Payments-as-a-Service for Accountants: Beyond Bookkeeping
Key Takeaways
Payments is the last financial workflow still handled the old way. Accountants have moved from record-keeping to advice, but payments are still often manual, done on the client’s bank portal and chased over email.
Many firms already support payments informally, and it’s probably unbilled. Reminding clients about due invoices, confirming supplier bank details and tracking what’s been settled is real work that rarely shows up on an invoice.
For firms new to payments, it’s a new service line without starting from scratch. Because Payments lives inside Dext, there’s no unfamiliar system, no new banking relationship and no full team retraining.
A defined service beats ad hoc favours. Building the offer around approvals, payment runs and reconciliation makes it repeatable, visible and billable.
Clients value the mental load removed as much as the time saved. As Georgina Doyle of Raviollie puts it, the benefit is “brain space”, which strengthens the case for a full-service advisory relationship.
The role of the accountant has been shifting for years, from record-keeper to advisor, from bookkeeping to the broader financial operations of a client's business. Payments are one of the few remaining pieces of that puzzle still handled the old way: manually, on the client's bank portal, chased over email.
Some firms are already doing pieces of this informally: reminding a client an invoice is due, confirming a supplier's bank details, keeping half an eye on what's been settled. It's real work, and right now it's probably going unbilled.
Other firms haven't touched payments at all. Their clients pay suppliers on their own, and the firm's involvement ends once the books are done. For these firms, payments is a brand-new service line, and one that doesn't require starting from scratch. Dext is already the platform you know and trust, so you can add a new service to your offering without adopting an unfamiliar system or building a new capability from the ground up.
Either way, Payments in Dext gives you a way to turn this into a proper payments-as-a-service offering: a defined, repeatable service built around approvals, payment runs, and reconciliation, rather than ad hoc favours squeezed in between bookkeeping tasks. Because it lives inside Dext, adding payments doesn't mean a new system, a new banking relationship, or retraining your team from scratch. It's the bookkeeping workflow you already know, extended one step further.
Clients feel the difference too. As one growing business using the service described it:
"It's not just about the time saved; it's about the brain space saved too." — Georgina Doyle, Raviollie
Offering payments as a service isn't just a convenience for clients. For firms already supporting payments informally, it makes that work visible (and billable). For firms new to payments, it opens up a fresh revenue stream built on a platform they already trust. In both cases, it's a genuine growth lever for firms ready to expand what "full-service" means.
FAQs
Payments-as-a-service is a defined, repeatable offering where an accounting firm manages a client’s supplier payments through approvals, payment runs and reconciliation. It extends the firm’s bookkeeping role into the client’s wider financial operations.
Yes. Many firms already remind clients about due invoices, confirm supplier bank details and track settled payments without billing for it. Packaging this as a formal payments service makes the work visible and billable.
No. Payments in Dext sits inside the platform firms already use, so adding it doesn’t require a new system, a new banking relationship or retraining your team from scratch.
It opens a new revenue stream built on a platform the firm already trusts. It also expands what “full-service” means for clients, who benefit from less admin and less mental load.
