Direct Debit comes with obligations to the people you collect from. They need advance notice of what you are about to take, a copy of the Direct Debit Guarantee, and confirmation whenever their arrangement changes. CiviPlus installs five message templates that cover all of it.
This page covers preparing those templates and choosing which ones send by themselves. Do it before your first member signs up.
This page is for administrators. If the templates are ready and you need to send one to a member or a group of members, see How to send Direct Debit notifications and letters.
The templates arrive unfinished, and they will send anyway. The Direct Debit Guarantee inside each one contains the literal words (Insert Your Organisation name) and (Insert number of days). Nothing fills these in for you. If a member signs up before anyone has edited them, that is exactly what lands in their inbox.
What can I do in CiviPlus?
Edit the five Direct Debit templates so they carry your wording, your organisation's name and your notice period.
Switch on the reminder that gives members advance notice before each collection.
Have the other communications sent automatically whenever the event that triggers them happens.
Choose which of the five you use at all, and leave the rest for your team to send by hand.
Before you start
What this needs: access to the Administer menu, Direct Debit already configured as in Setting up Manual Direct Debit, approved wording for each communication you intend to use, and the sender name and address the emails should come from. If you send any of them by post, have your letterhead ready too.
The five communications
Each is tied to something that happens to a member's Direct Debit. The same template is used whether the message goes out by email or as a printed letter.
Template | Sent when |
Direct Debit Payment Sign Up Notification | A member is first put on Direct Debit. Confirms the schedule, the bank details you hold and the Guarantee. |
Direct Debit Payment Update Notification | An existing payment plan changes, in amount or schedule. |
Direct Debit Payment Collection Reminder | A set number of days before each collection. This is your advance notice. |
Direct Debit Auto-renew Notification | A membership renews automatically for another term. |
Direct Debit Mandate Update Notification | A mandate is added or changed and staff ask for the member to be told. |
All five are supplied with the same body text and differ only in their subject line. Which sections actually appear depends on the record behind the message, so a mandate update shows bank details and the Guarantee, while a sign-up also shows the order summary and instalment schedule.
Step 1 — Edit the templates
Go to Administer → Communications → Message Templates and look for the five titles beginning Direct Debit.
Open each template you intend to use and click Edit.
Replace every (Insert Your Organisation name) with your organisation's name, and (Insert number of days) with the working days of notice you give. This must match the Days in Advance for Collection Reminder setting, because the Guarantee is a promise about what you actually do.
Adjust the wording and branding to suit. Because all five start identically, tailor the ones that should read differently rather than editing one and assuming the rest followed.
Check the Subject line. It is what the member sees in their inbox, and the supplied text is the template's own name.
Click Save.
Only the HTML version is used. The plain-text version of each template is supplied as the single characters N/A. Edit the HTML body and leave the plain-text alone.
Step 2 — Switch on the collection reminder
The collection reminder is the one with a legal weight behind it, and it is the one that is switched off when Direct Debit is installed. It does not use a scheduled reminder like the others; it has a job of its own.
Go to Administer → System Settings → Scheduled Jobs and find Send Direct Debit Payment Collection Reminders.
If you don't have access to the screen below then contact your account manager who will be pleased to arrange for this to be enabled for you.
Check the job is Enabled, and enable it if not.
Leave it running daily. Each day it looks for collections falling due in the number of days set by Days in Advance for Collection Reminder and emails those members.
The job skips anyone without an email address before it does anything else, so no reminder activity is recorded for them at all. Those members need a printed letter, which someone has to produce; see How to send Direct Debit notifications and letters. If you cannot see the Scheduled Jobs screen, ask Compuco to check this job for you.
Step 3 — Send the other four automatically
The remaining four are driven by activities. Every Direct Debit action records one, and you attach a scheduled reminder to the activity type so the message goes out whenever it happens.
Communication | Activity type to use |
Payment Sign Up Notification | New Direct Debit Recurring Payment |
Payment Update Notification | Update Direct Debit Recurring Payment |
Auto-renew Notification | Offline Direct Debit Auto-renewal |
Mandate Update Notification | Direct Debit Mandate Update |
Go to Administer → Communications → Scheduled Reminders and click Add Reminder.
Give the reminder a Title your team will recognise, such as Direct Debit sign-up confirmation.
Set Used For to Activity, then pick the Activity Type from the table above.
Set Activity Status to Scheduled and Completed so the reminder is not missed by a difference in status.
Under When (trigger date) choose Relative Date, then 1 hour After Activity Date. The short delay lets the payment plan finish being created so the message has everything to quote.
Set Recipients to Activity Source, which is the member the Direct Debit belongs to.
Fill in From Name and From Email with the address Direct Debit mail should come from.
Choose the matching template in Use Template. The subject and body load from it.
Make sure Enabled is ticked and click Save.
Repeat for each communication you want sent automatically. There is no harm in setting up fewer than four: anything without a reminder can still be sent by hand from a search.
Mandate updates are a special case. When staff tick Send mandate update notification to the contact while saving a mandate, the member is emailed there and then, whether or not a scheduled reminder exists. Setting up a reminder as well would send the message twice, so pick one or the other.
Checking it worked
Put a test member on Direct Debit and watch what arrives. The message should carry your organisation's name rather than the placeholder wording, quote the right instalment amounts and dates, and come from the address you set.
You can also check on the member's record: every Direct Debit message records an activity against them, so their Activities tab shows what has been sent and when.
That is the automatic side set up. Your team can send any of the five by hand as well, which is how you handle a go-live batch, a re-send, or a member with no email address. See How to send Direct Debit notifications and letters.
Related articles
How to send Direct Debit notifications and letters — sending these messages yourself.
Setting up Manual Direct Debit — where the notice period is set.
Editing Message Templates — working with message templates generally.
Membership Communications — the wider set of automated member messages.
Introduction to Manual Direct Debit in CiviPlus — how the whole process fits together.