GoCardless Usage Questions

[strausmann]

How can i manage the GoCardless Mandat ?

How can the customer cancel a mandat ?

How can the customer recreate a new Mandat?

How can the customer change the iban or another bank details?

[strausmann]

And how can use a customer a creditcard over stripe and additional gocardless payments

[WHMCS John]

Hi @strausmann,

To address your questions:

1. Mandate details are displayed on the "Credit Card Information" popup via the client's Profile tab. It will also be displayed on Payment Pending invoices.
2. Customers can cancel mandates via their bank. Staff can cancel a mandate via the Credit Card information popup. There is not currently a client interface to do this in WHMCS.
3. A new mandate would be created by paying an invoice via GoCardless.
4. The original mandate would need to be cancelled and a new one created by paying an invoice and supplying the new bank details.
5. WHMCS supports storing one set of payment details; local credit card and tokenised storage (eg. Stripe and GoCardless) simultaneously. This means it would not be possible to pay invoices under a single client account both via credit card and GoCardless at the same time. However this is something we're looking to add later in the year: https://requests.whmcs.com/topic/multiple-credit-card-support_1

[Bertie]

Hi @WHMCS John

I didn't feel this needed a new thread. But we have been using GoCardless for a while now and have been using their dashboard to take the actual payments etc. How would we then move those across to WHMCS so WHMCS takes over? We did get an email from Gocardless when we connected both together that took us to this guide: https://support.gocardless.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360000616665

But I'm not sure where, if anywhere we would put the existing information into WHMCS? 

 

[WHMCS John]

Hi @Bertie,

Once the GoCardless module is activated in WHMCS, you can enter the mandate IDs in the tblclients.gatewayid field. This would need to be entered directly in the database.

Provided the client's payment gateway is assigned to GoCardless (under their Profile tab) then invoices will be generated with GoCardless as the payment method, and should charge the mandate automatically.

[Bertie]

25 minutes ago, WHMCS John said:

Hi @Bertie,

Once the GoCardless module is activated in WHMCS, you can enter the mandate IDs in the tblclients.gatewayid field. This would need to be entered directly in the database.

Provided the client's payment gateway is assigned to GoCardless (under their Profile tab) then invoices will be generated with GoCardless as the payment method, and should charge the mandate automatically.

Thanks for that - I can't see any reference to the mandate IDs inside Gocardless, unless that is the customer ID? Do you know how we could grab those then? 

 

Edited January 28, 2019 by Bertie

[Bertie]

Can't update the post. I have found where the mandate IDs are stored. With those being used - Once we have inputted that data into WHMCS. Would we need to get Gocardless to cancel anything on their side so it doesn't double charge anyone? Or will it use the same subscription that is already setup. 

[WHMCS John]

Hi @Bertie,

WHMCS does not use GoCardless subscriptions, so I presume you'd want to cancel those.

If the mandate can be left active, WHMCS should then be able to make a charge against the mandate ID, and capture the payment for an invoice.

The charge is initiated in accordance with the Setup > Automation Settings > Credit Card Charging settings.

[Bertie]

3 hours ago, WHMCS John said:

Hi @Bertie,

WHMCS does not use GoCardless subscriptions, so I presume you'd want to cancel those.

If the mandate can be left active, WHMCS should then be able to make a charge against the mandate ID, and capture the payment for an invoice.

The charge is initiated in accordance with the Setup > Automation Settings > Credit Card Charging settings.

Thanks with that. With you saying the charge is initialed with the settings in the "Credit Card" charging settings. Does this mean if "Disable Automatic CC Processing" was checked on any clients. There would be no charge taking place with GoCardless until that was removed? I'm assuming that is yes but just want to make sure. 

[WHMCS John]

Hi @Bertie,

If the "Disable Automatic CC Processing" option is ticked for a client, the mandate would not be charged.

[snake]

So according to above it seems you can import existing mandates quite easily.... not the response I got from whmcs support 🙂
I was also told that existing mandates could not be used because they need a callback URL which is sent by WHMCS when the mandate is first setup, otherwise payments will not be recorded in WHMCS. Is this correct or not?

A client not being able to use card payments and direct debit is an issue. It is normal practice that a client will pay their first invoice by card if they want services to be setup immediately, rather than wait for DD to be setup.
So this seems a  cludge using the card details fields to store the DD mandate details.

[Bertie]

1 hour ago, snake said:

So according to above it seems you can import existing mandates quite easily.... not the response I got from whmcs support 🙂
I was also told that existing mandates could not be used because they need a callback URL which is sent by WHMCS when the mandate is first setup, otherwise payments will not be recorded in WHMCS. Is this correct or not?

A client not being able to use card payments and direct debit is an issue. It is normal practice that a client will pay their first invoice by card if they want services to be setup immediately, rather than wait for DD to be setup.
So this seems a  cludge using the card details fields to store the DD mandate details.

