Yes, having them control the amount and timing of the transfer is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I can easily set up direct debit, but it has led to too many erroneous and poorly timed withdrawals.
In Sweden we have an e-billing system where your bills show up as PDFs in your internet bank and then you hit accept or deny (and they go in a queue to pay on either the due date or a date you pick). You can also set it to auto-accept new bills from the same company if you want to emulate how direct debit works (with the added benefit of having a period of time between the bill coming in and the due date to verify the amount is right)
If you want to stick to paper bills, they all have the receiving account number and customer reference number so they can be paid manually via a transfer.
In the Netherlands, we had that for some time but sadly it didn't catch on with the utility companies, housing associations, insurers etc., and has been discontinued. I would love such a central place to manage my bills and pay them on my own time instead of using direct debit which most of them nudge us to use now by introducing costs for other payment methods.
In the UK, larger companies usually allowed a choice of the date the payment went out. (After all, they'd rather not deal with failed payments.)
I keep enough money in my accounts (partly because of this) that I don't really care about it, but I'd be surprised if they don't use the preferred date.
