Cloud based Accountancy – Useful Apps to Make Your Life Easier – GoCardless

30/05/2017

This blog focuses on collecting payments for your business. There are many different payment apps available to use in parallel with either Xero or QuickBooks. The application under review is an app called GoCardless.

GoCardless is made by a company called Directli it allows you to take control of yourpayments, ensuring your invoices get paid in a timely manner via direct debit. Linked with either Xero or QuickBooks using automatic reconciliation GoCardless should improve your cash flow, by speeding up the time between sending an invoice and receiving the money from the customer. Below is my experience of the app from the initial set up to how it worked, I used GoCardless with Xero, although I expect the difference between Xero and QuickBooks is minimal.

The Set Up I find this is a great indicator to anything in life, in today’s society we expect this to be easy, helpful and quick. But we also expect it to be secure, safe and have all the relevant information we need! I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with how well the process ticked all these boxes. It can be accessed either through the Xero app page or directly on the GoCardless website. I choose to do this through Xero, but both are easy to do. Simply add your name, organisation name, e-mail and password and click ‘create for Xero account’. Next comes a dropdown menu you for you to select your company – easy enough!

The next step is to customise how you use your GoCardless, there are a few options, again everything is explained well and there is no reason you will feel overwhelmed with what they are asking. A great feature (which GoCardless tells you part way through the process) is that when you set up a new client on Xero, GoCardless will send the customer an email asking them to sign up for a direct debit mandate. Meaning a higher return of payment from your new customers. GoCardless provide you with an email template which you can use or you can edit the template and make it more personalised for your company.

After this GoCardless asks you which bank account you would like the direct debits paying into – using your direct feeds already loaded to Xero and which expense account to post the fees to, meaning as long as this is selected correctly, you are less likely to have coding errors.

The Process Once set up is complete the process is simple. Send your sales invoices out to your customers, all clients who have the direct debit mandate set up will pay into your chosen account on the invoice date. To see any which haven’t paid simply log into you GoCardless account and see which customers have not completed payments.

Who is it for? Well it could be used in many different sectors, but primarily I see it as a great solution for regular payments or even subscription type businesses. The huge benefit to the business is it really cuts down the chasing of payments. Now you can have access to a small number of people who need to pay you and they can be followed up and then put on the GoCardless system, meaning the clients not paying this time should pay next time.

What Does It Cost? Initially there is a 30 day free trial, like with most Xero apps. I would really recommend using this first to get a good feel for it and to make sure you and it are both compatible. After that the standard package has no monthly fee – the charge is 1% per transaction (max £2 – min 20p). That may initially seem high but remember it’s not just the peace of mind having a direct debit. Think of the amount of staff and the time they take chasing missing payments, this app will greatly reduce this for you. Also there is a nothing stopping you hand picking certain customers for the GoCardless and just use it where you see it necessary.

Overall a great idea, simple and affective – A great weapon in any companies fight to receive all the money they are due!

If you are interested in any more information about this app or any other apps covered, please contact me with any questions or to arrange a demonstration of some of the great possibilities available to you with cloud based accountancy software.