Collecting your client’s payment authorisation via an online form isn’t always possible or doesn’t match how you would normally interact with your customers.
To help with this, we also offer paper and phone authorisation collection options (subject to regional availability).
Part 1 : Collecting client authorisation
Paper authorisation
Paper mandates are a great alternative to the online authorisation form if your clients do not have access to, or use of, a computer or other electronic device with sufficient internet access.
Process for collecting authorisation with a paper mandate
- Print the paper mandate provided to you by GoCardless
- Ask your client to fill in and sign the mandate form
- Manually set up the customer in your GoCardless account
- Keep the physical copy or a scanned version of your client’s paper mandate (if required for the payment scheme you're using)
Phone authorisation
You can collect your clients' details over the phone using an approved transcript to obtain authorisation to set up a Direct Debit on their behalf. This is particularly useful if you are speaking with your clients as part of your sales or on-boarding flow.
Process for collecting authorisation over the phone
- Use the transcript provided by GoCardless to collect your customers’ details over the phone
- Manually set up the customer in your GoCardless account
- Keep a recording of your customer’s authorisation (if required for the payment scheme you're using)
Part 2 : Setting up your client in GoCardless
Once you've collected authorisation from your client, whether via completion of a paper mandate or over the phone, the next step is to create their customer record in your GoCardless account. The method you use to do this will be determined by how you've chosen to use GoCardless - via an API integration, a partner application, or using the GoCardless dashboard.
There are three steps to setting up a customer in GoCardless, which must be completed in the following order :
- Create the customer record
- Add the customer’s bank account details
- Create a mandate against that bank account
View more information on how to set up a client via the API →
Learn how to create a customer record within your GoCardless dashboard →
Setting up a client's authorisation when using a partner application How you set up your client's authorisation will be dependent on the functionality available to you within the application you're using. Alternatively, you can create your client directly within your GoCardless account by following the steps to create a customer record within your GoCardless dashboard, and then match the GoCardless record to your client entry within your partner application. Your application's user guide should provide more information on how to match a client. |