By industry · Singapore
Professional services
A firm that bills by invoice has a payments problem that no shop has: the money arrives days or weeks after the work, from a company rather than a person, in amounts large enough that the fee is a line somebody notices. Almost everything written about merchant acceptance assumes a counter. This is the version for businesses that do not have one.
In short
- Every payment is card not present by default — priced and disputed differently.
- Your customer is often a company, which means a corporate card, which often means Amex.
- A payment link on the invoice beats a bank transfer chase. You do not need a website for one.
- Large single payments make the descriptor and the engagement letter your dispute evidence.
- If you hold client money, that is a separate matter from your own fee account. Do not mix them.
The shape nobody writes about
A retail merchant has the customer, the card and the goods in one place at one moment. A professional services firm has none of that: the work is delivered over weeks, the invoice goes out afterwards, the payer is a finance department rather than the person you dealt with, and nobody is ever standing in front of a terminal.
Three consequences follow, and each of them is a decision most firms make by accident:
- Every transaction is card not present. That is a different cost band and a different dispute position from a counter sale — see how fees are built. It is not avoidable; it is just worth knowing before the first statement.
- The payer is usually a company. Corporate cards skew heavily towards Amex, so a firm that has not enabled it is quietly declining the payment method its clients' finance teams prefer.
- The amounts are large. One disputed invoice is not one lost coffee. What protects you is the engagement letter and the delivery record, kept as a matter of routine.
Getting paid on the invoice, not chasing it
The default in Singapore professional services is a bank transfer against an invoice, and it works until it does not: the transfer is made late, made partially, made without a reference, or not made at all until somebody sends a third reminder. Every one of those is admin time nobody bills for.
A payment link on the invoice removes most of it. The client pays from the invoice itself, on a page your provider hosts, and the payment arrives already matched to something. You do not need a website for this — see taking payment without a website.
The firms that get the most out of this are the ones with many small invoices rather than a few large ones — agencies, bookkeepers, small practices. If you send four invoices a year, the transfer is fine and this is not your problem.
What to keep, so a dispute is short
A card-not-present dispute is decided on the evidence submitted inside the window, and for professional services the useful evidence is unglamorous and already exists in most firms:
- The engagement letter or signed scope, showing what was agreed and on what terms.
- The deliverable and its date — the filed return, the sent report, the completed matter.
- The correspondence where the client accepted the work or the invoice.
- The invoice itself, matching the amount charged.
Firms that keep those four as a habit spend very little time on disputes. Firms that assemble them after a chargeback arrives spend a great deal.
The descriptor matters more here than almost anywhere. A finance officer reconciling a statement six weeks later, who did not commission the work and has never heard your trading name, will query anything they cannot identify. Make the statement line look like the firm on the invoice.
Client money is not your money
Some professional services firms hold money on behalf of clients, and where they do, the obligations around it are set by the profession's own rules rather than by anything a payment provider decides. This page does not go near those rules and should not.
The one payments-side point worth making: the account your fees settle into and any arrangement for client money are separate questions, and they should be answered separately, with your own professional body's requirements governing the second. If a provider gives you a confident answer about the second, be careful — that is not theirs to give.
A short setup list
- Enable Amex, or decide deliberately not to. Corporate payers are the reason.
- Set the descriptor to the name on your invoices and check it on a real statement once.
- Put a payment link on the invoice template rather than bank details alone.
- Confirm what reporting you get, because your bookkeeping runs on it — settlement and reconciliation.
- Agree the GST treatment of the fees with your accountant before the first quarter closes — GST and card payments.
Questions merchants ask
Do I need a website to accept card payments for a professional services firm?
No. You need a merchant account. Payment can be taken through a link or hosted checkout page that your provider hosts, sent with the invoice — the client pays from the invoice and the payment arrives already matched to it.
Why does my firm keep being asked about American Express?
Because your payers are companies, and corporate cards and expense programmes skew heavily to Amex. A firm that has not enabled it is declining the method its clients' finance teams prefer — which for large single invoices is an expensive thing to do quietly.
Is it more expensive to take card payments by invoice than at a counter?
Yes, structurally. An invoice payment is card not present, which sits in a different cost band and carries a dispute position the counter does not. It is worth setting against what chasing transfers costs in unbilled admin time, which is the comparison firms usually skip.
What evidence do I need if a client disputes an invoice paid by card?
The engagement letter or signed scope, the deliverable and its date, the correspondence where the work or the invoice was accepted, and the invoice itself. Kept as a routine these take minutes; assembled after a chargeback arrives they take days, and the window does not wait.
Can my fee settlement account also hold client money?
Those are separate questions and the second is governed by your profession's rules, not by a payment provider. Keep them separate, and take the client-money answer from your professional body rather than from anyone selling you acceptance.
Talk to us about your counter
Uniweb Pay is a Singapore merchant acquirer, licensed by MAS as a Major Payment Institution (No. PS20200612). Tell us what you sell and who pays you, and we will tell you whether we are the right fit — including when we are not.