This article applies to merchants using our Plus and/or Pro packages only. If you're currently using our Standard package and are interested in upgrading to Plus, you can do so via the company onboarding section of your dashboard here. If you are interested in upgrading to Pro, please get in touch.
A benefit of our Plus and Pro services is that references can be added to individual payments to make them more easily identifiable for customers when viewing their bank statements.
In this article you'll learn about the benefits of payment references, how to add them to payments, and restrictions.
Benefits of custom payment references
Custom payment references appear on your customers' bank statements alongside their Direct Debit mandate reference.
This makes it easier for the customer to identify what specific payments are for, reducing the likelihood of the customer getting in touch to query the payment or filing an indemnity claim with their bank believing it was fraudulently collected without their authorisation.
Adding custom payment references
Custom payment references can be added to payments via three payment creation methods within the dashboard. You can find the process for each below.
One-off payments / individual subscriptions
Click to view the full process for creating a one-off payment
When creating a one-off payment as a Plus or Pro user, you will find an additional field in the payment creation window.
Click to learn how to create a plan
Adding custom payment references to a plan is very similar to the process for one-off payments or individual subscriptions.
Additionally, you can edit a payment reference for a plan.
To edit a plan reference...
1. Navigate to the Plans page of your dashboard
2. Select the plan
3. Click Edit in the top right of your screen
4. Edit the reference and when you're ready, hit Save changes
Within the CSV bulk upload file used to create your customers’ payments in bulk, you can add a column titled ‘payment.reference’ to specify payment references for customer bank statements.
This title should be added in the next available column.
The number of characters available varies between schemes. You're able to view the number of characters available to the right of the payment reference entry field text box.
Please note:
If you have upgraded your account from Standard to Plus or Pro, any UK customers (paying through the Bacs Direct Debit scheme) that signed up prior to upgrading will have a mandate reference that is 18 characters long. This means that you cannot use custom payment references for these customers unless they authorise a new Direct Debit.
Any customers that authorise their Direct Debit after you have upgraded your account will have a mandate reference of 7 characters which is hyphenated with the payment reference. The hyphen takes up one character. This means you can create payment reference up to 10 characters long.