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Understanding Pay by Bank Why Consider Offering Pay by Bank? How Clio Payments Facilitates Pay by Bank Transactions for Law Firms Conclusions on Pay by Bank
Prompt payment is vital for the success of any business, and streamlining the billing process for clients is key. Consider the advantages of integrating Clio’s Pay by Bank solution into your business’s payment options to enhance efficiency and client satisfaction.
Pay by Bank is a secure electronic payment system that provides clients with a swift, convenient, and seamless payment experience, facilitating faster payments for your law firm. However, it’s crucial to fully understand your payment options before making a decision.
In this section, we’ll cover the basics of Pay by Bank payments, including the primary benefits for businesses and clients, and how Clio simplifies the process for law firms. Notably, Pay by Bank payments are now free, with our pricing revamped from 0.5% to 0% per transaction.
(Schedule a demo today for those eager to explore how Clio Manage and Clio Payments can enhance your firm’s efficiency and facilitate quicker payments.)
Understanding Pay by Bank
Clio’s Pay by Bank involves bank-to-bank transfers within the UK. There are two primary types of bank-to-bank transfers:
- Direct Debit: Clients authorise a third party to withdraw funds directly from their bank account.
- Direct Credit: Funds are deposited directly into a recipient’s bank account, akin to a bank transfer.
Why Consider Offering Pay by Bank?
Introducing Pay by Bank can unlock several benefits for both businesses and customers. Here’s why it’s worth considering:
Quick and easy payments
When it comes to determining which types of payment options you want to offer your customers, convenience and speed are priorities.
Think about traditional payment methods like physical cheques. Paying by cheque is a tedious process that requires the customer to fill out and mail a cheque manually. Even if your client pays promptly via cheque, it still takes time to mail, receive, and process it. There are plenty of opportunities for a cheque to get lost or require time-consuming manual error corrections.
In comparison, Pay by Bank payments are easy for clients to send and for law firms to receive in just a few clicks. This straightforward process makes it easier for clients to pay you and makes it faster for you to receive payment.
Note: Typically, Pay by Bank payments take 4-7 working days to clear.
Saving time—while making money
The saying “time is money” seems to find fresh meaning when we think of the opportunities for today’s businesses when it comes to payment options.
From a business perspective, the ease of Pay by Bank doesn’t just make it easier for clients to pay you faster; when you spend less time chasing down or processing payments, you free up more time to focus on revenue-generating tasks. In this way, easier payments can do more than just bring in revenue more quickly—it can also help support business growth.
Looking at the legal industry, Clio’s 2021 Legal Trends Report underpins this connection—the report found that growing firms were 37% more likely to use online payments.
Giving clients the payment options they want
Today’s customers, regardless of industry, expect convenience and flexibility when interacting with businesses. When it comes to payments, this convenience often means electronic payment options—but not everyone likes or wants to pay via debit card or credit card.
Accepting Pay by Bank gives clients more options to pay, which can enhance their overall experience with your business. The better the client experience, the better chances you have of repeat business, positive word of mouth, and referrals.
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How Clio Payments Facilitates Pay by Bank Transactions for Law Firms
Clio Payments simplifies the payment process. This allows law firms to offer multiple payment options including debit or credit card, Pay by Bank, and digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. To learn more about payment options, visit our help centre.
Paying a Bill via Pay by Bank
Paying bills by Pay by Bank is simple for clients when law firms use Clio Payments within Clio Manage.
Using Clio Payments, clients can securely access their funds directly from their bank account, through Clio’s integration with Plaid—a trusted service used to securely authenticate bank account information—and transfer those funds to make an instant payment towards a bill, a payment plan, or a client account.
Receiving Pay by Bank Payments
The process of accepting a Pay by Bank payment for a bill via Clio Payments is straightforward:
- Once your law firm has set up Clio Payments, you can accept Pay by Bank from clients. Do this by either sharing a bill electronically or having your client process their payment through your secure payment link.
- When you share a bill electronically through Clio via email, your client will receive a secure payment link. In the secure payment screen, your client can select “Pay by Bank” as their payment method.
- Once your client enters and verifies their bank account details, depending on who they bank with, they will then see their bank account balances. This helps reduce the risk of incurring Not Sufficient Funds (NSF) fees due to insufficient funds when making their payment.
- Finally, your client can then confirm their payment amount and complete the transaction.
When the payment is complete, your client will also be able to securely save their details for future use. This will allow you to process future payments on their behalf. Clients can save or edit their preferred payment methods in Clio Manage at any time (even if there isn’t a bill being paid) for added flexibility. (Note: This will only give you the ability to process future payments through the Plaid integration on your client’s behalf. You, Clio, or anyone else will not have access to your client’s bank account details.)
Whenever a Pay by Bank payment is processed in Clio, your client will receive an email confirmation with the details.
Creating a payment plan
If your law firm offers payment plans to clients, Pay by Bankbcan provide even more flexibility and convenience for clients. Customers in the UK using Clio Payments can accept Pay by Banks Payments using a payment plan.
Conclusions on Pay by Bank
No matter how excellent your work is, if you aren’t getting paid promptly, your bottom line will suffer. It’s important to make it easy and convenient for your customers to pay you for your services. Accepting Pay by Bank payments can help your business get paid faster, while also giving your customers a better payment experience.
Simple and straightforward electronic payment options like Pay by Bank give clients the ability to pay via bank transfer. Receiving Pay by Bank payments benefits clients by saving them time and making it easy to pay. This also helps businesses get paid faster and with low processing fees.
For law firms using Clio Payments, accepting Pay by Bank is just one of the convenient online payment options that can be offered to clients (along with online debit and credit card payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay), which means that they can offer a better client experience.
Accepting Pay by Bank through Clio Payments is also cost-effective, which is especially important for small law firms.
How long do Pay by Bank payments take to clear?
Pay by Bank payments are processed quickly, but they are not instant. Typically, Pay by Bank payments take 4-7 working days to clear, depending on variables like the time of day when a transaction is initiated and the bank’s processing time.
We published this blog post in October 2023. Last updated: .
Categorized in: Legal Accounting
