Key takeaways
- Know your provider's funding cut-off to the hour, not the day.
- Agree the shortfall process before you need it.
- Faster Payments cover is worth paying for if your inflows are lumpy.
Payroll is the one payment that cannot be late. Everything about how a provider handles the 72 hours before pay date tells you how they will behave in a bad month.
Questions to settle at onboarding
- What time, on which day, must cleared funds be with you?
- What happens if funding lands two hours late — is the run held, or pushed through?
- Is there a Faster Payments fallback, and what does it cost per run?
- Who calls whom when the account is short, and how quickly?
The provider you want is the one who has a written shortfall procedure before you have ever been short.
Building the buffer
Most businesses we work with hold one pay run plus 15% in a segregated account, replenished weekly. It is unglamorous and it removes the single most stressful recurring conversation in a finance function.
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