Solution Properties
Solution ID:
200427112426237
Last Modified Date:
Thu Jan 12 12:02:05 UTC 2023
Taxonomy Path:
Case category//How do I...//banking/reconciliation
Author:
[email protected]
Direct Debit manager - How to set your invoice due date and charge date
Description

If you've integrated your software with GoCardless to take payment from your customers using Direct Debit, invoice payment requests can take a number of days to reach your account. To allow for this delay, you can set Sage to request payment in advance of the invoice due date, so you receive payment on time. The date you request the payment  is known as the charge date. Let's take a look.

Cause
Resolution

Invoice due date

The due date of an invoice is the date at which you expect the invoice to be paid by. This is normally a date agreed with your customer, for example 30 days from the invoice date.

Why is the due date important?

When requesting a Direct Debit payment from a customer, you use the due date to determine when the request is made, not the invoice date.

Set the invoice due date for a customer

You can set the due date using the customers payment terms:

  1. Click Customers then then double-click the customer you want to edit.
  2. Click Credit Control.
  3. Edit the terms as required.

    The following Payment Due From options are available:
    Payment Due From How the due date is calculated
    Days after the invoice Invoice date + value entered in Payment Due

    If you leave the Payment Due box as zero, the default setting of 30 days is used to calculate the due date.
    Days from the first day of the following month First day of the month after the invoice + value entered in Payment Due. If the invoice is due on the first day of the following month, enter zero here.
    Days before the last day of the following month Last day of the month after the invoice - value entered in Payment Due. If the invoice is due on the last day of the following month, enter zero here.
    Day of the month The day of the month based on the value entered in Payment Due. If the invoice is dated after that date, then Sage Accounts uses the same day in the following month.
    Days from 1 month after the invoice date A month from the date of the invoice + value entered in Payment Due
  4. Click Save and then click Close.

Common due date scenarios

Here are some examples of how to set the payment terms for common scenarios:

Required due date Payment Due Payment Due From
First day of the month. 1 day of the month
A specific date each month, for example 25th. 25 day of the month
Last day of the month. 31 day of the month

Same date as the invoice:

Sage 50 Accounts v28.1 and above - Read more >

Sage 50 Accounts v28.0 or below - This isn't strictly possible, as when you set the Payment Due to 0 days, it defaults to 30 days. As a workaround, if all your customers use the same terms, you can set the Payment Due to 1 day, and the Payment Due From to days after the invoice, and increase the Direct Debit charge date adjustment by one day. If this isn't possible, you can enter the due date manually when entering the invoice.
Manual entry - if you don't want to use payment terms, you can just enter your due date manually on each invoice.

Direct Debit charge date

The charge date is the date a Direct Debit request is made. This is not necessarily the date you receive the payment, as normally there's a few days delay before payment is made.

To allow for this, in Sage Accounts you can set how many days prior to the due date you want to request payment:

  1. Click Settings then click Company Preferences and click GoCardless for Sage 50.
  2. In the Charge date section under Invoice due date minus xxx days, enter the number of days prior to the due date you want to request payment.

    The number of days here is normally 3-5 working days, depending on your bank.
[BCB:184:Emma Footer CB:ECB] [BCB:19:UK - Sales message :ECB]
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