A bank mandate is a document that lets a bank know who is authorised to access an account, which can include additional parties besides the account holder. If you want to access your clients’ bank accounts, this may be something to consider, especially given the ever-increasing demand on accountancy firms for outsourced payment services.
Once a bank mandate has been ratified, you will be given your own login and key fob with which to access your clients’ bank accounts, removing the need to share banking logins.
Most banks also offer a number of different access types. You might be given permission to set up payments for your clients, for example, but not to authorise on their behalf, or you may only be given permission to view the bank account in question. These permissions can be tailored to the needs of each client, making a bank mandate a flexible option.
As you scale your business and deal with more and more clients, things can quickly become complicated. You might, for example, have two clients who use the same bank, so you now have two different logins and key fobs to keep track of. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which you enter the wrong details too many times and end up locking a client’s account.
Realistically, your clients will use a number of different banks, each with their own payment flows and permissions. Additionally, there is no universal standard for payment files, as each bank accepts a slightly different format. All of this adds up to extra training for your staff, and an even greater risk of making an embarrassing mistake.
Setting up a bank mandate can also involve a lot of paperwork for both you and your client, as well as an average wait time of two to three months. Again, as your client list grows alongside your business, setting up multiple bank mandates can quickly become a time-consuming hassle.
Rather than asking each of your clients to set up a bank mandate, you can simply invite them to your Telleroo partner portal. Once your client accepts your invitation, you can begin setting up payments, which they can then approve and fund, and you’ll also be able to import banking files directly from your accounting platform.
To take advantage of this, and many more features, simply sign up for a demo account here, and try it for yourself. Telleroo is a unified way for accounting firms to make payments on behalf of small business clients.
You are probably aware that keying in payments individually is a nightmare and that you wish you could just import a pay run for your business or clients.
This is now possible using a pay run importer like Telleroo that works with most accounting software files and banking files.
Import payments, schedule and fund, without the hassle of manually keying in your payments.
