Collecting owner invoices with direct debit

Any costs you charge to owners can be collected via direct debit. Owners must give permission for this via the owner portal.

Direct debit for owners must be activated by Booking Experts for your administration. To do this, please contact your onboarding specialist or send an email to support@bookingexperts.com.

In short

  • If direct debit has been activated for your administration, you still need to ensure that your owners have at least one payment method available for the first payment. To do this, go to the settings of a payment method.

  • When your owners give permission for direct debit via their owner portal, they confirm this by paying 1 euro. This amount is automatically registered as a payment on their next invoice to be paid by direct debit.

  • A number of templates are sent to your owners; check these and adjust where necessary so that your owners are correctly informed.

  • Invoices are collected on the invoice date, but processing can take up to five days. Also, for direct debits that initially fail, a new attempt is made for three consecutive days. Therefore, wait a week before identifying failed direct debits based on the payment status.

Setting up payment methods for direct debit

Go to 'Payment methods' in the financial module. Determine which BEX Payments payment method you want to make available to your owners to use for the first payment confirming the direct debit.

Note that although 'credit card' can be set up as a payment method for direct debit, you will likely pay transaction costs for this.

Open the payment method, and check the box for payment type 'Direct debit'. Save the settings.

Do this for at least one payment method. If you make multiple payment methods available, owners can choose which one they want to use.

Owner’s choices and permission

The moment direct debit becomes available for an owner, the owner must activate it in their owner portal. The owner can choose to apply direct debit to all invoices, or only for specific types of invoices.

Types of invoices:
Meter reading invoices
One-off owner invoices
Periodic invoices
Rent settlements (if the amount is negative)
Todo invoices
Utility cost advances

If more than one payment method is available, the owner can choose which method to use for the confirmation payment. The owner then gives permission and 1 euro is paid to confirm the direct debit.

  • This payment of 1 euro is handled automatically; you do not need to create a one-off invoice or settle it yourself with an owner invoice.

  • Open the owner page and hover over the direct debit checkmark in the Owner data to see for which invoice types direct debit is activated.

Email templates for direct debit

Determine for the templates below whether you want to activate them, and if so, whether you want to adjust the default message content.

  • Owner invoice when payment is required: Sent when an invoice is ready in the owner portal. By default, this message contains the invoice in the attachment and a payment request. If some owners use direct debit but others do not, mention that this invoice will be collected automatically if the owner has set this up.

  • Owner notification of failed direct debit: Sent when a direct debit has failed after three attempts, due to the lack of a mandate or insufficient balance. The default content contains a link to the invoice in the owner portal to pay manually there and possibly set up direct debit again.

What if direct debit fails?

First check whether the direct debit has actually failed, or whether the collection has simply not been processed yet. It can take up to 5 days before the amount is in your account. Also keep in mind that for every invoice, three attempts at direct debit are made over three days.
So wait at least a week after the invoice date before checking the payment status of owner invoices.

If the direct debit has failed, the owner receives a notification that the invoice could not be collected, see the template above. Possible reasons the collection failed:

  • Insufficient balance on owner's account: The invoice must be paid manually by the owner. The direct debit is still valid for future invoices.

  • The invoice amount was more than 1000 euro: The ceiling for direct debit is 1000 euro per transaction. If the invoice is higher than this amount, you can have the limit increased by Mollie. BEX Payments works with Mollie.

  • The owner’s IBAN bank account number is unknown: For a successful direct debit, the owner’s contact data must contain their full IBAN bank account number.

Direct debit in progress:
If a direct debit has been carried out, but the payment is still being processed, you will see this text with the payments in the relevant invoice:
'This invoice still has a pending payment with Mollie/BEX Payments'.