GoCardless is a platform that allows the management and collection of Direct Debit payments.
The Layer’s integration with GoCardless offers a way of managing Direct Debit mandates directly from the Customer record on The Layer.
Using this functionality reduces the administration time for mandate creation or cancellation and provides a view of all mandate statuses.
The GoCardless integration is a Premium feature on The Layer. If you're interested in making use of this functionality to streamline your Direct Debit management, please contact your Account Manager.
What is possible?
Sync existing GoCardless customers – where the record already exists, this can be directly linked to the Customer record in The Layer.
Unlinking Customer records – where information has changed and the record should no longer be connected to GoCardless, this link can be broken from within the Customer record.
Creation of Customer records in GoCardless – where the Customer record does not currently exist, the Billing request process will capture the relevant information to create the record in GoCardless.
Mandate management:
Creation of mandates – links for mandate creation can be sent from the Customer record, or from the quote using the Billing Requests feature. This allows the Customer to set up the mandate directly with GoCardless.
Mandate visibility at a Customer or Company level – mandate statuses can be viewed from the Customer record, or all mandates viewed at a Company level.
Cancellation of mandates – simple cancellation process directly from the mandate record in The Layer.
How does this work?
A Billing Request is a way of sending information from The Layer to GoCardless for processing. Using this flow, a request for Direct Debit information is sent to your Customer by email. The Customer is able to follow the link and input the information required to set up a mandate in GoCardless.
Once a Billing Request has been sent from The Layer, it will progress through from Pending – where it is awaiting action, to Fulfilled where all information has been captured and the mandate has been created.
For security reasons, a Billing Request has a limited validity period; however, it is possible to extend this as required. If necessary, a Billing Request can be voided in The Layer prior to progression to ‘Fulfilled’. Fulfilled Billing Requests are considered completed and cannot be voided.
Limitations
It is not possible to sync Lead records with GoCardless.
Direct Debit payments can be triggered from The Layer to GoCardless; they can not be triggered from GoCardless to The Layer.
How do I use GoCardless integration features?
Managing existing GoCardless Customers
Where a Customer record is already present in GoCardless, this can be synchronised to The Layer using the Sync Customer option from the GoCardless menu in the Customer record.
The Customer record is then selected from the drop down list.
Once completed, any associated mandates will be visible from the View all Mandates menu option.
To sync an existing customer record or create a new record as detailed in the next section, a billing address is required against the Customer record.
A contact record is also required; if a billing contact is available, this will be used to sync or create the record.
If a billing contact is not present, the primary contact will be used.
Creating a new GoCardless Customer
Where a Customer record does not exist in GoCardless, this can be created from within The Layer.
As explained in the previous section, select the Sync Customer option from the GoCardless menu in the Customer record.
Do not select a record from the drop down, this should be left blank and this will enable the creation of a new record.
⚠️Caution: leaving the customer name field blank when syncing an existing customer record, will duplicate this record in GoCardless.
To create a new record in GoCardless, leave the field blank.
To sync a customer record that already exists in GoCardless, select the correct customer record in the drop-down menu.
Updating a Customer's billing contact on GoCardless
As explained above, billing contacts are synced to GoCardless when existing customers are synced, or new customer records are created on GoCardless.
If there has been a change of personnel and the customer's billing contact needs to be amended, select Update Customer from the GoCardless menu against the Customer record.
This will open the Contact selection screen:
Where there is more than one billing contact against a Customer record, all will be available for selection in the drop-down menu. Select the one you wish to update, then click Update to confirm.
Requesting a new mandate using the billing request flow
A mandate can be requested either at a Quotation level or a Customer level.
To create a Billing Request from a Quotation, select Create Billing Request from the Operations menu in the quotation builder.
Selecting this option will add the quotation reference into the billing request.
To create a Billing Request from the Customer record, select the Create Billing Request option from the GoCardless menu in the Customer record.
An advisory message will appear if any Billing Requests already exist. Continue with the request and, once complete, the following screen will appear. It is now possible to email the link to the customer by clicking on Email DD Link.
Resending the DD link
To resend the DD link to the Customer at a later date, select View Billing Requests from the GoCardless menu.
From here, it is possible to either copy the DD link (‘Direct Debit Link’ button) or create an email (‘Email DD Link’ button).
If selecting Direct Debit Link, this copies the link to the clipboard ready for inserting into an email or other document.
If selecting Email DD Link, this will open the email in a new window and this will later show in Tasks (once sent). Note: the email can be edited before sending, if required.
Voiding a billing request
It is possible to void a Billing Request up until the point its status updates to Fulfilled. At this point, the request process is considered complete.
To void the request, select Void against the required record.
Void billing request actions can be viewed and tracked in the Customer's Audit tab:
Extending a billing request
Billing Requests are valid for 7 days from the point of creation. It is possible to extend the date by selecting Extend Expiry against the required request. The expiry date will update to 7 days from that moment.
Creation of the mandate
When the Direct Debit link has been completed, this will create a mandate in GoCardless. Mandates can be viewed from both the Global Operations view and the Customer view, as explained in the section below.
Visibility of billing requests and mandates.
It is possible to view Billing Requests and mandates at either a Customer level or via the Global Operations view, which will show all Customer mandates.
From within a Customer record, select the required option from the GoCardless menu.
The status of the mandate is taken from GoCardless and will update automatically as it changes in GoCardless.
The Global Operations menu is accessible via the Operations link:
Cancellation of the mandate
Mandates can be cancelled directly from The Layer.
To cancel a mandate, select the Cancel option against the required record. A confirmation screen will show this as complete.
Printing a copy of the mandate
A PDF view of the mandate can be accessed from the mandate record.
Unlinking a Customer record
If a Customer record no longer needs to be linked to the GoCardless record, it can be unlinked by selecting Unlink Customer from the GoCardless menu.
