We are currently taking steps to start using paperless Direct Debits.  I wanted to get an idea of how other charities have dealt with the change over from standing orders to direct debit.

How you set DD up on The Raisers Edge?  Are all DD set up as a recurring gift?

How you dealt with the monthly imports from the bank?

How you deal with DD changes, such as change in value and frequency?

How smooth the process goes each month?

 Thanks

 Ayse

Ayse hi

I noticed your posting and I was just about to post the same so wondered if you'd made progress? Look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

gill

 Hi,

 We are not on paperless yet, but i can throw in my experience form our charity. We rolled out this project 3 years ago. We sent out a conversion form to all the supporters request to switch from SO to DD . the conversation rate was not that great but we did get some response. Since 2008 we decided to use only DDs as our regular giving option and stopped giving away standing order forms.

 Due to less volume we could not afford to keep the process of sending mandates from our office. We use a company called Rapidata, it is an authorised  DD bureau company who will process transaction on your behalf.. When a donor signs up a DD, we record the details in RE as a recurring gift and then export the details to Rapidata. They schedule the gift in their system and debit donor's in time and transfer the money to your charity account.

 Changing details in the DD would be as same as SO, we use amendment tab to make changes and inform Rapidata about the changes made in our system. Likewise, if they cant process a transaction for some reason they will tell us and we change it in our system.

We use FTP to transfer files between us. 

 My suggestion would be to start with DD first and then move on to Paperless after a while .

 Paperless is bit more expensive than normal DD both the setup cost and transaction cost. Also it involves a long process to get through the bank approval.

 You can contact Jodie from Rapidata for more details, i guess they will send a rep to visit your charity for an assessment. i guess its free. 

 You can also contact Gavin from clearaceademy.co.uk who is an individual Direct debit consultant. 

Hi Anbu

 I was reading your comments with interest.

 At Oasis we will decide in the next couple of months to move over to paper DD and stop giving out standing order forms.

 One thing I do know is that we will be processing in house.

In terms of setting up gifts in RE - in your view is it considerably more complicated than standing orders?

Once records have been set up is the process of drawing down reports for BACS/the bureau relatively straight forward.

Were you required to go through training to become a DD facilitator?  

Thanks

Chris

Hi Gill

We are making progress gradually - I think what I have realised with DD's is not to rush into making decisions!

The situation has changed somewhat - now I think we will be moving to paper based DD rather than paperless.

I have been looking into BACS payment providers and comparing costs etc.

For me it makes sense to process DD in house rather than through a bureau

The next step is to go through the bank sponsorship procedure, purchase and install BACS software, trial the DD process on a few donors (pulling the correct info out or RE and ensuring it is in the correct format for the BACS file), then roll out a DD campaign to new donors whilst targetting standing order donors with a conversion campaign - so we still have a considerable way to go yet!

Chris

There isn't any big difference in terms of Setting up SO and DD. In fact i find DD is easier as we deal with third party who takes care of collection.

Thanks for this,

Would you reccomend Rapidata if we decided to go down the out source route - I would be interested to hear about your experience with them.

Thanks

Chris