WorkCustomers
Billing Request and Direct Debit Setup Flow
How to create, review, copy, resend, and replace the customer Direct Debit setup link through GoCardless.
The Direct Debit setup flow starts from the customer subscriptions area when the customer does not yet have an active GoCardless mandate. The goal is simple: create a secure setup link, get it to the customer, and then come back ready to create recurring payments.
Before You Generate the Link
- The business must have GoCardless connected: Without that, there is no setup link to generate.
- The customer must not already have an active mandate: If they do, this flow is no longer needed.
- The customer needs an email address: Work Planner requires a saved customer email address before it will create the billing request at all, even if you later plan to send the link by text.
Generate Link
- Generate Link: Creates the secure authorisation URL for the customer.
- What Work Planner stores: The pending billing request ID and URL are saved back onto the customer payment integration record so the same link can be reused if needed.
- Existing pending link: If a pending setup link already exists, Work Planner reuses it instead of creating duplicates.
After the Link Exists
- Copy: Copies the setup URL to the clipboard.
- Send setup link: Opens the Message Customers Popup on your Direct Debit invite email and Direct Debit invite text, with the setup link filled in. The customer gets an email, or a text if they prefer texts or have no email address, and you can check the message before it goes. Change the standard wording in Settings, Document Templates.
- Done: Closes the popup when you have finished with the current link.
Replacing a Pending Link
- View Setup Link: Appears when a pending setup link already exists for the customer.
- Cancel & Create New: Cancels the current pending link and generates a fresh one. Use this if the old link should no longer be trusted or has gone stale in practice.
Why This Flow Matters Later
Recurring subscriptions and smoother debt collection both depend on the customer completing this Direct Debit setup first. If the mandate never becomes active, the customer cannot move into the normal GoCardless subscription flow.
Related articles
- Customer Subscriptions Flow: The next step once the mandate becomes active.
- Customer Detail View: Shows where the setup route lives inside the customer record.
- Editing a Customer: Useful if the customer email or address needs fixing before the link can be generated properly.
- Transferred-Customer Behavior: Important if the customer is no longer editable in the current business.