Before anyone can put a member on Direct Debit, CiviPlus needs to know how your Direct Debit scheme works: which Service User Numbers you collect under, what your mandate references look like, and which days of the month you send instructions and collect money. This page walks through that configuration.
These are one-off settings. Once they are setup, day-to-day work happens on the member and batch screens.
This page is for administrators setting Direct Debit up. If it is already configured and you need to put a member on Direct Debit or run this month's batches, see How to put a member on Direct Debit and How to run your Direct Debit batches. For how the whole thing fits together, start with Introduction to Manual Direct Debit in CiviPlus.
What can I do in CiviPlus?
Make Direct Debit the payment method behind membership payment plans.
Record one or more Service User Numbers, so a group that collects for several entities can keep them apart.
Set the format of your mandate references, your run dates and the notice you give before a collection.
Have CiviPlus work out each member's first and second instalment dates from those rules.
Before you start
What this needs: access to the Administer menu, membership types and payment plans already set up, and the following from your finance team or your bank. Agree all of it before you change anything, because these values are specific to your organisation and are not safe to guess.
Your Service User Number, sometimes called the originator number, for each entity you collect under.
The prefix and minimum length your mandate references should use. If you have collected Direct Debits before, pick a prefix that cannot clash with references already in use.
The days of the month you submit new instructions and collect payments, and the minimum number of days your bank needs between the two.
How many days of advance notice you give members before taking a payment.
Step 1 — Point payment plans at Direct Debit
Go to Administer → CiviContribute → Payment Plan Settings.
Set Payment processor for back office to Live - Direct Debit. This is the setting that makes Direct Debit available when staff create a membership, and it is the one most often missed.
Decide whether to tick Use latest price when auto renew membership? Left unticked, a membership renews at the price it was created with. Ticked, it renews at the current price on the membership type.
Set Days to renew in advance to the number of days before a membership expires that you want next year's schedule created. Thirty days is a common choice, and it gives you time to give notice of the first collection of the new period. Zero renews on the last day of membership.
Leave Update start date on renewal unticked unless you have been told otherwise.
Click Submit.
Step 2 — Add your Service User Numbers
Go to Administer → Direct Debit → Direct Debit Originator Number. Every mandate is tied to one of these, and so is every batch, so a group collecting for a charity and its trading arm can keep the two streams separate.
Click Add Direct Debit Originator Number.
Put the Service User Number your bank issued in both Label and Value. The label is what staff pick from a dropdown, so if you hold several, label them in a way your team will recognise.
Click Save, and repeat for any other entity you collect under.
Step 3 — Configure Direct Debit
Go to Administer → Direct Debit → Direct Debit Configuration. Everything on this screen is required.
Mandate references
CiviPlus numbers mandates in sequence and then pads them to make a reference. Default Reference Prefix goes at the front; Minimum Mandate Reference Length is the shortest the finished reference may be, and zeros fill the gap.
With a prefix of DD and a minimum length of 8, the thirty-seventh mandate is DD000037. Once you have live mandates, changing these values changes only the references created from then on.
Run dates, and how the first payment date is worked out
Three settings describe your banking cycle, and between them they decide when a new member's money is first taken.
New Instruction Run Date(s) — the days of the month you send new mandates to your bank. You can pick more than one.
Payment Collection Run Date(s) — the days of the month you collect.
Minimum Days from New Instruction to First Payment — the gap your bank needs to register a new mandate before it can be collected against. Three working days is typical, so a setting of 5 is a safe allowance for weekends.
How this plays out for a member. Take instructions going on the 15th, a minimum gap of 5 days, and collections on the 1st. A member who signs up on 17 September has missed September's instruction run, so their mandate goes on 15 October. Five days later is 20 October, and the next collection date after that is 1 November. Their first instalment is 1 November, and you will see the instalment table on the membership screen change to match as soon as Direct Debit is chosen.
The second instalment
Second Instalment Date Behaviour decides what happens after that first payment, and the two options trade one awkwardness for another.
Take second instalment 1 month after the first instalment keeps a clean month between every payment. Where the first instalment slipped into a later month, the whole schedule shifts with it, so the final instalment can fall after the membership has expired.
Take second instalment in the second month of membership keeps the schedule tied to the membership year instead. Where the first instalment slipped, the first and second payments can land in the same month.
Most organisations prefer the first option, because members notice two payments in one month more than they notice a schedule running a few weeks long.
Advance notice of collections
Set Days in Advance for Collection Reminder to meet or beat 10 working days. Giving advance notice of what you are about to collect is a condition of the Direct Debit scheme, not a courtesy. Fourteen calendar days absorbs weekends comfortably; add a few more if you send notices by post. Go lower only where your sponsoring bank has agreed a shorter period and it is stated in the Guarantee you send out.
Leave Number of Records to be Processed per Batch Submission Queue Task at 50 unless large batches are running slowly. Then click Submit.
Step 4 — Let your team see the Direct Debit menu
The Finance → Direct Debit menu is hidden unless a person's role holds the CiviCRM : Can manage Direct Debit Batches permission, and no role holds it to begin with. Administrators see the menu whatever their permissions, which is why this usually surfaces as a colleague reporting that the menu is missing for them.
Go to Administer → Users and Permissions → Permissions (Access Control).
Find CiviCRM : Can manage Direct Debit Batches and tick it for every role that runs your batches.
Save the permissions.
Those people also need the ordinary membership and contribution permissions, because putting a member on Direct Debit happens on the membership screen. They need access to custom data as well — on CiviPlus that usually means the Custom Data Access role — or the Direct Debit Mandate tab does not appear on a contact record and they cannot check or correct a mandate after creating it.
Optional — flag memberships that fall behind
CiviPlus can mark a membership as in arrears once a payment is overdue, which gives you something to report on and chase. Add a membership status rule at Administer → CiviMember → Membership Status Rules with Start Event set to Membership is in arrears (Payment Plan), a Start Event Adjustment of the number of days you allow, and End Event set to Membership is no longer in arrears (Payment Plan).
A status rule changes the label, not the money. Marking a membership as in arrears or cancelled does not stop the Direct Debit and does not stop future instalments being collected. To actually stop collecting you have to cancel the mandate and the payment plan yourself, as described in How to run your Direct Debit batches.
Checking it worked
At the bottom of the Direct Debit Configuration screen is a Batch and code transition table. It is read-only, and it confirms the lifecycle your settings now drive: new instructions move mandates from 0N to 01, payment collections move 01 and 17 to 17, and 0C marks a mandate inactive.
The real test is a member. Create one membership paid by Direct Debit and check that the instalment dates match the cycle you just described. If the first instalment is not where you expect, the run dates or the minimum gap are the place to look.
That is the configuration done. Next, prepare the member-facing communications before anyone signs up, in Setting up Direct Debit notifications. The templates are supplied with placeholder wording that has to be replaced.
Related articles
How to put a member on Direct Debit — the day-to-day task this configuration makes possible.
Setting up Direct Debit notifications — the other half of the setup, covering the five message templates.
Introduction to Manual Direct Debit in CiviPlus — how mandates, batches and codes fit together.
GoCardless Direct Debit — the alternative, where a third party collects on your behalf.