Lloyds is preparing to launch Get Paid, a free invoicing and payment collection tool built directly into its business banking app and online portal. It is one of several moves this month showing UK banks folding accounting features into the account itself, and for small businesses that chase late payers, it is worth understanding before you rely on it.
The pitch is simple. You create an invoice, send it with a secure payment link, watch whether it has been paid, and let the system send automatic reminders. Lloyds says there is no extra charge for business banking customers. The technology comes from BankiFi, a fintech that builds embedded accounting for banks.
Why banks are doing this now
Late payment is the problem everyone recognises. Government research suggests nearly half of small businesses say customers pay slower than agreed terms, and late payment is often blamed for thousands of business closures each year. A tool that puts the payment link on the invoice and chases automatically tackles a real cash-flow pain.
For the bank, the incentive is just as clear. If your invoicing lives in their app, so does your money movement, and you are less likely to leave. That is not a reason to avoid it, but it explains why these tools are appearing everywhere at once, alongside tokenised sterling and other embedded finance features.
The bookkeeping trap
Here is the catch. A bank app is not your accounting system. If invoices are raised in the banking app but your books live in Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, you can easily end up with:
- Invoices that exist in one place and not the other
- Payments received but not matched to an invoice
- Credit notes and refunds that never reach your bookkeeper
- Duplicate entries when someone re-keys an invoice by hand
With HMRC’s Making Tax Digital rules widening, records that do not reconcile cleanly are a growing headache at year end. Before switching on any free invoicing tool, decide which system is the single source of truth, and check whether the tool exports or syncs to it.
Practical steps
Keep one master record. Pick where invoices are created and treat everything else as a copy.
Test with one customer first. Send a real invoice, take payment, and confirm it lands correctly in your books before moving everyone across.
Watch for payment-link fraud. Invoice fraud is a favourite of criminals, and a familiar payment link is exactly what they imitate. Tell customers what a genuine link from you looks like, and never change bank details by email alone. Our recent piece on invoice and mandate fraud covers the warning signs.
Get the terms in writing. Automated reminders only work if your payment terms are clear. If your invoices and contracts use vague wording on due dates and late fees, tools cannot fix that. Clear standard terms from a source like Smallprint make chasing a late payer far easier.
Should you use it?
If you are a sole trader or a very small business with simple invoicing, a free tool inside the account you already use may be perfectly good, and cutting one subscription is a genuine saving. If you have staff, stock, VAT complexity or multiple bank accounts, a proper accounting package will still do more, and the bank tool is best treated as a convenient extra rather than a replacement.
The takeaway: free is attractive, but only if it feeds your real accounting records. Before Get Paid reaches your account, decide where your invoices will live, and make sure nothing important sits only in a banking app.
