Panel firms: connect before 1 Aug 2026

Paid at booking. Never invoice again.

Set up Home Payments once, in around five minutes, and the money side of every job runs itself. The client pays when they book. Your fee is shown and locked at that moment. The payout lands on a schedule you can see — no invoice raised, nothing to chase.

Follow the money
~5 min
Home Payments setup
At booking
Fee shown & locked
On schedule
Automatic payouts
1 Aug 2026
Panel connect deadline

How Connect works

Five steps from claim to first payout.

You are not setting up a merchant account from scratch. Stripe Connect handles identity and business verification directly — we point your firm at it, and everything after that is automatic.

1

Claim your firm

Verify your RICS listing — or register your firm if it isn't listed yet — so there is a Home.co.uk account to attach payments to. About two minutes if your firm isn't claimed. This is the same account that runs your Bookings CRM, diary and Otto reports, so money lands next to the jobs it belongs to.

2

Turn on Home Payments — around five minutes

From your Payments tab, tap Connect. Stripe takes your business details and the bank account you want payouts to reach, directly in its own onboarding flow, and verifies you against its own checks — not ours. Nothing for our team to manually process, nothing to post, nothing to scan. Most firms are through it in around five minutes.

3

Your checkout goes live

From that moment, every booking pays at the point of booking through a branded, Stripe-verified card checkout. The client sees your firm's name, the survey they're buying and the price, and the statement descriptor you set is what appears on their bank statement. No deposit-now-balance-later, no "cheque on the day".

4

The fee locks the moment the job books

The fee for any job is shown to you at booking, and it locks right there — the rate you saw is the rate deducted at payout, never adjusted afterwards. From 1 August 2026 we no longer set one flat rate per firm: four levers move your rate, and whichever rate applies on the day is the one that locks in. The full maths lives on the rate ladder on the Join page.

5

Payouts land on your schedule

Funds move automatically once the job is complete and the payment has cleared, on your Stripe payout schedule. Every payout is itemised back to the jobs that make it up, so a Friday deposit never needs a spreadsheet to decode. Follow one booking through the rail below to see each stop.

The payout rail

Follow the £400 from booking to bank.

One Level 2 booking, start to finish. Four stops — and no invoice sits between any of them.

The client pays

At booking, by card — before you set foot on site

£400 paid

Stripe-verified checkout

Cleared through your firm's own Connect account

Payment cleared

Held against the job

Sitting with Stripe until the job completes

£400 held

The payout lands

On your schedule, itemised, minus your locked rate

Payout sent

Payout received — itemised to the job

The £400 above is an illustrative Level 2 booking. What reaches your bank is the job fee minus the rate you saw locked at booking — never adjusted afterwards, never invoiced, never chased.

Verified by Stripe, not by paperwork

We never touch your money.

Home Payments runs on Stripe — the same infrastructure that powers card payments for businesses worldwide. Your firm gets its own Connect account; we get no bank forms to lose and no cheques to bank.

Stripe verifies you directly

Identity and business checks happen inside Stripe's own onboarding, against its own requirements. Nothing for our team to manually process — which is exactly why setup takes minutes, not weeks.

Your funds sit with Stripe

When a client pays at booking, the money clears into your firm's own Stripe Connect account and is held there against the job. It flows to your bank on your payout schedule — it never sits in a Home.co.uk account.

Every penny visible

Every payout is itemised back to the transactions that make it up, and every transaction links to its booking. When your accountant asks what a deposit was, the answer is one click — not a morning of matching references.

What actually changes

The evening the chasing stopped.

Invoicing is not just admin — it's the low hum of jobs you've finished but haven't been paid for. Connect removes the hum.

A card terminal with a softly glowing screen beside an espresso cup on a dark walnut table, warm lamplight and a pink sky at the windows

1 · At booking

The job pays itself

The client books, pays by card, and the fee you'll be charged is locked in the same breath. You find out about the job and the money in the same notification.

An open laptop and a steaming mug on a kitchen table at dawn, soft pink light through the sash window

2 · The morning after

No invoice run

The end-of-month ritual — raise, send, chase, re-send, reconcile — simply isn't there. The money side of every completed job is already in motion.

A surveyor leans against his kitchen counter at dusk, smiling at his phone, kettle beside him and a pink evening sky through the window

3 · Payout day

It just lands

The payout arrives on your schedule, itemised back to every job in it. You check your phone with the kettle on — not your debtor list with a sinking feeling.

Two sides of the same account

Panel work in. Private work too.

