Please be aware that this article only applies to merchants using our Pro package. If you're currently using our Standard package but are interested in upgrading to Pro, please get in touch.
By default, customers making payments through GoCardless are notified of their upcoming payments via GoCardless' standard notification emails.
As a Pro merchant though, you can send out your own customised notifications instead, greatly improving your customers' experience.
Benefits of custom notifications
Rather than relying on GoCardless’ own email notifications, you can use your own notifications that are more consistent with your business branding and the needs of your customers.
Depending on the Direct Debit scheme you're using, you can provide these notifications via a method of your choosing, including via email and post.
Actions requiring customers to be notified
Customers are required to receive notification when:
- Their Direct Debit mandate is setup
- This must be sent within three days of the customer authorising
- Payments are due to be charged
- One-off payments
- Subscriptions
(See timings section below for more information)
Timings
The Direct Debit scheme requires customers to be given advance notice of payments due to be collected from their account.
Due to special agreements with our sponsor banks, notification periods are reduced through GoCardless, when compared with standard bank requirements.
Required (minimum) advanced notice periods when using GoCardless are:
| Scheme | One-off payments | Subscriptions |
|---|---|---|
| Autogiro | 8 working days * | 8 working days before first payment collection |
| Bacs | 3 working days | 3 working days before first payment collection |
| BECS (AU) | 1 working day (recommended) | 1 working day before first payment collection |
| BECS NZ | 2 working days | 2 working days before first payment collection |
| Betalingsservice | sent by customer's bank prior to start of month | sent by customer's bank prior to start of month |
| PAD | 3 working days | 3 working days before first payment collection |
| SEPA | 3 working days | 3 working days before first payment collection |
* If your customer has approved an Autogiro payment in conjunction with a purchase or order, you do not need to give advance notice providing you make it clear on the invoice that payment is to be made by Autogiro.
NOTE: For recurring subscriptions charged via any of the above schemes, notifications are not required to be sent prior to subsequent payments being charged - only in advance of the first payment or if any of the parameters are changed i.e. charge date or amount.
Information that must be included
The information required on notifications varies across Direct Debit schemes.
Please select the relevant "[Scheme] custom notifications (Pro)" article from our Schemes section for more detail.
Further information can also be found within our Scheme Guides.
Getting custom notifications enabled
If you are interested in using custom notifications please get in touch with your Account Executive or raise a ticket with our support team.
Once requested, the process will be as follows:
- We will provide details of the criteria that must be met to ensure your notifications are compliant with scheme rules as required.
- Once you've created your notification templates, you'll need to send a copy of each to us for approval. (If they do not meet the requirements, we will let you know what needs to be done to make them compliant).
- Once we can confirm that your custom notifications pass all requirements, we will enable custom notifications on your account, or organise a date to do so if you're an existing merchant currently using GoCardless notifications.
For information on automating custom notifications, please see the guide in our Developer Documents here.