It does seem to work from what we have been seeing on our end. We have got a few invoices that were sent to gocardless to be take payment and are currently in "Payment Pending" stage. 

[willdashwood]

We've been using GoCardless with subscriptions for years now. We've just been manually adding transactions to WHMCS as they reach "confirmed" status. It's great to see GoCardless integration back in WHMCS but before we enable it we want to try and ensure a smooth transition. So could anyone who has gone through the process confirm that the following steps are the right way to go about it?

1. Enable GoCardless module in WHMCS and grant authorisation.
2. Update tblclients.gatewayid with the corresponding mandate ID in GoCardless (prepared in advance of course).
3. Make sure default payment type and existing unpaid invoices are set to the GoCardless payment method for these customers.
4. Contact GoCardless to request that they silently cancel all existing subscriptions to prevent duplicate payments.

Have I missed anything?

Just to confirm, WHMCS will request payment via the associated GoCardless mandate for any invoice that is set to the GoCardless payment method? If the invoice is set to a different payment method (e.g. PayPal) it will ignore it. Will WHMCS cancel a pending GoCardless payment if the invoice is paid by another method?

When does WHMCS request the payment and what does it specify as the "charge date" in relation to the due date of the invoice? For credit/debit card payments we only process payment on the due date of the invoice. However, for GoCardless we make sure the payments are requested at least 7 days in advance of the due date. In an ideal world we would have the ability to set a separate offset for GoCardless payments. For example, request payment 10 days in advance of invoice due date but set the charge date to 6 days in advance of the due date. My concern is that payment won't reach us before the due date of the invoice and customer's will receive overdue warnings.

Does WHMCS set the status of the invoice as "Payment Pending" once the charge has been requested?

I just wanted to try and understand the workflow in advance so that I can try and minimise disruption and confusion for customers.

Many thanks!

[Bertie]

15 hours ago, willdashwood said:

We've been using GoCardless with subscriptions for years now. We've just been manually adding transactions to WHMCS as they reach "confirmed" status. It's great to see GoCardless integration back in WHMCS but before we enable it we want to try and ensure a smooth transition. So could anyone who has gone through the process confirm that the following steps are the right way to go about it?

1. Enable GoCardless module in WHMCS and grant authorisation.
2. Update tblclients.gatewayid with the corresponding mandate ID in GoCardless (prepared in advance of course).
3. Make sure default payment type and existing unpaid invoices are set to the GoCardless payment method for these customers.
4. Contact GoCardless to request that they silently cancel all existing subscriptions to prevent duplicate payments.

Have I missed anything?

Just to confirm, WHMCS will request payment via the associated GoCardless mandate for any invoice that is set to the GoCardless payment method? If the invoice is set to a different payment method (e.g. PayPal) it will ignore it. Will WHMCS cancel a pending GoCardless payment if the invoice is paid by another method?

When does WHMCS request the payment and what does it specify as the "charge date" in relation to the due date of the invoice? For credit/debit card payments we only process payment on the due date of the invoice. However, for GoCardless we make sure the payments are requested at least 7 days in advance of the due date. In an ideal world we would have the ability to set a separate offset for GoCardless payments. For example, request payment 10 days in advance of invoice due date but set the charge date to 6 days in advance of the due date. My concern is that payment won't reach us before the due date of the invoice and customer's will receive overdue warnings.

Does WHMCS set the status of the invoice as "Payment Pending" once the charge has been requested?

I just wanted to try and understand the workflow in advance so that I can try and minimise disruption and confusion for customers.

Many thanks!

 

The steps (1 to 4) is what we did or very similar and it worked out pretty well for us. You also need to make the clients don't have "Disable Automatic CC Processing" enabled. When the charge is submitted to take from the clients bank account, the status of the invoice does change to "Payment Pending" and once confirmed, it will change it to "Paid". 

[willdashwood]

Hi Bertie,

Thanks for the info. Do you know when WHMCS requests the payment and what it specifies as the "charge date" in relation to the due date of the invoice? Have you found that invoices are paid before or after their due date?

Thanks,
Will

[steven99]

WHMCS will attempt the charge on the due date.  That applies for any automated processing.  Depending on your settings, it will also then try again every week for x amount of time if it fails.

At the charge time, WHMCS should set invoice status to payment pending.  After that and once you get the confirmed status, the module should then update the invoice with a paid status.

If you want invoices to generate early, like 5 days before the due date, you can do so via the Setup menu -> Automation Settings -> Billing section -> Invoice Generation setting .  You can also set via the advanced settings of the Invoice generation time different days out to generate for different billing cycles .  For example, I set yearly to generate 30 days out and monthly 7 days out. 

[macisbac]

We have found that if you update the gatewayid field with a GoCardless Mandate ID that doesn't begin with 'MD.....'  when you try to capture payment it fails and the gateway log says 'no mandate id', half of our direct debit clients (all GoCardless) have mandates beginning with either `0` or `1`

You can tell if an existing mandate is going to work for a client with the new module or not by viewing an invoice for a direct debit client in WHMCS, if you see a blue box saying 'Mandate Setup' then you are good.

