Setting up Direct Debiting

Direct Debiting is a tool to simplify funding your pays and for staying on top of account fees. You can set up Direct Debiting within the Thankyou Payroll system. This article will show you how.

Updated: October 2023

Setting up Direct Debiting for your payroll account will ensure that the correct amount is deducted from your nominated bank account in time to fund your pays - on time, every time.

In this article:

Setting Up Direct Debiting - What I Need to Know
Locating the Direct Debit Setup and Management
Setting Up Direct Debiting in the System
Activation and Verification
Using the Direct Debiting Function

Setting Up Direct Debiting - What I Need To Know

You can use Direct Debiting for funding pays and/or for paying account fees.
You can set up Direct Debiting yourself (if you have the authority) from within the Thankyou Payroll system. This article will take you through the steps to do so.

You can download a Direct Debit Authority Form if you need other signatures for this purpose. Simply click on this message on the Direct Debiting Page to download a paper form:

Only users authorised by the bank account signatory can set up Direct Debiting.
To activate this feature, you must email bank account verification details to the Customer Success Team after you have set up the Direct Debiting in the system. Simply attach the top of a bank statement or the account verification letter through your banking app to an email. Remember to use your reference number in the Subject line of the email, along with 'Direct Debit Verification'.
Information needed in the account verification letter:
- Bank letterhead or Bank Name
- Your business name
- Your nominated business bank account details for Direct Debiting.

Info - Blue Block (1) The registered user who set up the Direct Debit Authority for this account is the only user who has the ability to add other users to this function.

*If this user leaves your business, they need to contact the Customer Success Team to assign this ability over to another user.

Locating Direct Debit Setup and Management

From the Dashboard, go to Settings and select 'Direct Debiting' from the dropdown menu. This will take you to the Direct Debiting Autorisation page from where you can set up Direct Debiting for this payroll account.

Setting Up Direct Debiting

When you first open this page, you will notice a warning in red informing you that your account has not been verified for Direct Debiting yet. This is expected as you are setting up the Direct Debiting for this account now. This message will remain until the Customer Success Team has verified your account details as mentioned above.

As long as you see this message, Direct Debiting has not been activated on your payroll account.

Fill in the date that your company was registered on the NZ Companies Register.

Fill in the email address where debt notifications and Direct Debit notifications will go. Remember: Thankyou Payroll will email you with the date and amount to be debited from your account before each Direct Debit transaction.

Read the Direct Debiting terms and conditions and select this as read when done.

Select this button to have Direct Debiting for your pays. We will debit the 'You Pay' amount from your account based on your payment processing timeframe choice, either two-day or one-day processing. Direct Debit is unavailable for overnight payments.

Select this if you want to pay your fees via Direct Debiting. The fee amount will be debited from your bank account on the 20th of each month. You can select the 'check fees balances' button on the desktop to check your account fees.

Select this button to have both the pay funding and fee amounts deducted from the same bank account. You will fill in the bank account details next.

Leave this option blank if you wish to use different accounts for your fees and your wages. PLEASE NOTE that you will have to attach verification details for both accounts to the verification email before your Direct Debiting will be activated.

Select this option to have your Direct Debit taken from the account loaded in the 'Settings' Page. Note: You still have to provide verification details for this account, same as if you used another option.

To check the details, go to the 'Settings' tab and select 'Account Settings' from the dropdown menu. Scroll down the page to find the account details entered above your payslip logo upload.

Enter the bank account details for Direct Debiting here. NOTE that this has to be the same as supplied in the verification email to us.

Fill in the name of the signatory and select 'YES' for signing authority.

Click the 'Confirm Direct Debit Activation' button. You will receive an email confirming that you have set up Direct Debiting in the Thankyou Payroll system. This feature must now be verified and activated.

Activating Direct Debiting

Now is the time to send that bank account verification email to the Customer Success Team. This ensures that we have the correct account information to use for Direct Debiting and prevents any fraudulent activity for all of our customers.

What forms of bank account verification are valid?

A screenshot of the top part of a most recent bank account statement (we don't need to see transactions or balances, please)
The bank account verification letter available through your banking app

Any of these are valid bank account verifications, as long as it is recent and we can see the information listed below.

What information needs to be visible?

Your business name
Your bank's name or their letterhead
The business bank account number/s the Direct Debit must run from.

Remember: If you have split the Direct Debits for funding pays and paying account fees, we will need the same verification information for both bank accounts.

What will you do with the information?

The Customer Success Team will check that the information you entered in the system matches the bank account verification information you sent through. If these do not match, we will contact you.

The Customer Success Team Member will then activate Direct Debiting and confirm back to you via email.

Our team will delete the bank account information you emailed to us one month after receiving it.

Using Direct Debiting

We have a dedicated article explaining how to use the Direct Debit function. Follow this link to find out how Direct Debit funding works.

Info - Blue Block (1) Direct Debiting cannot be used to fund overnight pays. If you need to do an overnight pay, you will have to do a manual transfer.

That is it! You have set up, verified and activated Direct Debiting for this payroll account. Now that is making your payroll work for you!