The same Connect account handles both: platform bookings pay at booking automatically, and a payment link covers any instruction that came in by phone, email or word of mouth.

A payout you can read

Every payout shows the jobs inside it, each with the rate that was locked when it booked. The week runs, the payout day arrives, the money lands — and the itemisation means your bookkeeping is a glance, not a reconstruction.

Payment links for everything else

A private valuation, an off-platform instruction, a repeat client who rang the office — generate a one-off link, send it by text or email, and they pay by card with no account needed. It lands in the same dashboard as everything else.

Amounts shown in the cards above are illustrative.

Mission control

One dashboard for everything money.

Payments isn't just a Connect switch — it's your firm's money hub end to end. Six surfaces, one screen, zero spreadsheets.

The real payments overview in the surveyor dashboard — Stripe Connect panel with a branded checkout preview and available, pending, monthly and lifetime totals

Payouts

See every payout due, its schedule and the jobs behind it — no waiting on a bank statement to work out what a payment was for.

Transactions & refunds

A full transaction history per job, with refunds issued from the same screen when a job is cancelled or a client needs money back.

Payment links

One-off card payment links for private and off-platform instructions — send by text or email, no client account needed.

Customers

Every payer gets a customer record — payment history, contact details and linked bookings, so repeat clients don't mean re-entering everything.

Disputes

If a client raises a card dispute, it shows up in the dashboard with the evidence Stripe needs from you — handled without leaving your account.

Statement branding

Set the descriptor your firm's name shows as on the client's card statement, so a payment to you doesn't look unfamiliar when they check their bank.

A panel job, start to finish

A booking's money, hour by hour.

What one connected panel job looks like from the firm's side. Notice what's missing: every step where you'd normally think about money.

Tue
09:12

The booking lands — paid

A Level 2 booking arrives in your Bookings CRM with the customer, the property and the payment already attached. The client paid by card at booking; your fee locked in the same second. There is no deposit call to make.

Tue
09:15

Terms go out with the booking

Your terms of engagement are sent and tracked through Documents & e-sign, and the visit slots into a diary that was already live in Calendars & Requests. Still nothing for you to do about money.

Thu
10:00

Inspection day — nothing to collect

You carry out the survey as normal. The payment is already cleared and held against the job, so there's no card machine in the car, no "cheque on the side" conversation on the doorstep, and no invoice to draft that evening — just the report to write, which is Otto's department.

A surveyor lifts the brass lion knocker of a dark period front door at sunset, a pink sky over the terrace behind her
Payout
day

The payout lands, itemised

On your Stripe schedule, the payout arrives with this job — and any others that completed — itemised inside it, each minus the rate locked at its own booking. Total time you spent on the money side of this job: none.

The honest comparison

Connect vs invoicing by hand.

No made-up percentages — just what each step of the money actually looks like on either side.

The money step With Connect Invoicing by hand
Who raises the invoiceNo one — the client pays at bookingYou, after every job
Chasing late paymentNothing to chase — already paidReminder emails, awkward calls
When you know your feeAt booking — locked, never adjustedWhen the remittance finally arrives
Refunding a cancelled jobOne click from the transaction recordManual bank transfer + a note somewhere
Card payments for private workPayment links, includedA separate card provider, separately reconciled
A card dispute arrivesIn the dashboard, with the evidence listBetween you, the client and the bank
The client's bank statementYour firm's name — you set itWhatever the transfer reference says
Month-end reconciliationItemised payouts, job by jobMatching bank references by hand

The trade

The more you run on our tech, the less it costs us to support you.

Home Payments — the rail the levers run on ① Live diary ② Pipeline in our CRM ③ Reports written on Otto ④ Fast turnarounds

Every firm that books through the CRM, keeps its diary live, writes reports on our tech and takes payment through Connect is cheaper for us to support than one we're chasing for invoices, spreadsheets and manual reconciliation. That is the whole logic behind the four-lever rate ladder: the more of the job that runs on our tech, the less it costs us to serve you — and the less we need to take to cover that cost. See the full maths on the rate ladder on the Join page.

Payments is the piece most firms can flip today, and it's the rail the four levers run on — payment has to flow through the platform for the ladder to apply. Connect once, and every job booked afterwards needs no invoice, no chasing and no manual reconciliation on either side. Run your pipeline through the Bookings CRM and keep your diary current in Calendars & Requests — both feed the same ladder that payments sits underneath.

Panel firms · deadline

From 1 August 2026, panel payment flows through the platform.

