Marsh & Vale Plumbing & Heating
A fictional sole-trader heating engineer, showing the deep version of the build: Xero raises the invoice, the link sends itself, the payment marks its own invoice paid — and reminders go out so he never has to ask twice.
Where the Time Was Going
A fictional business, drawn from a real and common shape — and the payment admin it was carrying.
Marsh & Vale is a fictional one-man plumbing and heating business that already did the right things: invoices raised properly in Xero from the van, sent the same day. Getting paid was the broken half. Customers who wanted to "sort it now" read card numbers down the phone; everyone else got bank details by text and paid when they remembered. Evenings went on matching the bank feed by eye and writing chase messages that felt awkward to send to people he might work for again.
- About half of UK small-business invoices are paid late (Xero data) — for him that meant several evenings a month writing chase texts and matching the bank feed
- UK businesses affected by late payment average 86 hours a year of staff time chasing it (DBT / Small Business Commissioner, 2025) — for a sole trader, those hours are unpaid overtime
- Card numbers over the phone are MOTO payments: the riskiest way to take a card — remote-purchase fraud cost the UK nearly £400m in 2024 (UK Finance) — and they pull his phone and notepad into PCI scope
- Transfers arrived as "BOILER" or nothing at all, matched to invoices by memory
What We Could Realistically Touch
An honest map of the existing setup — because what a third-party developer can and cannot access decides what should be promised.
Already in Place
- Xero — invoicing and the bank feed, used properly
- A smartphone and a tablet in the van — customers reached by text and WhatsApp
- His own business bank account; no website to speak of
What We Worked With
- Xero’s public API, authorised by him in one click with his own login — the owner-consented integration every major accounting platform supports
- His own Stripe account — payments settle as Marsh & Vale, to his account
- Customer mobile numbers already sitting on each Xero invoice
What Stayed Untouched
- Card numbers — he never sees, hears or writes one again; the hosted page takes them
- His banking — settlement lands in the same account it always did
- His customer records — they stay in Xero; the payment layer carries references and amounts, not his books
A sole trader on Xero is, honestly, the best-served business in the country for this work: the API access is real, owner-authorised, and revocable by him at any time. That is what makes the deep version of the build a fair promise here — where a business runs closed or offline software instead, we say so and build the lighter version, like the other studies on this page.
From Payment Page to Payment System
The page is the visible part. The build is everything that stops payments needing to be chased, matched and remembered.
- The branded invoice page (the demo below)
- Auto-send: approving an invoice in Xero texts the customer a payment link
- Auto-reconcile: a payment marks its Xero invoice paid the moment it lands
- Polite automatic reminders at day 3, 7 and 14 — written once, sent forever
- A weekly summary: what’s paid, what’s due, what’s getting a reminder
- Apple Pay and Google Pay first, card form as the fallback
Marsh & Vale Plumbing: thanks for having us out today. Your invoice INV-2153 (£120.00) is ready — pay securely at pay.marshandvale.co.uk/i/2153
18:11Plumbing & Heating
Marsh & Vale Plumbing: just a gentle reminder — invoice INV-2148 (£410.00) is still open. Pay any time at pay.marshandvale.co.uk/i/2148
09:00 · day 3Nothing to match by hand — the reference did the work.
Tuesday, 6:10pm. The valve is fixed at R. Whittaker's. Press play to follow the invoice home.
A simulated, user-controlled walkthrough — fictional data and a simulated accounting connection. No real systems are involved and nothing plays until you press play.
Try the Interactive Demo
A working page in the Marsh & Vale Plumbing & Heating branding — a fictional brand, running in test mode only.
Boiler Service & Thermostat Replacement
- Labour — annual service & thermostat fitting
- £240.00
- Parts — programmable room thermostat
- £82.00
- VAT (20%)
- £64.40
- Total due
- £386.40
Any bother with the new thermostat, just give us a ring.
Available on the live page — use the card form in this demo.
Demo cards: 4242 4242 4242 4242 succeeds, 4000 0000 0000 0002 declines
Payment Received
£386.40
Invoice INV-2147 is settled. A receipt has been emailed to you.
Funds settle directly to Marsh & Vale's own bank account.
Your Card Was Declined
No charge has been made. Check the card details, or try a different card.
Marsh & Vale Plumbing & Heating is a fictional brand created for this demonstration — it is not a SettlePay client and no real payments are taken.
The Part the Customer Never Sees
Every payment page comes with the management layer behind it — statuses, reminders and reconciliation that run themselves.
An illustrative view of the payment-management layer — fictional names and statuses, shown to demonstrate the workflow.
What That Adds Up To, Honestly
Quantified from published UK industry figures — and labelled as the model it is, not passed off as a client result.
Reminders, matching and "did that transfer come in?" checks now run themselves — the 86-hours-a-year national average was coming out of his evenings.
Xero’s own data: invoices offering an online payment option are paid up to twice as fast as those without one.
The hosted page removes him from the riskiest category of UK card fraud — and from the PCI burden that phone payments carry.
How These Figures Are Modelled
- ~30 invoices a month on 14-day terms, with roughly a third previously needing at least one chase — consistent with Xero data that about half of UK small-business invoices are paid late.
- UK businesses affected by late payment average 86 hours a year of staff time chasing it — DBT / Office of the Small Business Commissioner research, 2025.
- "Paid up to twice as fast" with online payment options — Xero platform data, cited as Xero’s.
- Remote purchase (card-not-present) fraud: just under £400 million lost in 2024, the largest category of UK card fraud — UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2025. A hosted payment page also keeps card data away from the business entirely, with PCI DSS handled by the processor.
Like the business itself, these figures are illustrative: a scenario modelled on published UK industry averages, not measured results from a real client. Your own numbers will depend on your volumes and on how you get paid today.
Now Try It on Your Own Numbers
Drag the sliders to your business. The figures recompute live, costed against the same UK data.
On top of the time: invoices with an online payment option are paid up to twice as fast (Xero data) — and not one card number is read down the phone.
A model, not a measured result: what your hour is worth and time-per-item are yours to set, costed against published UK figures. Your own savings depend on your volumes and how you get paid today.
How It Connects
Behind the page, every payment carries its reference — an invoice number, tenancy, lot or mandate — so it is matched back to the business's records automatically, reminders go out on schedule instead of from someone's evening to-do list, and the books update themselves. Funds settle directly from the processor to the business's own bank account; SettlePay never holds funds. Payments are processed by FCA-regulated partners.
What Would This Look Like on Your Numbers?
Tell us how you get paid today — bank transfers, cheques, card numbers over the phone — and what systems you already run. We'll map what we could realistically automate for you, and what it would save.