GoCardless User Guide

GoCardless User Guide

Introduction

COHO has an integration with GoCardless. GoCardless is a payment processing platform, which allows you to automate payment collection.

This guide won’t go into the details of how to use GoCardless, it will focus on the integration between the 2 platforms and what it means within COHO. For a guide about using GoCardless, refer to their Customer Hub.

We will sometimes refer to GoCardless as “GC” in this guide, to make the reading experience better.


How to read this guide?

  • You don’t have a GoCardless account: You can skip 'Matching existing GoCardless data'.

  • You have a GoCardless account:

  • Do not miss 'Matching existing GoCardless data'.

  1. You already have GC connected in COHO: Do not miss 'Transaction importing' to make sure the transition with the legacy features is seamless.


Overview

You will find the GoCardless integration in 3 places in COHO:

  • On the “Rent Collection” panel at tenancy level, with the information about this specific GoCardless integration, and the ability to track the GC payments directly within the table, as well as the ability to trigger payments in certain cases for rent due records

  • On the “Rent Collection” panel at the organisation level

    • Where one can see the multiple exports which are effectively bulk payment requests, as well as create new ones.

    • Matching with current GoCardless data is possible, for clients with an existing GC account.

  • During the Onboarding process (Onboarding panel and Tenancy page) where the holding fee and the move-in monies can be requested to be paid via GoCardless

NB. The GoCardless integration is only available if your organisation/property has the “Rent Collection” service turned-on. If this feature is turned off in your account, navigate to the ‘Inactive Services’ at the bottom of the property page to turn it back on.



Setting up GoCardless

This should be a one-time operation.

To set-it up, go to the “Rent Collection” panel at the organisation level. There click the settings cog on the top-right of the panel to open the panel settings. You will see an accordion for the GoCardless integration. Click on it for the content to appear.



Inside this section, you will see an overview of the possibility of the integration with GoCardless. The first thing you will have to do is follow the GoCardless setup page. Follow the link and there, you will be prompted to fill-up data about your company to create a new GC account, or just login with your existing account.



NB. Once the information is entered, don't close the window. You will be redirected to a specific COHO page so that we can grab the authentication data and save it. Only close the window once the COHO page says it’s ok to do so.

When this is done, we recommend you reload the COHO main dashboard page, and then go back to the “Rent Collection” settings cog. There, you will see that the GoCardless integration is now enabled. You will also see that the “Rent Collection” panel now has a new accordion called “GoCardless” (with the GoCardless logo), which we will go into more detail.

Once authenticated through COHO, COHO will be able to listen to the operations happening in your system to take actions on them.

You can disconnect the connection between COHO and your GoCardless account from GoCardless directly. If you do that, we will mark the integration as disabled and won’t receive any information about the operations happening on your system. If you have any issue or want us to completely delete the integration COHO <> GoCardless, there will be a button 'Reset integration' once your account is connected through COHO.

From this point onward in the guide, we will consider that you have the integration turned on.


Matching existing GoCardless data

NB. We strongly recommend you go through the matching process if you already have active customers, mandates or subscriptions in your GoCardless account.
This will apply only if you already have a GC account when starting the integration with COHO. You can skip this section if you have a new account with no data and want COHO to take all of that automatically.
There are 2 places where you can feed to COHO your existing GC data:

  • On the “Rent Collection” panel at the tenancy level. You can see a GoCardless section with your info and you can edit it from there at any point.


  1. On the “Rent Collection” panel at the organisation level. Inside the GoCardless accordion, in the section “Match Existing Mandates” (Below the Export section).




About the matching…

When the page loads, we will ask GC to give us your active customers, mandates and subscriptions.

If there are any that are not already matched against a tenancy within COHO, we will show you a table with:

  • All tenancies without a GC customer ID.

  • 3 drop down menus to be able to match from “only the customer ID”, to “the customer ID, the mandate ID and the subscription ID”.

  • We will indicate in green the rows with at least 1 perfect match on the customer ID, mandate ID or subscription ID.

  • We will indicate in blue the rows with multiple possible matches on the customer ID, mandate ID or subscription ID.

  • Once a customer is selected, we will only propose the mandates that match that customer.

  • Once a mandate is selected, we will only propose subscriptions matching this mandate.


What if you don’t match them?

Matching is not mandatory. The main idea is to make sure you don’t have duplicates within your GoCardless account.

NB. It’s important to match the subscription correctly (if you have any), to not charge someone twice.

Customer

If you don’t match a customer ID to a tenancy, it means that when creating the first payment request for a rent due record of this tenancy, we will create another customer on your GoCardless account. In practice, this means a link will be sent for the tenant to set-up their GC customer and mandate, which will be linked back automatically with COHO once it’s done.

