How best to record direct debits you pay out?

I think @ian_roberts covered the how but to answer your question directly, I record everything with a purchase invoice of some description with the exception of bank fees. If you don’t raise a purchase invoice you are making it very difficult to follow the transactions, somewhat defeating the object of using Quickfile! Obviously if you aren’t VAT registered it is possible to not use purchase invoices but I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to.