Xero App Series: GoCardless

Welcome to the eighth instalment of our Xero App Series, covering some of the best and most popular Xero add-ons that may assist in your business.

Over the last few months, we’ve explored Spotlight Reporting, Receipt Bank, CloudPayroll, Deputy, Vend, HubSpot and ezyCollect. In case you’ve missed them, here’s our quick introduction about why we’re running this series.

In this blog series, we wanted to draw your attention not to Xero’s core features but to the 800+ add-on apps that feature in Xero’s App Marketplace of approved third-party software providers and products. This ecosystem of added functionality is part of Xero’s winning edge over other accounting systems, bringing a world of additional possibility, insight and power to your business. 

Over the coming months, we’re going to look at a different Xero app each month and explore the significant added value it brings. These apps are in use all over the world and are some of the most popular currently available in the App Marketplace.

We would be very happy to assist you with any further questions, especially if you are interested in a trial implementation at your business!

This month, we’re on to…

GoCardless

GoCardless is a world leader in recurring bank-to-bank payments. They enable you to collect pre-authorised payments straight from your customer’s bank account when they are due via a Direct Debit. It can be used for one-off, recurring, subscription, or installment payments. 

Category: Payments

Rating: 4.5 stars on Xero

Founding details:

GoCardless was founded in 2011 with a mission to take the pain out of getting paid for businesses with recurring revenue. They have since created a global bank debit network that rivals credit and debit cards. GoCardless now has five offices internationally and processes $13 billion worth of transactions every year across 50,000 businesses both small and large. 

Scenario:

Are you sick of overdue invoices negatively impacting your cash flow? Or does your business operate on a recurring payment or subscription model? Either way, GoCardless allows you to take control of when you get paid and takes the stress out of chasing up payments. 

About:

GoCardless allows you to save time and money by automating collections and bringing an end to manual payment collection processes. This also helps manage your cash flow by ensuring timely cash receipts.

The amount you set up to charge customers can be fixed or flexible as it’s linked to the amount and due date on the Xero invoice you send your customer.

This means you can also set up instalment payments, giving your customers the option of spreading out their invoice over multiple, smaller payments. Additionally, with GoCardless, you’re able to collect payments in other currencies and receive the cash in your home currency with no mark-up on foreign exchange.

By obtaining funds straight from bank accounts, instead of via credit or debit cards, more payments go through successfully the first time, with no risk of lost, stolen or expired cards slowing down the receivables process. If a payment does fail, you’ll be notified immediately so you can retry the payment or follow up ASAP. And payments that do go through will be automatically reconciled against your Xero invoices, saving you time spent on bookkeeping!

Integration with Xero:

Once connected to Xero, it’s simple and secure to set your customers up to pay via GoCardless. Customers only need to enter their details once; when you send out your invoices, GoCardless can then automatically collect payments when they are due. This makes collection frictionless and painless.

Once invoice payment has been collected via GoCardless, the invoice is marked as ‘paid’ and an expense transaction is added for the GoCardless fee. Reconciling your payment can then be done with a single click!

To learn more about GoCardless, visit the Xero App Marketplace or GoCardless’ website.

Feel free to contact us if you would like to learn more about integrating GoCardless with your Xero account.