Skip to main content

One-off direct debit template

When setting up a direct debit, it's often necessary to collect a one-off, or initial, payment. This can cover the cost of providing the service the direct debit will cover, until the direct debit can start.

warning

From Jadu Central 3.3, you must include a "Create a Direct Debit" action before the "One-off Payment" template to ensure the payment is successful and against a valid subscription reference.

danger

Before enabling Direct Debit actions, ensure you have reviewed the anonymous Direct Debit guidance to verify your form authentication options.

Payment date

The payment is taken against the Direct Debit mandate, and therefore needs to follow the BACS rules around cooling off periods. There are two relevant settings on the Adapter Settings page for Bottomline:

  • Cooling Off Period - expects a numerical value which is the number of working days before the payment can be taken. Bottomline recommends this should be at least 10.
  • Payment Dates - expects one or more numerical values relating to days of the month e.g. 1, 20.

Central Forms will calculate the payment date and pass this to Bottomline. The date is calculated as follows:

  • Start with today
  • Add X working days (where X is the number of days defined as the Cooling Off Period)
  • Find the next payment date using Payment Dates
  • If this isn't a working day, find the next working day after

Creating a one-off payment template

  1. Open a form, and navigate to Templates in the top navigation bar.
  2. Click the Create Template button. A window will open, asking which type of action we want to create a template for.
  3. Select One-off Payment under the "Bottomline BPS" section, and click the Next button. The template builder for PayBridge's direct debit action will then be shown.
  4. Enter a title, select the amount to pay and comments values. You can map a question, variable or logic formulae to each one. Alternatively enter manual text by typing it into the search box for the field and pressing the return key.
  5. Click the Save button to create the template.