Tips for Using the DD Service

If you decide that you want to collect your rents from your tenants using the DD service, here are some top tips for getting it to work smoothly.  The DD service is provided to us by GoCardless.

Set it up as early as possible

The Direct Debit service begins after the tenant has approved the mandate.  If you send the request at the last minute, the tenant might not approve the mandate in time and the first rent might be missed.  If you know you are using the DD service, send the request as early as you possibly can to ensure everything is set up in time.

Make changes as early as possible

Once a payment has been submitted to BACS, it is not possible to change the invoice.  As such, you will need to record changes in rent amount, rent date, or expire a tenancy as early as possible.

GoCardless use the due date to collect the rent

When you have set up your tenancy, check the payment schedule carefully before you send out the DD request and make sure the due dates are correct.  Edit the tenancy if necessary.  It is much easier to edit the payment schedule before the DD mandate is approved than after.

Multiple approvals

Some bank accounts require more than one approval before a DD can be set up.  However, the mandate shows as ready after the first approval.  If the Due Date has passed and the status still shows as Pending, get in touch with the tenant and check to see if they have any other people who still need to approve the DD mandate

Active and inactive mandates

You can tell which mandates are active and which aren't by looking at the Tenant Manager > Tenancies page.  Look in the right hand most column next to the Payment Period

No DD logo. There is no mandate set up for this tenancy.

Light grey DD logo. A mandate has been set up, but it is still to be approved by the tenant.

Black DD logo. The mandate is se up and ready to go.

DD Status
No status. This DD has not been submitted to BACS yet

Pending. The payment has been submitted to BACS, but has not yet been collected.

Collected. GoCardless has taken the payment from the tenant's bank account, but has yet to pay it out.

Paid Out. The payment is now in your bank account, the transaction has been written and is ready to be reconciled.  Pay outs usually occur two working days after the payment has been collected and most commonly happen between mid day and 3 pm.

Failed. GoCardless were unable to collect the payment.  This is almost always due to lack of funds.

Cancelled. The payment was cancelled either by you or the tenant's bank.

In the event of the payment failing, you will receive an email from GoCardless notifying you that he payment has failed.  At this point, you can either retry the payment, or convert the invoice to non-DD so that you can record a payment manually, if it was made by another means.  The rest of the payments will be unaffected and the mandate will continue as normal unless cancelled.