Custom Direct Debit Names

I did a quick search for this in the forum but didn’t spot any open threads on the same idea. My rent is taken each month by a direct debit using the GoCardless system set up by my estate agent. Currently this shows as “GoCardless” in my feed. I’m not sure if this is something the agent would have to set up on their side, but if I could give it a custom name that only I could see, such as “Rent - My Address” that might make it look better in my feed and introduce differentiation if I had multiple GoCardless direct debits.

I know I could do this with tags, but I presume I would have to tag each month?

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it looks like this might be possible:

How will payments appear on my bank statement?

A reference will appear on your bank statements in the following format:

GOCARDLESS-[MERCHANTNAME]-XXXXXXX

  • [MERCHANTNAME] refers to what the merchant you’re paying through GoCardless has registered against their account with us.
  • The “XXXXXXX” represents a unique reference, usually between five to seven characters, that relates specifically to your Direct Debit mandate with a specific merchant.

This reference helps us locate the associated customer account in our system if additional information about a payment or corresponding customer account is requested.

Please note: For customers who bank with NatWest, HSBC, and some other high street banks, it will only say “GoCardless Ltd” on your bank statement. These banks choose to ignore the full references we provide them and simply put our company name as we are processing the payment through our Direct Debit Service User Number (SUN).

@BethS do you know if it would be possible to pick up and use the “[MERCHANTNAME]” for gocardless direct debits?

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I think this would be a fab solution for GoCardless generally, but I wonder if there’s something in @FlyingDutchman’s original post about being able to give merchants / transactions personal or friendly names visible to only that user?

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I’ve just checked this out in app, I can see the merchant name but it’s currently going into the notes field, along with the unique reference. It definitely would be cool to see this in my feed instead of GoCardless. Thanks for checking this out! :smile:

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No worries - my gym uses Go Cardless as well so would be cool to see this changed to their name as well! :smiley:

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+1 for the specific GoCardless use case - I now have 5 separate GC direct debits which belong both in separate categories and have different repeats. The app seems to partly understand the last two and treat each differently, so it’s just the labels that need tidying up. But for two GC direct debits they show as one in the payments screen.

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@daniel.cannon do you reckon that the above would be possible for GoCardless Direct Debits? Showing the merchant data rather than GC?

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Great idea. If you were simply able to give each scheduled payment a ‘friendly name’ (e.g. “Rent - Bob” or “Pet Plan - Gromit” or “TV Insurance”) then the friendly name could be used whenever a transaction from that direct debit is made. So it would show the friendly names in your account home, direct debit list, notifications etc. and you’d always be able to get the full detail whenever you wanted, but the friendly names would help you (1) distinguish multiple similar transactions more easily and (2) also make your transaction list easier to assimilate by glancing

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Great idea! I’d like to see this🙌🏼

If go cardless suggest it can be done why not?

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I think it might be possible but would require quite a bit more work to the way that we match transactions to merchants (as we would need to do some partial matching on the references).

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Having correct statement descriptors seems to be a feature of GoCardless’ premium plans, which is disappointing. :disappointed:

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Great idea! And not just for gocardless, but for all direct debits. My use case would be that I have two Sky TV accounts, but the direct debits both say Sky so it’s difficult for me at a glance to differentiate between them. I would love to add names such as “my sky” and “mums sky” so I know what’s what

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Agreed - I have a similar case with 2 Google Play subscriptions - it’d help me keep on top of which is which if I could set a manual name.

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100% agree with this.

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Current CEO of Monzo Tom Blomfield was a founder of GoCardless so this should certainly be on a someone’s radar.

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Just to add a +1 to this request - now I’ve moved my direct debits to Monzo, I have a list with 3 direct debits from the same supplier. I’d like to name them to something sensible.

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Another vote in this. Very difficult to know what the DD are when you have multiple from the same provider. Even when you don’t tbh it would be nice to d scribe them so you have clarity as to what it’s for.

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Any reason why this couldn’t also be applied to standing orders too?

You’d be setting up the standing order so can set whatever name you want?

Aren’t there new regulations which mean you have to input the account holder’s name?

I think people want the ability to give a nickname to Standing Orders and Direct Debits.

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