[PoleKing]

Poleking

So I'm guessing its just a few that you can handle within a few days ofc if you had everyone it would need to be split in certain days

Not really...
I say that the month the payment is taken in will be the clean.
This month it's certainly conceivable that payment was taken 01/02/2014 and the clean will take place on 28/02/2014. Then the next day, payment will be taken for the March clean which may not happen until 31/03/2014.
Personally, I won't be splitting payments up. GoCardless dd payments are taken on the 1st of the month. I can see not everyone (other cleaners) would like it, but it works for me.
I've got one lady who's windows are £150 a clean. She only has them done every other month, I take £75PCM to spread the cost. Another is £30 every 3 months. She pays a tenner each month.
Spreading the cost on more expensive cleans seems to be favoured by some customers.
I've got some every 2 months that only want to pay on the month if their clean though. It makes no difference to me really. Must admit though, I do like getting paid before I've cleaned though.
And I've a few who were on the cusp of being dumped, great people but terrible payers-no malice-just scatty. Offered dd, signed up-funny how they can be close to dumped one month and a great customer the next.
Just checked-I've got 86 customers signed up to pay through GoCardless, I'd like 100 but I'm not sweating it.

[Crystal-clear]

Nice post mate,

That's pretty cool that some customers have to wait up to a month to get cleaned After paying might toy with that first of the month date as well end of the day you will get round soon

and will also try and time some like per week to help sync the round so there clean is a few days after paying ,


The only other thing I wAna ask is about this reversing transactions
If they want to can they get a full refund for all cleans visa DD?

[PoleKing]

Not that I know of.
As far as I know, as it's a direct debit-the vendor (I think that's the term) is in control.
I forgot to cancel the payment of a customer that cancelled (nothing to do with dd) and they asked me to cancel the payment. I'd assume that if they were in control, they would've just recalled it...
I know that the dd can be cancelled at anytime by the customer through online banking dashboard but I've not heard of reversal.
If a dd is cancelled that way though, you get an email straight away to let you know it's been cancelled.

[Marc Stock]

I just signed up and trialed 30 customers on it.

here is the e-mail:

Dear Valued Customer,

During 2014, I am trialling a new payment facility which offers much more convenience to customers; a Direct Debit payment system provided by Go Cardless.

The facility will work alongside our existing billing system; customers who sign up for direct debit payments will no longer have to remember to submit payment on-line, or post a cheque; the payment will be taken 3 days after the bill date.

This is of course optional, there is no obligation to use this service; however as we expand the business it is something we want to be fully implementing by the end of 2015 if the trials are successful. We also want to be phasing out cheque payments by the end of 2016.

Those who do use the direct debit facility will know that all payments re protected by the direct debit guarantee; and the customer has complete control over the facility. We do not have access to your account details, you information is secure and we don't see any personal financial data.

If you have any questions about GO Cardless call me on 07905 42 11 55 and ill do my best to help. This trial is has been selected to just 30 customers, we hope you can find it useful and look forward to establishing if this is something we could implement across all our customers.

An e-mail from go cardless will follow shortly.

---------------------------------------------

Will let you know how it goes

[p1w1]

I just signed up and trialed 30 customers on it.

here is the e-mail:

Dear Valued Customer,

During 2014, I am trialling a new payment facility which offers much more convenience to customers; a Direct Debit payment system provided by Go Cardless.

The facility will work alongside our existing billing system; customers who sign up for direct debit payments will no longer have to remember to submit payment on-line, or post a cheque; the payment will be taken 3 days after the bill date.

This is of course optional, there is no obligation to use this service; however as we expand the business it is something we want to be fully implementing by the end of 2015 if the trials are successful. We also want to be phasing out cheque payments by the end of 2016.

Those who do use the direct debit facility will know that all payments re protected by the direct debit guarantee; and the customer has complete control over the facility. We do not have access to your account details, you information is secure and we don't see any personal financial data.

If you have any questions about GO Cardless call me on 07905 42 11 55 and ill do my best to help. This trial is has been selected to just 30 customers, we hope you can find it useful and look forward to establishing if this is something we could implement across all our customers.

An e-mail from go cardless will follow shortly.

---------------------------------------------

Will let you know how it goes

hi marc, yes will be interested in the responce you get

[Craig downey]

Hi all, the reversal of a payment I was talking about was inc injection with the direct debit guarantee, I don't know the ins and out of it, but basically if an amount is debited by error, the customer is entitled to an immediate refund from the bank, I would then guess this is claimed back from the vendor.  Part of the guarantee stated customers must be made aware of all debits before they are taken - I was only referring to the post where someone said they used their own email as the old dear didn't have an email herself, this could cause problems, having said that if you leave the customer with a bill that explains payment. Will be taken in 3 days I suppose that means they have been informed....

I wouldn't worry about reversals, this is the same as card payments, they can be disputed by the payee, but in all my years taking card payment this has never happened to me.

I for one am introducing gocardless, I just wish I have the email letter Marc has supplied, it's much better worded than the one I sent out!

[Crystal-clear]

Thank you for your input Craig
It's a good email from Marc yes and today I have just sent out my first gocardless request to a customer,

there is one thing which I feel they need to change but I think it's a standard DD thing is the £5,000 a month limit who the hell would sign up to a £5k regular payment I understand there are prolly landlords who use this, they shouldn't allow more then £500 or something , I personally would be worried if I saw that my trades man had the ability to take £5,000 out my account I know there is a garentee and fraud squad would be called on him but Even so the rigmarole will put me off and if customers check the limit I'm sure it might put some off,

Is there a way to lower that just for customers peace of mind?

