I recently needed to take payment from a friend for an item I had sold them. Usually this would be paypal or bank transfer affair but since I came across GoCardless, I’ve been itching to use it (see how it works).
I took the opportunity to record the process (with my friend’s assistance) of taking payments from a student’s perspective.
What followed was the single easiest payment process I’ve ever been through.
1. Setup and Send a Paylink
GoCardless Paylinks are without a doubt the most awesome invention in the world of online payments right now.
I choose how much the link charges and how often the person visiting it should be charged (VERY flexible but in my case this was just ‘once’).
I also have the option to set a ‘redirect’ link. I imagine as a company this would most likely be a ‘thankyou’ page, however I know my friend has a love of pugs so I’m going to personalize mine and send her to an amusing pug-related youtube video I think she’ll enjoy.
I dropped my friend the paylink via a facebook message but the beauty of paylinks is that I could have put this anywhere and send it to any number of people, in an email, a text, a direct message on twitter, pretty much anywhere you can stick text or a link. I could have printed it out and sent it via letter if I wanted (although this might have been a little inefficient).
2. Friend Pays
At this point my friend was able to enter their bank details and pay me via the link. I asked them to screenshot all the steps in the process and they sent back two images. One was this:
And the next was this:
Needless to say, she found getting redirected to the youtube clip hilarious :)
Note: There was also the login screen I think since this was their first GoCardless payment but you could almost argue that since they didn’t even mention it it must have been super easy
3. Rolling in $$$
At this point I received an email letting me know I’d been paid:
I could also see the payment on my GoCardless Overview and in my list of payments:
Conclusion
That’s literally it. I do lose 1% of my transaction up to £2 in commission but it’s way less than their competitors and for a process this awesome, it’s a no brainer.
I highly recommend you check it out, maybe you could use it to settle a few I.O.Us, collect the rent or split the heating bill this winter? If you’re a small business, you probably have even more to gain by giving it a look since their API is incredible.
