GoCardless, a bank payment company, has deepened its multi-year strategic alliance with Sage, a global provider of accounting, financial, HR and payroll software for small and mid-sized firms, by embedding its open banking feature Pay by Bank into Sage Business Cloud Accounting.
The move adds instant one-off account-to-account payments to the Direct Debit services GoCardless already provides through the partnership. As a result, Sage customers throughout the UK and Ireland can now give their own clients a straightforward, card-free route to settle bills online in real time.
With a Pay by Bank button placed directly on Sage invoices, smaller firms gain a quicker method for collecting charges that fall outside recurring Direct Debit arrangements, such as initial setup costs, additional services or account top-ups. Since funds move straight between bank accounts, there is no danger of payments failing because of lost or out-of-date card details, helping firms safeguard their cash flow by cutting first-attempt payment failures. Bypassing conventional card networks also lowers the cost of individual transactions by an average of 54%, it said.
The integration additionally removes much of the manual bookkeeping workload. When a customer settles an invoice, the payment status flows automatically back into the Sage dashboard and reconciles the outstanding balance, sparing finance teams hours of data entry or cross-checking transactions against paper bank statements.
GoCardless director, global partnerships Tom Metcalfe said, “Sage is a long-standing partner and their launch of Pay by Bank underscores our shared commitment to helping businesses thrive. For small businesses managing tight margins, high credit card fees and delayed payments are a massive burden on resources. This expanded partnership solves that pain point directly by combining automated recurring collections and instant open banking payments, allowing teams to protect their cash flow and keep card costs down.”
Sage fintech partner strategy and business development director Paul Fairless said, “For small businesses, every hour spent on admin is time taken away from serving customers and growing the business. By bringing Pay by Bank natively into Sage Business Cloud Accounting, we’re closing the loop between invoice creation and real-time bookkeeping. It means payments can be reconciled automatically, reducing manual work and giving businesses a clearer view of their cash flow.”
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