer experience, with reduced potential for hiccups in payment collection and the resulting customer dissatisfaction.
In addition, moving to AUDDIS is the first step on the path to Paperless Direct Debit, with all of its environmental, business, and customer benefits. www.bacs.co.uk/services/bacs-schemes/direct-debit/services/paperless-direct-debit/
To find out more, go to: www.bacs.co.uk/services/bacs-schemes/direct-debit/services/automated-direct-debit-instruction-service/
