This article provides an overview of the different types of payments you can create for your customers via the GoCardless dashboard.
These are:
Which one you choose will depend on several factors including:
- How you want to charge your customer(s)
- Whether the customer is already active or still needs to authorise their Direct Debit with you
- The method you offer your customers to sign up e.g. via email, a link on your website, etc.
- The number of customers you would like to create the payment/subscription for
Here’s a run through of when you might want to use each method:
One-off payments are ideal for when you need to create an ad-hoc payment for an individual customer who has already authorised their Direct Debit with you.
These are created via the Create button, which you will find once you’ve navigated to that customer’s individual overview page in your dashboard. All you need to do is select Payment from the dropdown menu options.
Find out how to create a one-off payment for an active customer.
The Subscription option is used when you would like to create a recurring payment plan for an individual customer.
When creating a subscription for an individual customer you specify the charge amount, frequency, and start date of the subscription. You can also specify the number of payments the subscription runs for or set it to recur indefinitely.
When creating a subscription for an individual customer, you can set the start date for any date up to 13 months in the future.
Find out how to create a subscription for an individual active customer.
Plans are created via the Plans page within your dashboard, and can be accessed via the left menu bar.
The Plans feature is beneficial for several use cases…
a). You need to charge multiple active customers on the same recurring payment plan.
Once you’ve created a plan, it acts as a template that you can then assign to multiple customers without having to enter the details each time as you would if using the subscription method above.
To add an active customer to a plan, all you need to do is navigate to their individual overview page, then click the Add to plan button at the top and select your desired plan from the dropdown list.
Find out how to add an active customer to a plan.
b). You would like to invite multiple new customers to join the same payment plan via your dashboard. (These are customers who don’t yet have an active Direct Debit mandate with you).
Once you’ve created a plan you can send an invite to multiple customers at once via your dashboard. When each customer completes the corresponding authorisation form, they will be automatically assigned to that plan and payments will process according to the parameters you’ve set.
Learn more about sending plan invites to multiple customers.
c). You would like to offer new customers the option of signing up to a recurring payment plan via your website, newsletter, or personalised email. (These are customers who haven’t yet authorised a Direct Debit with you).
After creating a plan, you can copy the corresponding link and embed it within a button on your website, within an email newsletter or campaign, or other. Once the customer completes the authorisation form they are automatically assigned to the payment plan so you don’t have to take any further action yourself.
Find out how to get the plan link and add it to your website, newsletter, or other here.
Paylinks are a great option when you want to enable any number of new customers to sign up to make a one-off payment. As with plans, these links can be added to a website, newsletter, email campaign, and so on.
Once a customer authorises their Direct Debit by following the paylink, their payment will begin processing automatically.
Even after a customer has made their one-off payment, you can create further payments for them without their need to complete their authorisation again if required. Depending on the option chosen when creating the Paylink initially, the customer will either be sent an “Approve” button that, once clicked, initiates the payment processing; or otherwise will simply receive a notification email advising them of the payment details without their need to take any action.
Paylinks are created via the Payments page within your dashboard.