We pay quicker this way — and we will not accept invoicing for panel jobs booked after that date. Connecting is a five-minute job that most firms finish the day they read this. Do it once, and the deadline becomes someone else's problem.

See the rate ladder

Getting started

Connected before your next brew.

Free with every verified Home.co.uk surveyor listing. No payments subscription, no setup fee — and the 1 August 2026 panel deadline handled in one sitting.

Step 1 · ~2 min

Claim your firm

Search for your firm by name or postcode — most RICS-regulated firms are already listed, so you just claim yours. Not there? Register it in the same panel.

Step 2 · ~5 min

Turn on Home Payments

From your Payments tab, tap Connect. Business details and payout bank account go straight to Stripe, which verifies you against its own checks — not ours.

Step 3 · Done

Paid on schedule

Every booking flows straight through: the client pays at booking, your payout follows your Stripe schedule, and nothing needs invoicing or reconciling by hand.

FAQ

Common questions about Payments

Getting set up

How long does Home Payments setup take?

Around five minutes for most firms. From the Payments tab in your account, tap Connect and Stripe takes your business and bank details directly — it verifies you against its own checks, not ours, so there is nothing for our team to manually process and nothing to post or scan.

Do I have to connect payments?

From 1 August 2026, yes, for panel work. Every panel firm needs Home Payments set up so payment can flow through the platform — we will not accept invoicing for panel jobs booked after that date. Setup takes around five minutes and Stripe verifies your business details directly.

What do I need before I can connect?

A verified Home.co.uk surveyor listing — claim your firm (or register it) first so there is an account to attach payments to, which takes about two minutes. Then have your business details and the bank account you want payouts to reach ready for Stripe's onboarding form.

Does it cost anything to connect?

No. Connecting Stripe is free with every verified Home.co.uk surveyor listing. There is no monthly payments subscription — the only cost is the fee for each job, which is shown to you at booking and locked at that moment.

Getting paid

When do I get paid?

Payouts run on your Stripe Connect schedule — funds move automatically once the job is complete and the payment has cleared. Every payout, and every transaction that makes it up, is visible from the Payments dashboard in your account. There is no invoice to raise and nothing to chase.

Where does the money sit between the client paying and my payout?

With Stripe. The client pays at booking through a Stripe-verified checkout, the payment clears into your firm's own Stripe Connect account, and it is held there against the job until your payout runs on schedule. The money never sits in a Home.co.uk bank account.

How do refunds work?

From the same dashboard. If a job is cancelled or a client needs money back, you issue the refund from the transaction record in your Payments tab — no bank transfer to arrange and no separate paperwork to reconcile afterwards.

What happens if a client raises a card dispute?

It appears in your Payments dashboard with the evidence Stripe needs from you — the booking record, the report delivery and your correspondence are all in the same account, so assembling a response does not mean digging through email. You handle the dispute without leaving your account.

Your fee

What does it cost per job?

The fee for any job is shown to you at the point of booking, and it locks the moment the job is booked — the rate you saw at booking is the rate deducted at payout, never adjusted afterwards. From 1 August 2026 we no longer set one flat rate per firm; four levers move your rate, and whichever rate applies is locked in at booking.

Can my fee change after a job is booked?

No. Your rate is set the instant the job is booked and does not move afterwards, whatever else changes about your account that month. If your rate improves next week, the new rate applies to new bookings — jobs already booked keep the rate they locked.

How does payments relate to the rate ladder?

From 1 August 2026 four levers set your rate: a live diary, a pipeline running through our CRM, reports written on our tech, and fast turnarounds. Stripe Connect is the rail those levers run on — payment has to flow through the platform for the ladder to apply, which is why connecting before 1 August matters. The full maths is on the rate ladder on the Join page.

Private work & clients

Can I take card payments for my own private work?

Yes. Once you are connected, you can generate a payment link for any private instruction — off-platform work included — and send it straight to the client by text or email. They pay by card, the payment lands in the same Connect account, and it shows up in your Payments dashboard alongside your platform bookings.

Does my client need an account to pay a payment link?

No. A payment link opens a card checkout in their browser — they pay by card and that is it. No app to download, no account to create, nothing to register on their end.

What shows on my client's bank statement?

Your firm — you set the statement descriptor from the Payments dashboard, so a payment to you shows under your firm's name rather than an unfamiliar one. Fewer confused clients, fewer accidental disputes.

Payments works alongside the rest of the operating system — see how it fits with Bookings CRM, Calendars & Requests and Documents & e-sign.

More tools

Explore the rest of the surveyor toolkit

Otto

AI auto-mode RICS report writer

Dictate on-site, upload photos, get a finished, fully-routed Level 2 or Level 3 report in minutes.

