The GoCardless integration lets your customers pay you directly from their bank account. It powers two different payment types in Commusoft: automatic recurring payments for contracts, and one-off payments your customer makes in the self-service portals. This article explains how each one works and when to use it, so you can pick the right setup for your business.

GoCardless handles bank-to-bank payments in Commusoft through two separate mechanisms. They are set up in different places and solve different problems, so it helps to know which one you need before you start.

This mechanism collects recurring contract payments automatically. Your customer approves a mandate once, and Commusoft then collects each contract invoice from their bank account without any further action from them.

To use it, you need a plan that includes Contracts, the GoCardless integration connected, and a contract template with the payment option set to bank payment. See How to take contract payments by Direct Debit, ACH, PAD, or card for the full setup.

This mechanism handles one-off bank payments for customers in the UK. Your customer opens an invoice or statement in one of the self-service portals, chooses to pay by bank, and approves that single payment. Nothing recurring is set up.

Pay by Bank sits alongside card payments in the portal. If you also use Stripe, you can limit card payments above a set amount, so larger invoices are paid by bank instead. See Invoice portal settings to configure this.

Comparison:

A mandate is your customer's authorization for payments to be collected from their bank account. Mandates only apply to contract Direct Debit, ACH, and PAD payments. Pay by Bank does not use them.

When you set up a contract with bank payment, Commusoft emails your customer a mandate approval request. The contract stays in Pending mandate approval status until they complete it. The approval link expires 7 days after it is sent. Once approved, the mandate becomes active within a couple of working days.

A customer's active mandate can be reused for future contracts, so they do not need to approve a new one each time. If your customer already has a mandate in GoCardless from before you used Commusoft, it can be imported using its mandate reference. Once imported, Commusoft manages the payments and any subscriptions in GoCardless are cancelled.

Bank payments are not instant, so allow for processing time when planning your cash flow.

Every payment is given a reference generated by GoCardless. You can search this reference in the GoCardless platform to trace an individual payment.

If a payment fails, Commusoft does not retry it automatically. Send your customer a portal link so they can pay that invoice manually, then check the mandate is still active for future collections.