Chester Grey Accountants

Getting paid was all headaches and hassle – now it’s automated and admin-free

Chester Grey is an Auckland based accounting firm serving clients that range from multi-million dollars in revenue to ‘mom and pop’ type small businesses.

“We’re what I’d call a well serviced boutique accounting firm,” said Stephen Grey, Director, Chester Grey. “We’ve always made a point of using technology to drive efficiencies and make the lives of our clients and staff easier. Almost nowhere is that more important than when it comes to paying us, which is why we use GoCardless.”

Small changes used to cause major headaches

Most Chester Grey clients pay a monthly fee to access year-round advice and spread the cost of their annual returns and management accounts. The firm is also a Xero Platinum Partner and Certified Advisor so it pays clients’ Xero subscriptions and on-charges those fees in its own invoices. 

“When clients paid by manually setting up automatic payments via their bank, it became a real headache whenever we, or Xero, reviewed prices,” said Carole Smith.

That could take several months for some clients, and each month they under paid generated yet more admin and became another issue to chase up.

A whole week of payments admin, saved

That all changed as soon as Chester Grey moved to GoCardless, which integrates with Xero to automatically schedule and collect clients’ payments by Direct Debit on the day invoices fall due – whether it’s a recurring invoice or a one off.

Now, whenever prices change, all Chester Grey needs to do is update clients’ invoices and notify customers of the change. Everything else is taken care of by GoCardless, with no need for any action from clients.

“GoCardless saves up to a week of time spent on payments admin each month, at least, which can be spent on more strategic work,” said Stephen. “No more having to work out who has underpaid and by how much, and then chasing them on the phone or email to update their payments and catch up on arrears.”

Easy to use and a dream for clients

Carole handled the GoCardless implementation herself and found it straightforward.

“Really, it was a breeze,” said Carole. “There’s plenty of guidance online, and between articles on the GoCardless website and the help button it was easy to figure things out.”

Today, 85% of Chester Grey’s repeating invoices are paid by GoCardless, which Stephen says is just as great for clients as it is the company – and not only because it saves them the hassle of manually updating their payments.

"At the same time, it works so well that not a single client has raised a concern or complained about the change," added Stephen. "Usually, if you change a system, you get at least one or two that’ll ring up and say, ‘I liked it the way it was before!’ but that hasn’t happened."

Gearing up for growth 

Stephen and the team are now gearing up for growth and are pleased that they won’t have to factor payments into their plans.

“Our in-house capabilities are quite sophisticated and we're starting to target more sophisticated clients,” he said. “Knowing how they’re going to pay us is all taken care of makes onboarding those clients a lot easier.”