It seems we may have to manage direct debits manually still for mandate ids that don't begin with 'MD...' 😞

 

 

[Bertie]

11 hours ago, macisbac said:

We have found that if you update the gatewayid field with a GoCardless Mandate ID that doesn't begin with 'MD.....'  when you try to capture payment it fails and the gateway log says 'no mandate id', half of our direct debit clients (all GoCardless) have mandates beginning with either `0` or `1`

You can tell if an existing mandate is going to work for a client with the new module or not by viewing an invoice for a direct debit client in WHMCS, if you see a blue box saying 'Mandate Setup' then you are good.

It seems we may have to manage direct debits manually still for mandate ids that don't begin with 'MD...' 😞

 

 

Yes we have noticed that as well recently - The clients will get direct debit has failed emails. What we have done is told those specific clients to re-setup the mandate and once that has been done they they get a new mandate ID which actually works with WHMCS. Some annoyance for the client but it also means we don't have to do anything manually on Gocardless. 

[WTCOI]

 

 

1

On 3/18/2019 at 2:24 AM, macisbac said:

We have found that if you update the gatewayid field with a GoCardless Mandate ID that doesn't begin with 'MD.....'  when you try to capture payment it fails and the gateway log says 'no mandate id', half of our direct debit clients (all GoCardless) have mandates beginning with either `0` or `1`

[...]

It seems we may have to manage direct debits manually still for mandate ids that don't begin with 'MD...' 

😞

 

 

Ah this is terrible!

We have a number of clients who's mandates don't start with 'MD' - @WHMCS John is this something you guys are already aware of? Will there be a fix for this?

[aquiss]

As I have mentioned previously in these forums, we have been using GoCardless with WHMCS for nearly 8 years, so are well versed with the platforms together. We helped craft the original module all those years back.

We can talk from experience that the built in solution from WHMCS, presently, is very basic, compared to what it could be.

Honestly, save yourselves the hassle and consider the one made by Nifty which can be found https://marketplace.whmcs.com/product/3531 as we used the opportunity with the one built in to review our module from a pervious commercial one. Without question the one from Nifty will save your business all these headaches. It also supports the old mandate formats :)

 

[snake]

Does this allow to easily link to existing mandates?
Does it still allow customers to also use other payment methods as well for other services, rather than the messy cludge WHMCS has done in using the gateway ID, so cards cannot be used.

 

 

[aquiss]

4 minutes ago, snake said:

Does this allow to easily link to existing mandates?

Yes, it will download all the current mandates from GoCardless (old format and new style mandate format) and map them automatically based on the email addresses in WHMCS and over at GC. Any customer it can't map (where customer has changed email addresses), you can then manually map to loose ends. For us this this mapped 98% in a matter of a couple of minutes and a few mins later we had them all sorted. Basically operational within 30 mins from start to finish.

The customer can also have multiple mandates against their account. From an admin point of view, nice features include you can view/add/deletes mandates from customer profile and also you can see directly on the invoices the exact progress of collection, directly pulled from GC (see below as an example)

 

13 minutes ago, snake said:

Does it still allow customers to also use other payment methods as well for other services, rather than the messy cludge WHMCS has done in using the gateway ID, so cards cannot be used.

Yup, we run Stripe also, so customers can have both a DD mandates and card details on record, side by side, without conflicting with each other. The nifty DD module stores all it's data in separate tables, so not conflicting with card tokens stored in WHMCS way of doing things (something we did highlight to them during the beta phase but was dismissed).

It's bits you don't see which also set this module apart. They literally support webhooks superbly, so literally everything is logged into WHMCS from GoCardless from the API calls. Peace of mind!

Over the years we have used 4 different modules for WHMCS/GoCardless (mix of free and commercial). We have found the nifty one to be way out in front. We have already requested a couple of extra nice features and they added them within 2 weeks into a new release!

Honestly, forget the headaches and just do it. We don't even worry about DD issues anymore. We process over £1 million a year via WHMCS/GoCardless and honestly the WHMCS built in module just would not work for us, the way they have deployed it. We tried to highlight issues during the beta phase, but as I say, nothing was considered from what we can see.

[snake]

wow, this seems like a no brainer. WHMCS should be embarrassed by the bodge job they have done compared to this.
Are you just a user or did you create this module?

1 last question then, does it conflict with the native GC gateway ?
 

[aquiss]

2 hours ago, snake said:

Are you just a user or did you create this module?

Just an end user. I wished I had the talent to design modules lol

 

2 hours ago, snake said:

1 last question then, does it conflict with the native GC gateway ?

Nope, not at all. Unlike other 3rd party modules we have found, the guys behind the nifty one have put everything in its own directory, so no conflicts with the new native module, which puts it into the directory called "gocardless".

[WTCOI]

@aquiss Thanks for the tip! Looks good.