When you pay via direct debit, this means that, as a seller, you receive a mandate to retrieve the amount due from your customer's account. You receive permission from your customer to collect the amount they owe you.
To start using direct debit, you first need to receive a direct debit mandate. You can usually do this via your home banking portal. You can use the details on this mandate to create a payment file for a certain invoice (or invoices) and enter it in your home banking to have your bank execute the payment(s). As a seller, you are required to keep these mandates youself and have your customers fill them in.
1. Your customer's direct debit mandate.
2. Your identification as a creditor. You can find this on the direct debit mandate. This identification consists of 17 characters. The first 2 are the land code. Characters 5 until 7 are usually the characters 'ZZZ'. Spaces are not allowed.
3. The unique mandate reference. Either you entered this yourself or this is your identification als creditor, possibly followed by a few extra characters.
4. The date on which the direct debit mandate was signed.
5. Your customer's IBAN and BIC should be filled in on your customer file.
1. Set up your direct debit identification (one time only)
Go to your company file and fill in your creditor identification in the field 'Direct debit identification'. You can find this in the direct debit mandate from your home banking. Your identification will be the same for every customer. You will only need to fill it in once.
2. Set direct debit as payment mode in your customer's file
Go to your customer's file, change the payment mode to 'Direct debit', fill in the mandate reference and date on which the mandate was signed (you can find this on the mandate).
3. Execute payment
You will now see that the invoice statuses for that customer change from 'To pay' to 'To direct debit' in the menu 'Income'. Select the invoices for which you want to execute the payment. (Hint: you can also filter on 'To direct debit' at the top. That way, you will see all direct debit invoices and you can select more than one at the same time).
Select the invoices you want to settle and click 'Pay'. Billit will now create a payment file you can enter in your home banking to execute the payments. Always check your details before clicking 'Download payment file' and pay close attention to the column 'Warning'.
Q: The payment date does not match the due date on the invoice.
A: By default, the date on which you created the payment file will be filled in as execution date. You can also choose to have the payments executed on the dure date by selecting 'Put everything on due date'.
Q: How do I import a direct debit file in my CBC Business Dashboard?
A: Please contact your CBC office. They will gladly assist you.
