Direct Debit and Standing Order Mandates can be used to record money collected from patients for 3 different reasons:

1. To pay for products and services that you supply on a regular basis e.g. contact lenses or monthly aftercare fees – this is referred to as ‘Product Supply’.
2. To pay for products purchased on credit e.g. patient is paying for spectacles over 3 months – this is referred to as ‘Credit’.
3. To pay into a ‘pot’ which can be used to help customers save up for future purchases – this is referred to as ‘Saver’.

i-Clarity will allow you to mix and match the payments from each of these schemes within the one patient mandate.

Understanding the Mandate Maintenance Form

Mandates are created and maintained using the Mandate Maintenance form in the CL Management form.

Open the CL Management form by clicking on the alarm clock icon.

Click on the ‘Set Up Mandate’ button.

Collection Method: You can set up multiple collection methods for any practice, e.g. Standing Order (for patients who would prefer not to sign a DD mandate) and 1 or more Direct Debit accounts.

First Collection Date: This is the first date that a new mandate is to be collected on. The main purpose for this field is so that, depending on the arrangements you have with your DD provider, you can collect an initial payment quite quickly, e.g. two weeks after signing a patient up, and then a further collection two weeks later, and monthly after that. Please see the separate section below about when the First and the Next collection dates are used.

Date Cancelled:  Once a date has been entered into this field then no payments will be collected after the date specified, irrespective of any other date settings.

You can reinstate a mandate that has been cancelled by simply removing the check box, though be aware that you should also then modify the Next Collection date to a date in the future that you want the next payment to be collected on.

Next Collection Date: Once a first payment has been collected under a new mandate, then the next payment will be collected on this date. This date is automatically advanced by the time interval specified in the next two fields:

• Collect Every:  How many weeks or months each collection should be made.
  
• Weeks/Months: Whether you are collecting calendar monthly or every ‘x’ weeks, typically 4.

Date Created/Modified: The date that this mandate was either set up originally OR the date that any of the following fields were modified: 

• Collection Method
• Mandate Reference
• Sort Code
• Account Number

The reason for this is that if any of these fields have been amended then this effectively becomes a new mandate – a new instruction to the patient’s bank, e.g. they may have changed their bank, or you may be switching them from one collection method to another with a different authorisation. Therefore, if any of these fields are changed then by default two things will happen:

1.     The next collection will be triggered by the First Collection Date, and not the Next Collection date, so you should check that these have been amended  accordingly, i.e. typically setting the First Collection Date to the next date that you want to collect from this patient and the Next Collection Date to the appropriate interval after that.

2.     The details of this ‘new’ mandate will be included in your next Audit submission, if you are using software that supports this feature.

Mandate Reference:  By default, this is generated automatically by i-Clarity, and consists of the Branch Code and the Patient’s Branch ID.  (This may not always be the case, e.g. if we have imported mandates from another system, or you have an alternative scheme in place). Note that this is the ‘link’ between the authorisation that the bank holds, saying that you have permission to collect a DD, and the actual instruction the bank receives to pay out, so if this field is amended then further payments may be considered not to be authorised and so may not be collected.

Sort Code/Account Number/Account Name: The patient’s sort code (6 digits), Account number (8 digits), and Account Name (28 characters).

Notes: Memo field.

Mandate Payment Lines

Having set up the mandate, then that can be used to collect one or more payments, specified by ‘Payment Lines’, of which the above is an example.

Start Date: The Date that this payment should start to be collected from. Note that this allows you to schedule payments that can begin in the future. However, the actual date the payment will be collected on will be as specified by the First or Next collection.

Type: Product Supplied, Credit, or Saver – as described above. (Money collected against these different types is recorded in separate ‘pots’, and the value of these pots is reduced when you pay for goods or services using the different payment methods:   DD/SO – PS, Super Saver or Interest Free).

Amount: Amount to be collected. Note once a payment line has been entered, as shown in the example above, that you can amend this amount manually by double clicking in it and simply typing in the new value – ensuring of course that you have notified the patient of the change beforehand.

No Of Payments: This is typically used to collect a specified number of payments from a patient, e.g. 4 interest free payments, after which the payment line will be cancelled – once the number of payments received against this line equals this number the ‘End Date’ will be set to the current date, and no more of these payments will be collected.

This mechanism considers reversed payments that have not been collected, e.g. if a patient is due to pay 4 amounts, and the 3^rd is returned, then the system will continue to try and collect two more payments.

However, if the final payment is not collected and therefore reversed then the final payment will NOT automatically be re-instated, and you will have to manually reinstate the payment, by deleting the ‘End Date’ field. Beware!

Notes: Memo field. You may find this useful to record a summary of products/and or services the patient is receiving for this payment.

End Date: Date after which this payment will no longer be collected. This will typically either be blank, (e.g. in the case when the patient entered an open ended agreement to pay for contact lenses and aftercare at a fixed rate); a date in the past, where a payment line has been cancelled either automatically (when a specified number of payments have been received) or manually; or a date in the future after which you no longer wish to collect this payment line.

Setting Up a New Mandate

Click on the ‘Set up Mandate’ button.

The maintain mandate form will open.

Select the applicable collection method from the drop down.

Select the 'First Collection Date' from the calendar.

Select the 'Next Collection Date' from the calendar.

Type in the frequency of the collection after this second date.
 E.g. every 1 month.

The 'Mandate Reference' will be completed automatically.

Complete the Sort Code, Account Number and Account Name.

The next step is to add a payment to the mandate.

If you would like the payment amount to start at the same time the collection starts, then leave the payment start date as today.

Select the type of payment from the drop down – Prod Supp/Credit/Saver/Other.

Type the value of the payment in the 'Amount' field.

If this is a continuous payment collection, then leave the number of payments fields and the end date blank. If you are only wanting to collect a specific number of payments, then enter a number in the number of payments field e.g. 3. If you need the payment collection to end at a specific time enter an end date.

Click ‘Add This Payment’ to add the payment line to the grid.

Click the button ‘Create Mandate’.

This will save the mandate information.

A note of the next payment amount will be displayed on the main CL Management form:

Cancelling a Mandate

To cancel a mandate, open the CL management module and click on the ‘Set up Mandate’ button.

On the mandate maintenance form tick the box next to the ‘date cancelled:’ field:

Once the box has been ticked, today’s date will appear next to the box.

Click ‘Save changes’ on the mandate maintenance form, to save and exit.

Amending a DD/SO Payment

This process can be used if you need to amend the amount of money the patient is paying by direct debit or standing order.

Click the ‘Set Up Mandate’ button.

On the mandate maintenance form type the date into the ‘End Date’ field against the current payment.

Now complete a new payment line.

Once the details have been added to the new line fields click ‘Add this payment’ to add the new payment line to the grid.

Click ‘Save Changes’ to update and exit the mandate.

Scheduling Future Payment Changes

You can use the payment line Start Date and End Date fields to schedule changes to future payments, e.g. if you agree a price rise with a patient that is to occur at some point in the future.

In the example below the system will collect £50 each collection until the end of December 2015, and then any further collections will be at the new rate of £55.