[Marc Stock]

Direct Debit Guarantee is pretty much flawless.  Customer gets money back as if the transaction never took place, immediately. So nothing to worry about there. Lets face it we all use direct debits for some form of service these days, I wouldn’t worry.

Just an update, I have two customers now on the direct debit list, and have just taken a payment this evening already for £25.  It does say that payment will be taken from his acc on the 19th and ill get it into the Go Cardless acc on the 20th to finally hit my acc on the 24th. So not the fastest. Ill keep going and see how we get on.  Oh and the cost for that payment was 25p. so again not the cheapest, but its all tax deductible so who cares? And it’s about 10p cheaper than paying in a cheque.

In the meantime, I adjusted all our bills to now have a detachable DD mandate for the customer to fill in if they wish. I have attached it to this reply if anyone wants to get an idea on how to make it work as best as possible.

So far so good.

[Crystal-clear]

That's a really good bill , so the bottom bit is for customers to fill in who post a cheque the idea is that they post it back with an email ,
It's really cool I'm gona edit it thank you!

£1000/month on gocardless will only be £10 it's a small price I think

One thing to worry about is that one day they up there prices and while we have established all our customers say £50 now that would be too much but still not too much to change customer payments so we might end up being stuck working for them! As the stress of re contacting say 70 customers that we might have signed will be a false economy

It does sound a bit too good to be true here is a thought say gocardless have £1,000,000 of debits/month there cut is only £10,000/monthly with all the running costs they have a few customer service guys say 4 thats already £80k pa other staff etc even if they were a small operation to make it worth while they will need at least 2,000,000+ to make it worth it cover all costs and directors to take some sort of dividend

2m is a lot of debits don't forget it's capped at £2.00 so say a landlord uses them for rent collection of £2k that's only £2 to them I think they are too cheap
The only way they can sustain that price is with alot of volume or have they got something up there sleeve to hook us then bang! Price goes up to 5% lol
I hope not as I really like them so will enjoy my gocardless dream but not rush in to quick might go for a cool 100 or so like poleking has and see how it goes
Will focus on bad payers first!

[PoleKing]

That's a really good bill , so the bottom bit is for customers to fill in who post a cheque the idea is that they post it back with an email ,
It's really cool I'm gona edit it thank you!

£1000/month on gocardless will only be £10 it's a small price I think

One thing to worry about is that one day they up there prices and while we have established all our customers say £50 now that would be too much but still not too much to change customer payments so we might end up being stuck working for them! As the stress of re contacting say 70 customers that we might have signed will be a false economy

It does sound a bit too good to be true here is a thought say gocardless have £1,000,000 of debits/month there cut is only £10,000/monthly with all the running costs they have a few customer service guys say 4 thats already £80k pa other staff etc even if they were a small operation to make it worth while they will need at least 2,000,000+ to make it worth it cover all costs and directors to take some sort of dividend

2m is a lot of debits don't forget it's capped at £2.00 so say a landlord uses them for rent collection of £2k that's only £2 to them I think they are too cheap
The only way they can sustain that price is with alot of volume or have they got something up there sleeve to hook us then bang! Price goes up to 5% lol
I hope not as I really like them so will enjoy my gocardless dream but not rush in to quick might go for a cool 100 or so like poleking has and see how it goes
Will focus on bad payers first!

The hook 'em and screw 'em had crossed my mind.
It's just another what if though.
Just have to hope it doesn't.
As for their fees in relation to us-the 1% charge-I look at it as though 100 cleans is 8 years(ish) for monthly. You've only got to get one 'not today' for that fee to be covered.
Simplistic? You betchya. I don't mind it when I look at it like that.
And on some business accounts it's 75p to pay a cheque in. I ain't getting many £75 cheques!
And the waiting-I don't mind waiting as long as I know it's coming.
Much better to see 'payment pending' on your screen that hear 'I'll post you a cheque' one is guaranteed. The other...
Don't put all your eggs in one basket and I'm sure it'll all be fine.

[Mike #1]

Direct Debit Guarantee is pretty much flawless.  Customer gets money back as if the transaction never took place, immediately. So nothing to worry about there. Lets face it we all use direct debits for some form of service these days, I wouldn’t worry.

Just an update, I have two customers now on the direct debit list, and have just taken a payment this evening already for £25.  It does say that payment will be taken from his acc on the 19th and ill get it into the Go Cardless acc on the 20th to finally hit my acc on the 24th. So not the fastest. Ill keep going and see how we get on.  Oh and the cost for that payment was 25p. so again not the cheapest, but its all tax deductible so who cares? And it’s about 10p cheaper than paying in a cheque.

In the meantime, I adjusted all our bills to now have a detachable DD mandate for the customer to fill in if they wish. I have attached it to this reply if anyone wants to get an idea on how to make it work as best as possible.

So far so good.

1% not the cheapest  , Try PayPal they would have charged about £1.50 then to get your money out of PayPal they charge you again .

So Go Cardless is the cheapest would it cost you more than 25p to go back and collect the money in person YES

I have been trying to get most of my custys on BACS for almost a year but i still offer cash collection , Cash collection will be stopping in the next 2-3 months for me .

Getting sick of spending 4-6 hours a week chasing money and not really making a significant dent in my debt list , So i will be switching people over to Go Cardless . Mike