Help Center › Billing & Payments
Direct debit timing
A card is a conversation with the bank that finishes in seconds. A direct debit is an instruction that takes a few working days to come back.
What actually happens
- The payment is taken on the member's billing date.
- The instruction goes to their bank.
- Several working days later the bank confirms it, or rejects it.
- MatPilot marks the payment received when the confirmation arrives, and the money reaches your payout on the provider's normal schedule.
What this means day to day
- A member's payment date and the date it shows as paid are not the same day. Nothing is wrong.
- Your revenue figures move on the confirmation. A month billed on the 1st is not fully counted until the direct debits clear, which is worth remembering if you check the dashboard on the 2nd.
- Failures arrive late. A direct debit that is going to fail usually does so days after it was taken. See When a direct debit fails.
- A new member's first payment is not instant. If you need someone to be paid up before they train, take a card for the first payment or check the invoice before they walk in.
Why it is still worth it
The delay is the price of a payment that costs a flat 0.35 instead of a percentage. For a recurring monthly membership, where nobody is waiting at a till, a few days is a fair trade for a fee that does not grow with your prices.