How to Set Up and Integrate with GoCardless (take direct debit payments)

This article details what you need to do to link a GoCardless merchant account to myClubhouse so that you can use GoCardless to accept direct debit payments.  At the time of writing, GoCardless typically charges 1% per transaction with a minimum of 20p and a maximum of £2.00 GBP.  Details can be found here: https://gocardless.com/pricing/.

Step-by-step guide

1. The first step is create a merchant account on GoCardless, if you haven't done so already. Go to https://gocardless.com/ and click the "Sign Up" button; then follow the instructions.

2. Turn on Intelligent Retries. This increases the chance of GoCardless managing to collect the payment from the user if the first one fails.

   1. Login to your GoCardless dashboard. 

   2. Click “Switch on intelligent retries”.

   3. Select your currency.

   4. Complete the wizard:

      1. Retry Window: Set the time frame within which GoCardless will try to take the payment.

      2. Retry Attempts: Set the maximum number of tries after the first payment failure within the above time frame.

      3. Failure Filter: Turn this setting on.

      4. Enable retries for currency: Click to save.

3. Once you have your merchant account in place you need to create an access token for your account: 

   1. Login to your GoCardless dashboard. 

   2. Click the "Developers" option on the left. 

   3. There should be three sections on the page: Access tokens, Webhook endpoints and Webhooks.

   4. Click the green “Create” button in the top-right and select “Access Token”.

   5. Fill in the form with

      1. Name: myClubhouse

      2. Scope: Read-write access

   6. Click the green “Create access token” button.

   7. Copy the access token from the pop-up immediately and paste it somewhere safe. Take note of the warning:
      Make sure you take a copy of your access token now — you won't be able to view it again. To keep your account secure, you should treat it just as you'd treat your password.

4. Add a new GoCardless payment method to myClubhouse: 

   1. In a new browser window or tab, go to your myClubhouse site and login as somebody with administrative access. 

   2. In the main menu, select Admin > Finance > Payment Methods, Plans & Schemes.

   3. Under “Payment Methods”, click the green "+ Add" button at the top right of the table.  You will see the following pop-up:

   4. Set the "Payment Type" to "GoCardless". 

   5. Set the "Name" to be "GoCardless" - you can call it whatever you want, but for the club's main GoCardless payment method, you could simply call it "GoCardless".or “Direct Debit via GoCardless” 

   6. If this is the club’s main GoCardless account, leave the Payee as “Club”. (If this GoCardless account is for paying a specific person, select “Member” and start typing the name of the person, then select them from the drop-down.)

   7. Paste the Access Token you saved from the GoCardless merchant dashboard (step 2 above) into the "Access Token" field. 

   8. Leave the Webhook Endpoint Secret blank for now.

   9. Enter any further instructions for the paying user into the “Notes” field.

   10. Click OK. 

5. Next create a webhook endpoint:

   1. Whilst still on the payment methods page of myClubhouse, copy the webhook URL shown for the GoCardless payment method.

   2. Switch back to your browser tab for GoCardless.

   3. Click the "Developers" option on the left. 

   4. Click the green “Create” button in the top-right and select “Webhook endpoint”.

   5. Fill in the form with

      1. Name: myClubhouse

      2. Paste the webhook URL you copied from myClubhouse (step 5a)

      3. Secret: leave this blank

      4. Webhook client certificate: leave this box un-checked

   6. Click the green “Create webhook endpoint” button.

   7. A list of Webhook endpoints will be displayed, click on the “myClubhouse” one you just created.

   8. Copy the displayed webhook secret (a string of seemingly random characters).

6. Save the webhook secret to your payment method on myClubhouse:

   1. Switch back to the myClubhouse payment methods browser tab.

   2. Edit the newly created payment method and paste the webhook secret into the Webhook Endpoint Secret box.

   3. Click OK.

Next Steps

1. Add your GoCardless payment method to at least one Payment Scheme in myClubhouse. This guide should help: Payment Methods, Plans, and Schemes

2. Add your Payment Scheme to something that can be purchased via GoCardless e.g. a Subscription Membership Category.

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