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.