Bacs bulk change process

• Requesting a Bacs bulk change
• Complete account set-up & request a bulk change
• Completing the bulk change deed
• The Bacs bulk change process

Requesting a Bacs bulk change

When a merchant switches to GoCardless from another Direct Debit provider, we are required to transfer active payers’ DDRs over to us from the previous provider. This transfer process is known as a bulk change.

The steps involved in the bulk change process are:

Complete account set-up & request bulk change

To kickstart the bulk change process, you will first need to create a GoCardless account and complete the verification process.

To begin the bulk change process, navigate to the Customer section in your dashboard and click Continue on the banner that says Migrate from another Direct Debit provider. 

You will be asked for some information regarding your current Service User Number (SUN) and the mandates that you wish to migrate to GoCardless:

• What is your current SUN?

• What is the name of your SUN?

• Is your current SUN AUDDIS Live?

• Do you intend to migrate all of your existing Direct Debit mandates to GoCardless?

• How many active mandates in total will you be migrating over to GoCardless?

You must have the answers to the above questions before submitting your details to us. If you don’t know some of the answers or are unsure, please reach out to your previous Direct Debit provider or sponsoring bank to clarify and confirm.

Completing the bulk change deed

Before proceeding with a bulk change, a completed bulk change deed is required. This legal agreement transfers liability for indemnity claims from the old SUN owner to the new SUN owner.

You can find a copy of the bulk change deed here. The bulk change deed will need to be printed, signed by hand and scanned back in (electronic signatures will not be accepted).

The bulk change deed will need to be completed either by you or your current Direct Debit provider, depending on how you currently collect payments.

If you are unsure of whether you are the Service User, please contact your current Direct Debit provider to confirm.

Please note that:

• The first indemnity in section 1.1 is the date your SUN was issued. This needs to be a complete date (day, month and year).

• The Long SUN name in section 1.1 is the full name registered against your Service User Number as it is registered with the bank. This  should exactly match the company's legal entity name in section 3.3 (e.g.: 'Ltd' & 'Limited' are not exact matches).

• Director and Witness signatures in section 3.3 must be wet signatures, as digital signatures will not be accepted

• Address of witness can be filled in with your company's registered address

• No alterations can be made to the deed. If there is tampering or scribbles, a new deed will need to be completed.

No further information should be included on the deed other than what is asked for, as this may invalidate the deed. Your SUN number is not required on the deed, as we’ll submit that on separate documentation.

Submitting the bulk change deed

The bulk change deed can be downloaded and submitted to GoCardless here.

Please ensure that you double check the information before submission as any incorrect information can lead to a delay in the processing of your bulk change.

The Bacs bulk change process

Submit your bulk change information to GoCardless

Submit your completed bulk change deed and SUN information to GoCardless [link to dashboard]. During the submission, you will be required to select a migration date at least 4 weeks in the future.

Notify your customers that you’re moving to a new Direct Debit provider

You are required to inform your customers in writing of your change in provider in advance of your agreed bulk change date. 

Your GoCardless contact will provide you with a Bacs-approved notification template after you submit your bulk change request to GoCardless.

Collect your customers’ data and format it in our CSV template

The following information is required to migrate your customers over to GoCardless:

• Your customer’s full name (or company name)

• Their bank account details (account number and sort code)

• Their email address

• Their address

If you do not already hold all of the above information for your customers, you will need to reach out to your current provider to obtain this. 

If you don’t have all of your customer’s email addresses, you will need to use custom notifications, which is a feature limited to our Advanced, Pro and Custom packages.This feature can be accessed through the add-on feature Custom checkout experience and payer notifications which comes with an additional monthly fee.

Once you’ve gathered all the above information, you will need to format it into a CSV template that we provide to you. This template also gives you the option to add in optional fields, such as custom references to easily identify your customers with.

Ahead of your bulk change date, you will need to run a test upload of your data to ensure it is formatted correctly. You can do this via the migration tool in the dashboard. 

On the bulk change day

On the day of your bulk change, your customers will be migrated to GoCardless through the cancellation and re-creation of their Direct Debit mandates.  

Auddis-Live SUN only

Cancellation of existing mandates

FM (Facilities Management (FM) bureau)

You will need to get in touch with your current Direct Debit Bureau to ask them to cancel your existing customer mandates on the agreed bulk change date, meaning you will no longer be able to collect via them.

MA (Managed Administration (MA) service with an AUDDIS-live SUN)

You will need to cancel your customers' mandates through your current software provider on the bulk change date. This is not an automatic process so you will need to ensure you action this, before creating new mandates through GoCardless.

Non-Auddis SUN only

Final collection run and cancellation of existing mandates (submission of code 19)

For Non-Auddis SUNs, the cancellation of mandates occurs by submitting transaction code 19 alongside a payment request for each mandate. You will, therefore, need to set up your final collection with your current provider for the bulk change date.

Like any bulk change, we require authorisation from all stakeholders before proceeding. 

Therefore, please ensure that you have spoken to a member of GoCardless who has confirmed that we have received confirmation before taking any action to cancel mandates.

In order to cancel the existing mandates with your current provider, you will need to submit transaction code 19 alongside your final collection with your current provider. 
This is not an automated process so you will need to ensure you have actioned this prior to creating new mandates through GoCardless.

Creation of new mandates in GoCardless - all SUNs

You will need to upload your customers’ details CSV file, that you previously validated,  into your GoCardless account. Once uploaded, we will process the import and your customers’ new mandates will be created.

Please note: This action needs to be carried out by 3:30pm to meet the Bacs submission deadline.
We must receive authorisation from our sponsor bank before this step can be completed.