Card, bank transfer or cash: let clients pay the way that suits the job

There is a quiet assumption baked into most "get paid online" tools: that every client wants to pay by card, and that card is always the right answer. On domestic building work it often is not. A homeowner settling a £15,000 stage payment usually does it by bank transfer. A smaller cash job gets handed over in notes. And plenty of clients are happy to tap a card for the deposit and transfer the rest. Forcing all of that down one rail just means the awkward ones get paid late — or off the books, where you lose the record.

The better approach is to let the invoice carry whichever methods make sense for that job, and to keep the paperwork tidy whichever one the client picks.

Pick the methods per invoice, not per business

How you get paid is rarely a fixed, business-wide decision — it shifts job by job. A new client you have not worked with before: take the deposit on card so it clears instantly. A long-standing customer on a big extension: bank transfer, no fees, no fuss. A quick repair for a neighbour: cash. The tool should bend to that, letting you turn card, bank transfer and cash on or off for each invoice you raise, rather than making you run everything the same way.

Bank transfer, without the "what were your details again?" text

The friction in bank transfer is never the transfer — it is the client not having your details to hand. Put your account name, sort code and account number directly on the invoice, with a clear reference, and that back-and-forth disappears. The client pays from their banking app, tells you it is done, and you confirm it the moment the money lands. No card fees, no waiting on a third party, and a dated record of the whole thing.

Cash, but on the record

Cash is not the enemy of good bookkeeping — untracked cash is. If the client can flag "paid in cash" against the invoice and you confirm receipt, you keep every advantage of cash while still having a clean, dated record that the invoice was settled. That record is what turns into a proper handover document and keeps your accounts honest at year end.

The record is the point

Whatever the method, the thing that protects you is the same: an invoice that visibly moves from sent to paid, with who confirmed it and when. Card reconciles itself; bank transfer and cash get flagged by the client and confirmed by you; and either way a receipt goes to the client automatically. Six months later, if anyone asks what was paid for that stage, the answer is one tap away rather than a scroll through a bank statement.

Getting started

In Builders Ready you choose the payment methods on each invoice — card, bank transfer, cash, in any combination. Card lands in your own account; bank transfer shows your details on the invoice; cash is flagged and confirmed. Every confirmed payment emails the client a branded PDF receipt. You can try it free for 14 days — raise a real invoice, offer the methods that suit the job, and let the client pay the way they actually want to.