GoCardless is a Direct Debit payment merchant which will allow you to take payments for invoices within Clear Books. The system will mark these invoices as paid and apply the GoCardless fee automatically. You require a GoCardless account to use this feature.
How to set up and use the GoCardless integration
You need to agree Direct Debit mandates with your customers before you can take any payments.
How to request a Direct Debit mandate
This guide explains how to take payment from Direct Debit mandates for invoices both manually and automatically.
Take Payments Automatically
Head to Tools > Integrations > GoCardless > Settings and tick the check-box next to the 'Automatic payment requests when mandate' available text.
Click on the Save button to complete.
Once enabled this setting will check if the customer has any active mandates.
The system will then immediately take payment from these mandates for any existing invoices which have an amount less than that of the mandate.
The system will also take payment from active mandates for any invoices created in future with amounts less than that of the mandate.
Take Payments Manually
From an unpaid invoice
You can take payment manually from a mandate for any invoices up to the value of the mandate limit. You can only take payment for the outstanding amount of an invoice. To do this click on an appropriate unpaid invoice on the Sales > Invoices > Unpaid menu.
Locate the 'Payment history' table to the bottom left and click on the available mandates link which appears under the 'GoCardless payments' header.
From the GoCardless Payments menu
Alternatively, you can take payment from the Tools > Integrations > GoCardless > Payments menu. You can only take payment for the outstanding amount of an invoice. Use the check box to select the appropriate invoices and then click on the Use available mandates button.
GoCardless Payments
The GoCardless payment process will take between 5-7 days. When payment is received Clear Books will automatically mark the invoice as paid, this payment will use the GoCardless bank account unless you have changed this in the settings.
The status of payments can be viewed on the Tools > Integrations > GoCardless > Payments menu. You can cancel GoCardless payments by using the 'Manage' drop down field, however, you have up until 4pm, two working days before the charge date.
GoCardless Transaction fee
Every transaction incurs a GoCardless transaction fee. You can learn more about the cost of the transaction fee on the GoCardless website. VAT applies to this transaction fee.
GoCardless Fees
Clear Books will generate the transaction fee automatically by default. If you would like to account for the transaction fees yourself, you can disable the transaction fee from being created automatically on the Tools > Integrations > GoCardless > Settings menu.
If the transaction fee is automated, the system will create a paid a bill, prefixed PAY and coded to bank charges. The payment side of this bill uses the GoCardless bank account. You can change the bank account and account code of the GoCardless transaction fee on the Tools > Integrations > GoCardless > Settings menu. The GoCardless transaction fee is generated on the payout date from GoCardless.