Direct Debit: Overview
What is a Direct Debit Mandate?
Before you can collect any payments by Direct Debit, your customer must issue you with a mandate. This mandate is called a "Direct Debit Instruction", or "Direct Debit Mandate". Please note, that without a mandate, your bank cannot authorise the Direct Debit Instruction which allows your customers to collect future payments automatically. See more information about Direct Debit mandates within our resource guides."
Taking your first mandate payment
Once you’ve set up our first customer with a mandate, we’re ready to start taking payments. There are three ways to set up your payments - which one is right for you will depend on what you’re using GoCardless for:
Taking a one-off payment
Trigger a payment against a mandate at any time with the API. Great if you want to charge your customers ad-hoc amounts.
Subscriptions
Set up an automatic recurring payment. Great if you want to take the same payment on a regular basis (for instance £5 per week, or £20 on the first of each month).
Instalment Schedules
This is ideal for when you have a payment to collect, but it’s a little too big for a customer to afford in one fell swoop - you can break it up into regular, recurring instalments using an Instalment Schedule.