With Payment Schedules you can set up a series of Direct Debit payments to be collected over a configurable period of time or over an open-ended term.

Payment Schedules allow you to set up a series of payments against a mandate/DDI. Schedules can be Fixed-Length or Open-Ended.

Type Description
Fixed-Length In a fixed-length schedule you must specify the:
  • Amount of the Direct Debit payment.
  • Frequency of the Direct Debit payments.
  • Total number of payments.
  • Direct Debits are created when the schedule is created.
With a fixed-length schedule, the total number of required payments are created in READY FOR EXPORT status. The latest payment is exported (i.e. sent to SEPA Clearing or to Bacs Clearing, depending on your selected scheme) automatically as each payment in the schedule is due.
Open-Ended In an open-ended schedule the:
  • Direct Debit amount is specified.
  • Frequency is required.
  • Number of payments is not defined.
  • Payments will continue to be made indefinitely.
Only one payment (the latest) is ever in READY_FOR_EXPORT status prior to its collection date. The payment is exported (i.e. sent to SEPA Clearing or to Bacs Clearing, depending on your selected scheme) automatically and a new Direct Debit is created in READY_FOR_EXPORT.

A schedule may be configured with any one of the following frequencies:

  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Bi-weekly
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Custom

The Custom option allows you to make collections at intervals of every:

  • 3 months (quarterly) or
  • 6 months (bi-anually).

Where you choose the custom option you must set paymentCustomFrequency = 3 or 6 in the Create Payment Schedule or in the Create Payment Schedule & Mandate endpoints.