Hi Andy,
Another vote for option b.
Regards
Rob
Every time there is one of these misunderstandings I explain why
this happened and ask how they would like it to be
changed so that
it doesn't happen any more, but sadly I have never really received
any concrete suggestions even from the people it has happened to. I'm
pretty sick of this happening so I want to do something about it.
So, I shall ask all of you, how would you expect it to work?
a) As soon as a mandate is authorised, just charge all existing
invoices immediately
Very tempting. Very simple. I fear there will be at least one
person that will claim they never expected that to happen, and a
returned Direct Debit has caused them to incur an eleventy
billion pound penalty charge from their bank, their mortgage
payment got rejected, and now there are men outside in shiny
leather jackets.
b) As soon as the mandate is authorised, if the customer has
existing invoices that are unpaid, there is a very noticeable
message on the screen like:
You seem to have unpaid invoices:
#41234 £107.88
#41239 £1.92
Pre-existing invoices won't be automatically submitted for
payment by Direct Debit. You can <a href="…">pay them
now</a>
by a one-off Direct Debit or any of our other supported
payment methods.
I like (b).
I am open to other ideas if you have any. I can't really think of
any.