Mandate

If you don’t match a mandate ID to a tenancy, but we do have a customer ID linked to it…it’s mostly the same process as above but the customer will already be known so it won’t be duplicated.

Subscription

This is very important. If you have a running subscription on GC and you don’t match it, we will allow you to request payment against this customer/mandate, while you already have an automated process to do so within GoCardless. This will result in duplicate charges, which would be problematic.

Once the subscription is matched to a tenancy, the rent due record for this tenancy won’t appear in the export form. This still means that we will listen to the payment received for these subscriptions, but it won’t be possible to match them against a rent-due record automatically, so they will sit in the transactions panel (more on that later).

Here, you need to make a decision: Keep the subscription running and have a looser integration within COHO, because no payment will be created automatically, or, cancel the subscription on GC and start doing it manually through COHO exports. In that case, payments will be created automatically.

Subscription can be cancelled directly from COHO on the rent collection room panel in the GoCardless summary of the tenancy.

Requesting payments through Exports

NB. This is the main feature of the integration.

Within the “Rent Collection” panel at the organisation level, you will see the first section is called “Your exports”. This is where you make your payment request for the payment against rent-due records.



When creating a new export, you will be able to pick a start-date and end-date to grab only the required rent-due records. We will go and fetch the concerned records.
NB. If you have a record without GC data and that GC tells us you have un-matched active customers or mandates, we will show the row in yellow.
You can then select the records you want to create payment requests against, and then click on “Export”.



Export creation consequences

This will create an export, which is basically a container of all the payment requests at that moment. Then, depending on how the tenancy was previously matched, the system will…

Tenancies with no mandate ID

A Billing Request will be sent to the tenants email address. In the email, a link is given to the tenant. The link will redirect them to a GoCardless mandate setup page:

They will enter all the information required, and connect their bank account, so that you can start making direct debits to their accounts. They will also charge the amount instantly upon setup.

Tenancies with a mandate ID

A direct debit will be done against the customer mandate. GoCardless will email them about it. You can refer to GoCardless documentation to know exactly about the timings of this.

All the information will be brought back automatically from GoCardless to COHO. You can see the customer and mandate IDs saved against the tenancy in the ‘Rent Collection’ panel, at room/tenancy level.

The direct debit will have a charge date that is the due date. If the charge date is before the mandate's "next possible charge date" it will make an instant payment request. The notion of "next possible charge date": A mandate has a "next possible charge date" which is the earliest date when a payment can be taken. Read more about direct debit timing here https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/timings/





Request Mandate Set-Up

If you want to request to the user to set-up their mandate but you don't want to take any payment yet, use the button "Request Mandate" on top of the Export table. This will send them a link with a mandate setup action which we will then save within COHO. You can also do this directly from the Rent Collection room panel.

Keep an eye on the payment status

You will be able to follow the payment status directly from COHO, in 2 places:

  • The “Rent Collection” panel at organisation level, in the GoCardless accordion, within the export table. Click “View” on the row of your export. You will then have access to a bunch of data:

    • The payment status, if the payment was requested

    • If there is a set-up necessary for this tenancy (no Mandate), you will see the mandate set-up link we sent to the tenant, and be able to resend it.


  1. In the “Rent Collection” panel at  room/tenancy level, within the rent-due records table. Click “View” on the row of any rent-due record, and you will see at the bottom a GoCardless section with the information: payment status, mandate set-up link and resend action, and retry the payment if it failed.
- If a payment fails or is pending processing because it will done at a future date, you will be able to request an instant payment instead (this will cancel any GoCardless payment that is pending for this rent due record). 
- If a payment is pending processing, the manager can change the charge date (comes handy if the customer let you know that they won't be able to pay at the previously established due date/charge date): As above: If the charge date is before the mandate's "next possible charge date" it will be made an instant payment request.




Transactions & Payments

Payment successful

Whenever a payment confirmation is given by GoCardless to COHO, we will create a transaction if one doesn’t exist. Transactions can be managed in the “Transaction” panel, at organisation level. Then, 2 possible cases arise.




Payment request created from an Export

NB. Read the previous paragraph 'Requesting payments through Exports' to know more about exports.

For payment requests created from an export, we have a trace to be able to match it directly to one or many rent-due records, so we will create a payment and associate it with the rent-due record. We will also mark any transaction created as matched.



Payment from subscriptions

We will not be able to create payments, because we are missing data to spot the exact rent-due records it would be for. Hence you will have to manually match these transactions. The subscription can be cancelled directly from COHO on the rent collection room panel in the GoCardless summary of the tenancy.

