GoCardless is a payment platform that TutorCruncher has integrated with allowing companies to take Direct Debit payments. A list of countries that GoCardless is available in can be found here, and information about their fees can be found here.
GoCardless can be set up by following these steps (already have a GoCardless account? skip to step 7):
Navigate to System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Direct Debit Integration with GoCardless and select ‘Connect to GoCardless’ - selecting this will direct you to either sign up to or log into GoCardless.
Follow the steps to sign up for an account or synchronise an already existing one.
Once you have synchronised your TutorCruncher account to GoCardless, you will be redirected back to the system settings page.
Navigating back to System > Settings > Direct Debit Integration with GoCardless will now open the Direct Debit Payments with GoCardless page, from here you can adjust the message displayed to your Clients when they are prompted to authorise a direct debit mandate via GoCardless, refresh your connection to GoCardless (if your access tokens become invalid for any reason) and also remove the GoCardless integration from your TutorCruncher platform altogether:
The 'Direct Debit Payments with GoCardless' panel.
If your Clients do not have a direct debit with GoCardless set up, you can invite them to do so by navigating to their Client profile, selecting their 'Accounting' tab, and selecting Add Direct Debit Mandate. This will send them an email that looks like this:
An example of a Direct Debit invite email.
Once the client has signed up to GoCardless, the Accounting tab of their Client profile will update to reflect this as one of their payment methods.
They can now pay their invoices using GoCardless by navigating to the invoice and selecting Take Direct Debit Payment:
An example invoice with the Take Direct Debit Payment button highlighted.
Selecting this will mark the payment as ‘Pending’ - it will be paid once approved by the Client. If the payment is declined or fails in any way, the payment will revert to being marked as ‘Unpaid’.
Why is my GoCardless mandate marked as inactive?
An inactive GoCardless mandate indicates that the mandate has not yet been approved by the Client - it is not possible to receive payments for an inactive mandate.
What if I or my Clients already have GoCardless?
If you already have a GoCardless account, you can simply follow the steps above but log in instead of signing up. If your Clients already have GoCardless, and would like to synchronise this with TutorCruncher, read this article here.
How long does it take for GoCardless accounts to be approved?
GoCardless accounts for companies typically take 3-4 working days to be approved (though this can take longer). You can expect it to take around two working days for a Client’s direct debit mandate to be approved.
How long do GoCardless payments take to reach my account?
GoCardless payments typically take five working days from the moment that the payment is submitted to TutorCruncher to reach your account (for Clients using GoCardless for the first time, we recommend allowing an extra working day).
Why is there no button for Pay with Direct Debit on my unpaid Invoice?
This is either due to the fact that the Client’s direct debit mandate hasn’t yet been approved or because you haven’t signed up with GoCardless. You can verify this by navigating to the Client’s profile page and selecting their Accounting tab - if their Direct Debit mandate is inactive, then there will be a cross icon next to that payment method.
Can GoCardless be used to pay Credit Requests?
Yes - simply navigate to the unpaid Credit Request and select the Take Direct Debit payment button.
What can I do if a user's mandate is still inactive after a week?
There are two things you can do to ensure that the mandate is active:
Delete the mandate & resend the invite to setup the Direct Debit to the Client so they can re-enter their details.
Remove the mandate and use the 'Direct Debit Matching' tool. If the Client exists in your GoCardless account, then they will appear there and you can match them so their details are pulled straight to their profile.
If the Client still appears as 'Inactive' after using the customer matching tool, then the client would be inactive within GoCardless. TutorCruncher pulls that data & information directly from GoCardless, so that may need to be updated within their GoCardless account. If you match a user and they still appear in this list, it could be that the user has no active mandates in GoCardless.
Why does my payment request have a different payment status in GoCardless and TutorCruncher?
On rare occasions, a payers bank account sends GoCardless a payment failure report one business day after you have issued the Client with a charge. Consequently, as it has not been included in the expected failure report, the payment is marked as 'Confirmed' in GoCardless, but may still be outstanding in TutorCruncher. You can read more information on this just here.
We will notify you by email that this has happened, but in order to resolve these types of payment requests, you will need to do a Manual Balance Adjustment on the Clients profile to remove any credit that may have been added via the payment request. You will then need to issue a Credit Note on the invoice to void that and then resend it again.