Collecting payments with GoCardless Direct Debit

1. Connect your GoCardless account

Your school collects payments through its own GoCardless account, so money settles directly to your bank. Connecting takes one click:

1. In ClassBase, go to Setup → Payments and click Connect with GoCardless.
2. You're taken to GoCardless. If your school already has a GoCardless account, sign in; if not, create one there and then approve the connection — your email is pre-filled.
3. Approve access for ClassBase. You're returned to ClassBase, and the Payments page shows your account as connected and verified.

2. Set up parent Direct Debits

Each family sets up a Direct Debit mandate once. After that, every invoice — for any of their children — collects against it automatically.

1. Open the family's customer page and choose Set up Direct Debit (new families are prompted during onboarding, and you can send the request in bulk after an invoice run).
2. The parent receives an email with a secure link to GoCardless's hosted setup page, with their details pre-filled. They enter their bank details on GoCardless — ClassBase never sees or stores them.
3. When the bank confirms the mandate (usually 2–3 working days), the family shows an active Direct Debit badge in ClassBase. You can see mandate status on every customer and invoice screen.

3. Collect payments

Billing runs on your schedule — one invoice per term, or monthly rolling billing generated on your chosen billing day. Either way, collection is the same:

1. Generate invoices from Invoicing → Generate Invoices (or let the monthly automation do it). Before a full run commits, ClassBase shows you exactly who'll be billed and for how much, and asks you to confirm.
2. Invoices are emailed to parents, and collection is submitted to GoCardless — either automatically on your billing day or when you click Charge Selected.
3. Each payment shows as processing while it clears (Bacs takes a few working days), then flips to paid automatically when GoCardless confirms — no reconciliation spreadsheets. Paid invoices move to your Receipts tab.

4. Failed payments

Sometimes a collection fails — insufficient funds, or a cancelled mandate. ClassBase makes sure nothing slips through quietly:

• A "payments need attention" banner appears for any failure that has nothing scheduled to retry it, linking straight to the failed payments list.
• Click Retry to collect again — against the same mandate, or a new one if the parent has re-set-up their Direct Debit. Automatic retries with a grace period can also be enabled, so a child's place isn't affected by a single bounced payment.
• Failures that can never be rectified can be dismissed so the banner only ever shows things that genuinely need action.

5. Refunds

Refunds are issued from inside ClassBase, against the specific payment:

1. Open the invoice, click through to its payment, and choose Refund (full or partial).
2. The refund is sent to GoCardless and returned to the parent's bank account, and the invoice and payment records update automatically.

Common questions