Standing Orders/Direct Debits etc.

[BliarsGoing]

If I go it alone one of the customers I wish to take with me has been a historically late payer. They always pay in the end but it takes them months. As I'm intending to operate a support contract I would want regular monthly payments up front.

What is involved in setting up a facility to take this payment. Direct Debit, Standing Order or something else.

Thanks once again for any advice, I'm aware that I'm almost monopolising the business forum at the moment

[Smartie]

Standing order is the only real way for you to do it to begin with, they would have to instruct their bank and they are in complete control.

DD taking facilities are not handed out by the banks lightly!

[rpguk]

DD's are controlled by you, i.e you can charge £X amount one week and £Y amount the other - because they effectively give you access to your clients bank accounts its not easy to get hold of. I've no real experiance of setting up a DD system but I guess www.directdebit.co.uk is a good place to start.

Standing orders are the other way around and are just a way for your client to send a regular payment from their account to yours. However if you do extra work your going to have to invoice seperatly for it as the amount they send is fixed.

Setting up a standing order is easy enough, your client needs to write to their bank manager saying how much to send, how often and to whom. What most people do is create a form so they just have to put in their bank details and give it to you, you then send it off to their bank manager. You should be able to copy another organisations, replacing their details with yours.

Edited by rpguk on Friday 20th October 17:53