Payment cancellation

Note that we register the payment within COHO when the payment is marked as successful by GoCardless, but it might be that the payment is cancelled for some reason. In that case, we will send an email to all of the managers of the organisation, so that they can deal with it manually.

Payment failure

If the payment fails, you will be able to retry the payment, from the exports table, or within the rent-due record individual view.

Transactions importing

Transaction import is a legacy feature that we will keep on supporting, in case payments didn’t go through correctly.

NB. For customers currently using the GC transactions import, please use with care on the first new import, since we changed the way of guaranteeing unicity of the records.

To use it, click on “Import Transaction from CSV” at the bottom of the “Transaction” panel. It will open a form where you will be able to upload a GC Payments Export. It will match the rows and once you submit it, create a transaction for each row.





NB. When exporting the payment CSV on GC, please don’t change the default columns of the export, otherwise the matching within COHO will fail.


Onboarding

Holding Deposit

When creating a new onboarding, and choosing to get a holding deposit from the applicant, the manager will have the option to use GoCardless. What does it mean?




For the applicant

The applicant will be prompted to pay through an Instant Payment link (GoCardless page). We will then grab the data and bring it back to COHO, to mark the corresponding rent-due record as paid.







For the manager

Before the applicant pays, if the Instant Payment link was not yet created, the manager still can edit the amount, but once this is paid, the amount is no longer editable.

Once paid, the manager will have to confirm the reception but the amount and the date will not be editable since we already have this information.




Move-in monies

When arriving at the Move-in monies step on the onboarding, the manager will be prompted if they want to use GoCardless to get the payment.



Contrary to the holding fee payment, we will not only get the payment, but also set-up a GC customer and mandate for future payments against this tenancy.


Concerning the way it works, it’s the same as for the holding fee:

  1. The applicant pays through a GC link, and we will grab the data and register the payment against the one or many rent-due records.



  1. The manager will have to confirm the reception, but won’t be able to edit the amount, or date.



Individual Payment Requests

When in the “Rent Collection” panel at room/tenancy level, and looking at an individual rent-due record, you might be able to create an Instant Payment for it… but only if the rent due record obeys to these conditions:

  • No GC payment request was already created for it

  • This is not a RENT type of record, or this is a RENT type of record and the tenancy doesn’t have a GC subscription attached to it

  • There is no bad debt against this record

  • The “Payment status” of the record allow it

  • The due date is in the past (overdue)


Legacy features

For customers that started using the GoCardless integration before the full-integration was launched, until you switch to using the new integration, you will still be able to Export CSV in the export tool, instead of creating a payment request directly through GC.

Though, we highly recommend switching to the new way of doing things. When you do, the CSV action won’t be possible anymore.



Glossary

  • GC: Abreviation for “GoCardless”

  • Organisation level vs Room/Tenancy level (when talking about a panel location): When you connect to COHO, the first page that loads is the main organisation level. Then if you search for a tenant and go to their page, this is the tenancy/room level. The tenancy/room level can also be reached by getting to the property page, and then click into a specific room/tenancy.

  • Export: A container for payment requests sent to GC at a specific date.

  • GC Customer: A customer record that is created on GoCardless side. It has a name, and an email. This can be matched within COHO by inserting the Customer ID as a detail of the COHO tenancy .Read more doc on customers.

  • GC Mandate: A mandate is a “contract” between a GC customer’s bank and your organisation. The GC customer give its authorization for you to make direct debits payment against their bank account. This can be matched within COHO once the customer is already matched against a tenancy.

  • GC Subscription: Setup within GoCardless, will trigger a direct debit using a customer’s mandate for a determined frequency (eg. Every month). If linked to a tenancy within COHO, we will create a transaction item for each subscription payment successful. Read more on subscription payments.

  • GC Instant Pay request: A one-time, instant payment done within GoCardless. Read more.

  • GC Billing request: Take the form of a GC page (shareable by a unique link), where customer info and bank details will be gathered in order to create a mandate and a first payment.

  • Rent-due record: A COHO object that represent an amount of money due to the organization.

  • Rent payment: A COHO object that represent the payment of a rent-due record. Can be partial, or can englobe more than one rent-due record.

  • Transaction: A COHO record of payment received in your bank account, help to make sure that a rent payment is created within COHO, to mark the rent-due record as paid.

  • Holding fee: A sum you ask to an applicant to show their willingness during the onboarding process to move forward with the process and a promise you will not propose the room to someone else. In COHO, you collect it within the onboarding process and it generates a rent-due records.

  • Move-in monies: A sum you ask usually after the tenancy agreement signature, that contains an aggregate of a security deposit (given back at the end of tenancy), and the payment of the first month of rent in advance. If a holding fee was collected, it can be deduced from this sum. In COHO this would be corresponding to one or many rent-due records.


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