GoCardless Invoice Stamp

Hi
Just getting started with GC for any new customers. These (company) customers are billed different amounts at different times so as I have their pre-auth I will just be initiating (manually for the moment unfortunately!) the GC payment on the due date of the invoice.

Is there a way to get the invoice stamped as “To be collected by Direct Debit” when I create and send it so the recipient (who may not be the DD authouriser) knows that they do not need to initiate payment manually.

Are you using the client control panel?

If so the following message will appear above the invoice:

I went into the client side ie “Impersonate client” but I am not seeing anything when I look at the invoice and I am not seeing anything when I look at it from my side.
is there something I have to do to tell QF that I will be collecting this by DD other than have an active pre-auth on the account?

Oh ok, you’re actually creating the invoice and the requesting the payment from GoCardless later, i.e. when the invoice is due? This header actually appears when the request for funds has been made and the collection is in process, for recurring invoices this is initiated as soon as the invoice is raised.

If you’re raising the invoice with the view to actually collect later later I guess you could specify this on the invoice terms. E.g. “This amount will be automatically collected by Direct Debit on [DATE]”. I’m not sure about having this visible in a stamp as I’m guessing it wouldn’t suit all users.

One thing we are looking to do which would likely solve your problem would be to initiate payment requests with GoCardless for a fixed date in the future. I believe they are working on this functionality but I will check again.

Yep thats what I want. Wouldn’t I have to change the invoice terms each time though or can you make them customer specific ? GC is not suited to all my customers.

I know I lobbied for the advance GC payment date a while ago as it seems such a necessary part of making GC work. In the short term could there not just be a manual option to add the stamp - maybe it even does a check to confirm that the customer has a pre-auth, or does not appear unless they do.

Even if I did write it in the terms I would be woried that they would not read them especially if they are familiar with the company from previous invoices.

GC - (who responded almost as fast as you guys!) said :

You can schedule payments for dates in the future using GoCardless,
though unfortunately this may not be implemented within QuickFile.
The integration with our system was built by QuickFile themselves so
it’d be best to get in touch with them directly to see if there’s any
way to do this or any plans to offer it in the future – the ability to
set a charge date when creating a bill is already available so hopefully
they’ll be able to get it added if it’s not there already!

The problem is I don’t believe GC expose this option in their .NET API, I’ve had this conversation with them in the past but I’ve not yet had a conclusive answer.

I don’t think adding a manually applied stamp is a good idea, it just adds an extra layer of complexity. I’d much rather pursue the advanced charge date route. I will give GC a chase now.