Run Direct Debit mandate requests

RevKeen gives you a hosted, branded journey for requesting and managing Bacs Direct Debit mandates. Your customer authorises the mandate in RevKeen, London & Zurich submits it to Bacs, and RevKeen shows you its progress.

Wait for the Active status

A completed form means the mandate has been submitted, not that it is ready for collection. Do not schedule a collection until RevKeen shows the mandate as Active.

Understand each party's role

Party	Responsibility
Your business	Requests the Direct Debit, provides customer support, gives advance notice, and collects only under an active mandate
RevKeen	Hosts the signup journey, records the customer's authorisation, submits the agreed instruction, and reports its status
London & Zurich	Provides the Bacs bureau service, validates the submitted bank details, lodges the instruction, and reports lifecycle updates
The customer's bank or building society	Accepts or rejects the instruction and applies the Direct Debit Guarantee

RevKeen and London & Zurich do not replace your relationship with your customer. Payment-specific questions, disputes about goods or services, and requests to change a payment schedule remain your responsibility.

Enable Direct Debit

Before you send a live mandate request:

Complete Direct Debit onboarding in Settings > Payments > Direct Debit.
Confirm your London & Zurich provisioning and settlement account checks are complete.
Configure the merchant name, logo, customer-support details, bank statement name, and advance-notice period shown to customers.
Complete the sandbox checks shown by RevKeen.
Wait for Direct Debit to show as enabled for your merchant account.

Direct Debit is enabled per merchant. Disabling it stops new Direct Debit setup and collection activity; it does not silently move customers to card payments.

Create and send a mandate request

You can request a mandate from a customer or from an invoice that belongs to that customer:

Open the customer or invoice in the RevKeen Dashboard.
Choose Send mandate request.
Review the customer's name and email address.
Send the branded email, or copy the secure link for an approved one-to-one channel.
Monitor the request status and delivery history in RevKeen.

Each customer-specific link is unique. Do not publish it, paste it into a shared ticket, or use it for a different customer. If the customer says the details shown are not theirs, ask them to use This isn't me and send a new request only after you have checked the customer record.

Opening a valid request establishes a short-lived, secure, HttpOnly setup cookie. RevKeen does not add a persistent recognition cookie for this journey. Completing, abandoning, or selecting This isn't me clears the active setup cookie; bank details and consent are never stored in browser storage.

Link type	Use it when	Customer experience
Customer-specific request	You already know the customer	RevKeen resolves the customer securely and asks them to confirm or edit their non-bank details
Open signup request	You do not yet have a customer record	The customer enters the minimum contact and address details before entering bank details

Never add a customer name, customer ID, address, or bank information to a mandate URL. RevKeen resolves customer context from the secure request and never prefills bank details.

Explain what the customer sees

The hosted journey presents:

Your logo, business name, support details, bank statement name, advance-notice terms, and why you are requesting Direct Debit.
The customer's contact and address details, with assisted address search and manual entry.
Account-holder name, sort code, account number, and the account-holder and sole-signatory declarations.
A review of the customer details, masked bank details, mandate reference, and Direct Debit Guarantee.
A receipt explaining that the instruction was received and what happens next.

Address suggestions help customers enter an address; they do not prove identity, residency, bank-account ownership, or signing authority. A customer can always enter a valid address manually.

Track mandate statuses

RevKeen status	Meaning	Your action
Awaiting setup	The customer has a live request but has not authorised it	Wait, send a reminder when appropriate, or cancel the request
Submitted	RevKeen has sent the agreed instruction and is waiting for bank or bureau confirmation	Do not collect; monitor the status
Active	The mandate is lodged and can be used for eligible collections	Give the required advance notice before collecting
Failed	The instruction cannot become active without correction or a new request	Follow the recovery guidance shown in RevKeen
Suspended	Collections are paused while an operational or bank-reported issue is resolved	Do not collect; review the reason and next action
Cancelled	The authority has ended	Do not collect; request a new mandate only with the customer's agreement
Expired request	The setup link was not used before it expired	Send a new request if the customer still wants to pay by Direct Debit

Provider or Bacs reason codes may appear in the operator detail for support. Do not send raw codes to customers; use the explanation and recovery action shown by RevKeen.

Send invitations, reminders, and confirmations

RevKeen's Direct Debit communications use your branding and support details. The lifecycle includes:

Mandate invitation and reminder
Setup-link expired or cancelled notice
Instruction received confirmation
Mandate active confirmation
Mandate failed or requires-attention notice
Mandate cancelled or bank-details-changed notice
Advance notice of collection

An instruction received message is not an active mandate confirmation. RevKeen sends status-specific wording so customers know whether setup is still being processed.

The invitation should tell the customer why you are requesting Direct Debit, what they need, how long setup takes, where your name appears on their statement, and how to contact you. Do not copy the unique secure link into analytics metadata, email-event properties, or support notes.

Give advance notice

Before each collection, tell the customer the amount and collection date using the advance-notice period configured for your arrangement. If your agreed period differs from the standard wording, ensure the customer sees the agreed period during setup and in the relevant communication.

Changing an amount, date, or frequency may require a new notice. Do not treat an active mandate as permission to collect an undisclosed amount on an undisclosed date.

Handle failed, cancelled, and multiple-signatory mandates

Multiple signatories are required

The online journey is for accounts where the payer is the account holder and the only person required to authorise the Direct Debit. If another person must also sign, the customer must stop the online journey and contact you. Use the alternative process approved for your London & Zurich arrangement.

Bank details are rejected

Ask the customer to check the account-holder name, sort code, and account number in the secure form. Do not ask them to email bank details or paste them into chat. If the account is not eligible for electronic Direct Debit, offer the merchant-assisted alternative shown by RevKeen.

The provider is temporarily unavailable

Do not ask the customer to keep submitting. Preserve safe contact and address details, ask them to try again later, and monitor RevKeen for the provider recovery. Never store raw bank details in browser or support tooling.

The customer needs to pay another way

Card fallback is a separate, customer-initiated action. Do not silently charge a backup card because a mandate is awaiting activation or because a collection outcome is not yet known.

Update a customer address

An address edited during mandate signup is used for that mandate submission. Updating the canonical Customer address requires the customer's explicit confirmation. RevKeen records that action so the change can be audited.

If the customer does not confirm the profile update, retain the existing canonical Customer address and keep the mandate-specific address with the mandate evidence according to your retention policy.

Support and troubleshoot customers

Use the Dashboard to check:

Request delivery, open, start, submit, and completion states
Link expiry or cancellation
The latest canonical mandate status and status reason
Confirmation-email delivery
Mandate and Guarantee documents available to authorised staff
Whether a retry, replacement mandate, or merchant-assisted route is appropriate

Do not ask for a full account number by email, chat, or telephone. Direct customers back to the secure journey. Escalate suspected security or technical issues to RevKeen Support without including the secure mandate link or bank details.

Send customers to Direct Debit help for a plain-language explanation of the process.

Test before going live

Verify the complete journey on a sandbox merchant, including:

A successful request through Submitted and Active
Invalid bank details and an unsupported bank account
Multiple-signatory exit
Expired and cancelled links
Wrong-customer handling
Duplicate submission and refresh
Confirmation-email failure
Provider and address-search unavailability
United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, and Isle of Man address entry
Mobile, keyboard, and screen-reader operation

Confirm that analytics report journey stages without customer, address, or bank-field contents.