How to smoothly switch to Direct Debit payments

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It’s a smart move if you’re thinking of getting your company setup to receive Direct Debit payments; they’ve been proven to save businesses time and money. The countless hours of admin that you’ll recover by finally processing payments automatically is something you’ll wonder how your team ever managed to live without. And less time spent on admin means more that’s spent on more important tasks that require your team’s strategic thinking and problem-solving.

Here’s how you can make that transition (or addition) as painless as possible:

Step 1 – Mandate signing

Your payers will need to sign a direct debit mandate authorising you to withdraw money from their accounts, the most common ways of signing being by paper, telephone and online forms. They will need to complete their mandates, then sign and return them to you via whichever medium they choose.

What to do: To get all of this done as quickly, efficiently, and accurately as possible; move to eMandates. Processing paper mandates is a cumbersome and time-consuming process and not just from your end either. If a customer fills something out incorrectly then you’ll need to send them a letter which informs them of that fact and contains a replacement form. Then they’ll need to complete the form, sign it and post it back for you to check while hoping they’ve not made any more mistakes. All of this admin would be slashed with eMandates and let’s be honest; cutting admin times is why you’re making this switch.

Step 2 – Mandate storage and maintenance

Mandate details need to be saved to make sure that Direct Debit requests are correctly processed. But having said that, this is done easily at Nuapay. We maintain a huge database of all active mandates which you can access and manage at your convenience.

What to do: Once again, consider using eMandates because they completely automate this process leaving you with almost no reason to ever intervene.

Step 3 – Activation of the mandate

If your mandate is for B2B purposes it will be activated a few days after it’s been submitted to the bank. However, regular Direct Debit bank transfers, and specifically those processed here at Nuapay will be immediately activated once uploaded. Also; payments can be processed with 2 days’ notice prior to the funds being taken from the payer’s account.

Step 4 – Informing the payer

Direct Debit schemes require you to inform the payer of how much money will be collected and when it will be taken from their account. This can be automated with us at Nuapay.

Step 5 – Generate the direct debit collection

This can be a manual task or bulk instructions can be provided by file or API call. If the collections are regular and of a fixed amount, then a fixed number of recurring direct debits can be created within Nuapay to fully automate the process.

Step 6 – The money arrives

The money requested will appear in your Nuapay account on the same day that your customer’s account was debited.

What to do: Returned direct debits  can take up to 5 days to appear on your account so if you sweep all funds from your Nuapay account you could  go into a negative balance. We at Nuapay offer a service in which we’ll hold the funds for 5 days and transfer them to you once this period has passed. This means that you won’t have to worry about having funds in reserve and won’t need to top up your account.

And that covers our guide to switching over to Direct Debit payments. By switching to Nuapay’s innovative Open Banking powered payment gateway you’ll receive an integrated system that’s even more efficient than standard Direct Debit and provides features such as:

• The ability to use pre-built and compliant emails to communicate with your payers
• Simplify customer sign up using electronic mandates
• PDF mandates that are automatically generated and come pre-filled with payer details
• Direct Debit timings that automatically calculate the next charge date
• Pre-built subscriptions logic that eliminate the need for manual creation
• Automatic bank validation checks that lower payment failure rates
• Bespoke request tickets that eliminate duplicate payments

At Nuapay we provide a payment gateway that’s designed for the digital age. Click here to contact us for more information about how our Direct Debit bank transfers can benefit your business.

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