Simple and Affordable Online Payments with @GoCardless
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on February 7, 2012
A few months ago we launched a pilot with GoCardless. At the time we only let customers who have been with us for a year or more use the service.
Today they went live and announced via TechCrunch that they have backing from Accel and Y-Combinator (no small feat!).
So now it’s available to all KashFlow users.
To re-cap: GoCardless lets you collect money directly from your customers’ bank accounts.
There’s no application process and no need for a merchant account; no setup fees, no monthly charge, no hidden charges.
In short: Any UK business can now use Direct Debits to collect payments.
There have been a number of improvements made to the service based on the feedback received in the pilot.
The two most important changes are:
- 7 day holding period. You only have to wait 7 days to get your money
- The only charge you pay is 1% of the transaction value with a maximum (not minimum) charge of £2 for each transaction
The GoCardless service is seamlessly integrated into KashFlow Accounting Software so you can start using it straight away. (If you don’t yet have a KashFlow account, get a 60 day free trial here.)
Here’s how you get up and running:
Setting Up
The first thing you need to do is configure your account. Log in to KashFlow and click the Settings tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on GoCardless. Follow the on-screen instructions to set it all up. This only takes 2 minutes.
If you’re not currently using one of our integrated card processors then tick the “pre-configure” box and we’ll set up the PayOnline bit (explained below) for you.
PayOnline
If you didn’t choose to have us pre-configure this for you then you may want to manually enable the option for your customer to pay you by clicking on a button on the invoice.
Go to Settings -> Card Options and ensure you’ve selected GoCardless as your card processor.
Then go to Settings > Invoice Options -> Payments and Discounts to set the options for the PayOnline button.
You’re done!
When you next email an invoice to a customer they’ll be able to pay you immediately and your accounts will be updated with details of the payment.
Pre-Authorisations
Want to collect payments without your customer having to lift a finger? We can help you do that, too!
Click the “Customers” tab and choose a customer. Under the “Other Info” section you’ll see a link to set up a Direct Debit Mandate. This will take you to a page that asks you the maximum amount you want to be able to collect in a month.
Fill in the details and click “Send Email”.
Your customer will receive an email asking them to authorise you to collect funds from their account. We’ll email you to let you know once they’ve approved it.
Get Collecting
Once you’re authorised to collect money from your customers bank account, the rest is easy.
When you’re viewing an unpaid invoice, click the button in the payments area to take a payment. Instead of card details, you’ll simply be asked how much you want to collect. Click the button and you’re done!
If you regularly need to collect the same amount from your customer (i.e.: monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.) then click the “Sales” tab and click the “Repeat Invoices” button.
Automate It
You can create a repeat invoice for the customer and select the option to collect the full amount via Direct Debit.
We’ll automatically create the invoices for you on the relevant date and collect the funds for you. If there’s a problem collecting the payment, we’ll email you to let you know.
If the payment is collected without any problems then we’ll update the invoice to mark it as paid and include the details of the payment.
Confirming Payments
Whenever you take a payment using GoCardless it’s automatically recorded against the invoice in KashFlow. In the description for the payment we’ll add the word “[PENDING]“. This is because the payment hasn’t yet been debited from your customer’s account, even though it has been accepted by GoCardless. As soon as it it we’ll automatically remove the word “[PENDING]” from the description.
If for any reason they can’t collect the payment then we’ll update the payment so it says “[FAILED]” and we add a negative payment to the invoice so your accounts all balance.
This is a truly fantastic addition to the KashFlow accounting software and it’s a huge step forward in our mission to automate and simplify as much as possible in the world of small business accounting.
33 Responses to Simple and Affordable Online Payments with @GoCardless
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dashleyt
If you mark the payment as paid when it is received, won’t the action of uploading the bank statement create a double entry against that account showing now two amounts received…?
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Yes, but that would have always been the case with any manually added payments followed by a statement upload
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Hi, very good application but the link provided in the email to the end users is directing to an incorrect url.
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maybe my question is somewhere answered elsewhere as it is an obvious one, but does the customer have to authorise every payment and what is their interface to do that?
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Pingback: Clearly IT will GoCardless with Kashflow! | Clearly IT
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Will the Kashflow API be updated to provide a way to send the DD pre-auth email to customers?
Similarly will it enable us to collect payment of an invoice via GoCardless rather than having to set up automatically recurring invoices?
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Duane Jackson - Founder & CEO
Hi Jason,
Eventually, yes. We’re currently building a REST API that will expose *everything* the app can do. It’ll have to as the apps only way to talk to the system will be via the API.
AS you can imagine, it’s a big job so it’ll be a little while before anything is publicly available.
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Will that be an extension to the current API or a replacement for it?
I’ve got quite a lot invested in the current API so if I need to rewrite my code – which is used by many others – I’d like to be able to plan for the need.
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it’s in addition to the current API. Lots of people have lots of code plugged in to the current API. so we wont be killing it.
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Simon cook
Hi is it possible to use gocardless to collect annual payments rather than monthly?
Also can it still be set up if the customer originally pays us via PayPal? Ie how do you obtain customer bank details? Thank you
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Hi Simon,
Yes, it is. In terms of setting up the limit, I’d guess your monthly limit needs to be the amount you’d collect annually as it’s the max you can collect in any given month. Check with help@gocardless.com though
To get the bank details, your customer would need to supply them,
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thanks – as you have a monthly collection business, would you recommend that we use GoCardless or use credit billing? Our customers will also be in the USA so not sure DD would work for them as the banking systems are very different.thanks
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If it wasn’t for the US element, I’d use GoCardless. But they don’t currently support non UK
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One of my suppliers is asking that I pay by gocardless, what is in it for me? – does this make it easier for me to keep tabs on my funds?, how do i accept this way of payment? I have several invoices from this supplier and I do not want lots and lots of payments being taken out of my bank account how do I get past this? does it mean that as soon as I recieve their invoice payment is taken immediately?HELP!!
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Those are questions you’d need to ask your supplier rather than us I’d have thought.
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If I go into settings to set up the gocardless method of payment does this mean that ALL my customers have to pay this way or can I select for certain ones only i.e repeat billing accounts?
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No – you don’t have to use this for all customers. Just those you want to.
The best way to ask us questions is to email support@kashflow.com – there’s always a possibility comments posted to the blog could get missed.
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Am i right in assuming that by stipulating a maximum collection amount i can then collect a lower amount therefore having it act as a variable Direct Debit with a ceiling amount?
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Correct
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Thanks for the quick reply, I also meant to as…can a flag be used in the API to tell Kashflow payment will be collected by gocardless?
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No, I’m afraid not. Not yet. We will add this at some point
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Anna
With most of our customers in Europe, it would be great if this, one day, extended to cover Euro payments also
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Did they ever resolve to have our own business name show on customer bank statement, or is it still theirs?
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Hi
I have sucessfully set up several of my customers to “Go Cardless”. But I have been wondering how the money is going to be paid into my business bank account, as I do not recall putting these details on any of the set up aplications.
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Hi Again
Just a further question, could you please confirm what action we take if we would like to change the bank account details that the Go Cardless payments are paid into.
Thanks again
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You would log in at GoCardless.com to do this.
If you get stuck, email help@gocardless.com
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Lucy Bailey
we currently use a separate direct debit collections agency, would we be able to transfer payments easily from them to gocardless?
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Hi Duane
Has there been any p[rogress as far as using a flag in the API to denote Go Cardless payments?VosTel would love to use this but we need to identify who is Go Cardless, without the flags we cant utilise this BRILLIANT utility.
Thanks Brad
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Absolutely superb. What a useful addition. Thank you.