At a glance
Total amount that successfully collected via GoCardless bank-debit in the period across all schemes (BACS Direct Debit UK, SEPA Direct Debit EU, ACH Debit US, Autogiro Sweden, PAD Canada, Becs AU/NZ, Betalingsservice Denmark). Note: GoCardless is bank-debit only, not card. This number does not include any card payments.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your GoCardless data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK B2B SaaS company (“Northstar Analytics”) billing 380 customers monthly via GoCardless BACS Direct Debit, with EU customers on SEPA. The 30-day window covers 03 Apr 26 to 02 May 26.- No card payments. Northstar accepts both GoCardless DD and Stripe card on their billing page; ~70% of customers pick DD (cheaper for SaaS, set-and-forget). Card volume goes through Stripe, not here.
- Settlement timing is days, not minutes. The 02 May 26 confirmed payments include amounts initiated on 28 Apr 26 (BACS D+3 working). Compare to Stripe / Square where customer-pay and bank-credit are roughly the same week; on GoCardless, “money moved” lags “customer charged” by 3, 5 days.
- The indemnity claim is the structural BACS risk. UK BACS Direct Debit Guarantee allows a payer to claim “this debit was unauthorised” indefinitely. Card-style chargeback rules don’t apply to BACS.
- Cost efficiency is the GoCardless thesis. ~ GBP 92,200-equivalent at ~0.95% fee = ~ GBP 875. Same volume on Stripe at ~1.4% + GBP 0.20 per transaction would cost ~ GBP 1,366. Saving ~ GBP 5,900 / year.
- Mandate setup is a separate event. The 312 active BACS mandates were each set up at customer-onboarding (4 working days for BACS). New customers this month who haven’t completed mandate setup have NO confirmed payment yet; they show up next month.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the GoCardless Dashboard: Sign in at manage.gocardless.com and the closest comparable view is:Payments → All payments (filter by date; status “Confirmed” + “Paid out”)Other GoCardless views:
- Payouts view (Money out → Payouts). Post-fee, post-refund, post-indemnity settled balance. Always lower than this card.
- Mandates view (Customers → Mandates). Per-customer mandate state, not payment volume.
- Failed Payments view. Tracks
status = failed, separately from confirmed. - Charged Back view. Tracks indemnity claims (BACS) and disputes.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Quick rule for support tickets: if a merchant says “Dashboard shows GBP 100k, Vortex IQ shows GBP 90k”, the most common cause is confirmation lag plus time-zone for boundary days.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
“GoCardless is bank-debit only, can I take card payments through it?” No. GoCardless is purpose-built for direct debit / bank-to-bank payment schemes. There is no card option. If you need both, run GoCardless + Stripe (or another card PSP) in parallel. “Why is GoCardless cheaper than Stripe?” Bank-debit is a different rail. Cards involve interchange (paid to issuing bank), scheme fees (Visa / MC), and acquirer margin; total ~1.4, 2.9%. Bank-debit involves a small per-transaction fee from the country’s central scheme, no issuer interchange. GoCardless fees are typically 1% capped at GBP/EUR/USD 2. For SaaS / B2B billing where typical payment is GBP 100, GBP 5,000 monthly, the cost saving versus card can be 50, 80%. “What’s the catch, why doesn’t everyone use bank-debit?” Three structural limitations: (1) Settlement is slow. 2, 5 business days vs instant for card. (2) Setup requires mandate. Customers must authorise the merchant to debit; this takes 1, 4 days the first time. (3) No good for one-off / impulse purchases. Cards are best for ecom checkout where speed matters; DD is best for recurring / B2B / SaaS. “Mandate setup, how does it work?”- BACS (UK): customer enters bank account + sort code on a GoCardless-hosted page; 0N (new mandate) message via BACS; 4 working days later mandate is “live”. First debit cannot occur until mandate is live.
- SEPA Core (EU): customer signs SEPA mandate (electronic accepted); live in 1, 2 business days.
- SEPA B2B: stricter, requires customer’s bank to confirm the mandate (B2B SDD has no chargeback right for the payer in exchange).
- ACH (US): verifies via micro-deposits (1, 2 days) or instantly via Plaid.
- Autogiro / PAD / Becs / Betalingsservice: scheme-specific, 1, 5 days.
- SEPA Core: consumer + business payers, 8-week no-questions chargeback right + 13-month unauthorised right.
- SEPA B2B: business-to-business only, NO chargeback right for the payer in exchange for stricter mandate verification. Preferred for high-value enterprise SaaS.
pending_submission → submitted → confirmed → paid_out → optional charged_back. This card counts confirmed (and paid_out).
“What about GoCardless’s API rate limits?”
Production: typically 600 requests / min. For very high-volume merchants the engine paginates; freshest minute may lag.
“Multi-scheme merchants, do schemes share fees?”
No, each scheme has its own pricing. UK BACS is GBP-denominated; SEPA is EUR-denominated; ACH is USD-denominated.