How to fund your outbound payments
Your Payment Account
As part of the onboarding process for this feature, we will create a Payment Account for your organisation to fund the payments you wish to send. The details of your Payment Account will be shared with you once the onboarding is complete.
Please note, that any available funds in this account will be automatically returned to your nominated (and verified) business bank account on the first Tuesday of January, April, July, and October to comply with regulatory requirements. We’ll send you a reminder in advance of these automatic returns, giving you time to create any payment instructions as needed.
How to fund your Payment Account
To comply with FinCrime regulations, any top-ups to your Payment Account must be made from your nominated (and verified) bank account, as established during the general onboarding process.
We offer two funding models for your outbound payments:
Direct Funding - in this model, you will receive your Payment Account details, which you can use to make direct bank transfers to fund the account. If you’re also collecting payments with GoCardless, outbound payments and collection payouts are kept separate: you manage the funding of your Payment Account manually, while payouts from collections are sent directly to your business account.
Funding from Collections - in this model, we will redirect your collection payouts to your Payment Account. This means the money you collect from your customers can be used to fund outbound payments. However, you are responsible for organising withdrawals to your nominated business bank account, which can be done using the endpoint we provide. You can also manually fund your Payment Account if needed.
By default, your organisation will use the Direct Funding model. If you prefer the Funding from Collections model, let us know, and we’ll configure it for you. In the future, this option will be available for self-service through your Dashboard.
How to check your balance
A balance check is essential for ensuring that your Payment Account has enough money before executing any outbound payments, helping to prevent "Insufficient Funds" errors.
You can view your balance in the GoCardless dashboard by expanding "Payments" in the right-hand menu and selecting "Account Balance". It displays three key figures:
"Current Balance" - this value represents the total amount of money in your Payment Account, which can only be 0 or more. Please note that this balance reflects the amount before any scheduled payments are deducted.
"Available Funds" - the current balance minus any scheduled payments. This value can be negative if scheduled payments exceed the current account balance.
"Scheduled Payments" - the total value of payments that are scheduled to be sent, helping you forecast the amount needed to ensure all payments are successfully processed.
The page also offers a few additional features:
downloading your account statement,
viewing account activity,
viewing pending approvals and scheduled outbound payments that are not yet reflected in the balance.
Please note: We do not yet provide a separate API endpoint for balance checks during the Early Access phase, however we are actively exploring adding this feature based on your feedback.