Level 2 Report Writer

RICS Home Survey Level 2

Field-by-field RICS Level 2 reports with inline AI suggestions, image gallery, comparables and one-click branded PDF.

Level 3 Report Writer

RICS Building Survey Level 3

Comprehensive Level 3 Building Survey reports with deep technical sections, custom rating scales and AI legal-adviser notes.

Surveyor Comparable Tool

Sold + rental comps in one click

Auto-fetch sold and rental comparables within a 1-mile radius, weighted valuation range, branded PDF appendix for any survey.

Snagging Report Builder

New-build defect tracker

Build professional new-build snagging lists with location-based defect tracking, photos, urgency, status and PDF export.

AI Dictation

Voice-to-fields routing

Speak observations on-site; AI routes every sentence to the correct RICS field with confidence scores and replayable audio.

Image AI

Auto-categorise survey photos

Upload up to 200 photos; vision AI tags each to the right RICS element, rates condition, extracts defects and picks the best 35 for the report.

Style Profile

Your firm's writing fingerprint

Teach the AI to write like your firm — upload past reports, the AI extracts a 25-dimension writing fingerprint and applies it to every future auto-mode report.

Property Viewer

Pre-survey property intelligence

Look up any UK property and instantly see EPC, energy renovation costs, broadband coverage, environmental risks (flood, radon, mining, landfill), invasive plants, sales history and listing status — all in one dashboard.

Property Data Drawer

EPC + risks + comps in one panel

Open the property data drawer in any report to see EPC, environmental risks, listing history and comparables — copy-paste ready.

Standard Phrases

Reusable language library

Personal, firm-wide and industry-preset phrase libraries — insert with one click and use to train AI routing for voice consistency.

RICS Standards Check

Home Survey Standard compliance pass

One-click AI compliance pass against the RICS Home Survey Standard — flags missing content, weak ratings and structural gaps before you sign the report.

Bookings CRM

Every job, one pipeline

The surveyor CRM built into the platform — Homemove jobs land pre-paid with customer and property attached, enquiries convert to bookings, and the whole pipeline runs from one screen.

Calendars & Requests

A diary that fills itself

Per-surveyor diaries with live availability — keep your dates current and we book real jobs straight in, with inbound availability requests answered in a tap.

Mail

The firm inbox that knows the job

A full mail client scoped to your firm — @home.uk purpose mailboxes and per-user addresses, with every thread landing against the booking it belongs to.

Documents & e-sign

Signed before you set foot on site

Terms of engagement sent with the booking, tracked from sent to signed, chased automatically and stored against the job — no more chasing clients to sign.

Telephony

The firm number that never misses a job

A phone system built into the platform — take calls in the browser, forward to mobiles, ring the whole team at once, and keep a shared call log with optional recording.

Customer portal

Your client, never in the dark

A white-label portal under your firm's branding and domain — booking status, reminders and secure report delivery, so customers stop asking where things are.

Website builder

Built by asking, not designing

A firm website built and edited by talking to Inigo — brand and theme sync, a real section library, custom domains via CNAME, and enquiries that land in your pipeline.

Campaigns

Win the next job from the last one

Firm email campaigns with per-recipient tracking — sends, opens, clicks and read time — built on consented lists with one-click unsubscribe handled for you.

Reviews & badges

Proof that wins the next booking

Reviews earned on real completed jobs — scored by the homemover, shown on your directory profile — plus embeddable trust badges that carry the proof to your own website.

Performance

See the pipeline, beat the clock

Firm analytics without the spreadsheets — pipeline conversion, team performance and your own turnaround speed, the fourth lever of your rate.

Inigo

The AI assistant for surveyors

Ask in chat, dictate by voice, or click any element for contextual help — grounded answers on valuations, sales history and market data, inside the platform.

AI Training

Teach it your standard

Upload past reports and press Train — the AI learns your firm's defect language, ratings philosophy and phrasing, and Otto writes with it on every job.

Environmental Report

Every risk, one report

A one-click environmental risk report for any property — flood, ground stability, environmental factors and planning constraints, delivered as a PDF.

Free directory listing. Pay-as-you-go toolkit.

Every RICS-regulated surveying firm gets a verified profile, direct bookings from home.co.uk consumers and the surveyor toolkit included with the account. No subscription. No pay-per-lead. No commission on the job. Pay only when you use the premium AI tools.

2 minute setup · Verified against the RICS register · Trusted UK property platform since 1995