SEPA direct debit

SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) direct debit allows your club to collect membership fees and other charges directly from members' bank accounts. Instead of waiting for members to pay manually, you create a bank submission with all pending invoices and send it to your bank. This is the most common payment method for clubs in the SEPA zone (EU, EEA, Switzerland, and the UK).

How SEPA collection works

The SEPA workflow in Omoplata follows these steps:

1. Transactions and invoices are created -- Omoplata generates charges from active memberships and groups them into invoices. By default, invoices are created 5 days before the due date. This period can be adjusted in Settings > Billing.
2. You create a bank submission -- on the SEPA page, click "Create bank submission". Omoplata gathers all pending invoices ready for collection.
3. The bank submission is sent to the bank -- Click the three dots (⋯) next to the bank submission and select "Send to bank". After entering the security code, Omoplata connects to online banking and a TAN approval is required.
4. The bank processes the debits -- your bank debits each member's account on the specified due date.
5. Invoices are marked as paid -- Invoices are automatically marked as paid 5 days after the due date. Alternatively, you can manually confirm the payment.

Creating a bank submission

Navigate to Finance > SEPA Files to manage your bank submissions. To create a new bank submission:

1. Click "Create bank submission". Omoplata collects all pending invoices that are ready for SEPA collection.
2. You can then select or deselect individual invoices if certain debits should not be included in this batch.
3. There is a separate "Retries" tab for debits that are being retried after a failed attempt.
4. All included invoices move from pending to waiting to send.

Each bank submission records:

• The number of transactions included.
• The total amount across all transactions.
• Your club's creditor details.

SEPA sequence types

When Omoplata creates a bank submission, it checks whether each mandate has been used before:

• FRST (First) -- used for the very first debit under a new mandate.
• RCUR (Recurring) -- used for all subsequent debits under the same mandate.

This distinction is required by the SEPA scheme and is handled automatically.

Bank submission statuses

Each bank submission has a status that tracks where it is in the process:

Marking as uploaded

After the bank submission is successfully sent to the bank, it is automatically marked as uploaded. This:

• Changes the status to uploaded and records the upload timestamp.
• Moves all related invoices from waiting to send to sent to bank.
• Updates all related transactions to sent to bank.

Automatic processing

Banks do not actively confirm that a debit was successful -- they only report failed payments. After a configurable waiting period (default: 5 days after the due date), Omoplata assumes the payment was successful and automatically:

• Marks the bank submission as processed.
• Marks all related invoices as paid.
• Completes all related transactions.

Only bank submissions where all payment due dates are older than the waiting period are processed this way.

Deleting a bank submission

If you need to cancel a bank submission before sending it, you can delete it. This reverts all included invoices from waiting to send back to pending, allowing them to be included in a future bank submission.

Processing returns

When a SEPA debit fails (for example, due to insufficient funds, a closed account, or a mandate dispute), the failed transactions need to be processed in Omoplata.

1. Go to Finance > SEPA Files and fetch bank transactions. Omoplata connects to your bank and automatically reconciles the transactions.
2. Failed debits are automatically identified and the affected invoices are set to pending retry.
3. The affected member is automatically notified by email about the failed transaction -- based on the return reason from the bank. If the account is blocked, they are asked to contact the operator. In all cases, they are informed that a retry will occur in a few days and to ensure sufficient funds.
4. If a processing fee is configured in Settings > Billing, it is automatically added to the affected invoice.
5. The failed invoice appears in the separate "Retries" tab and can be resent to the bank at any time.

Managing SEPA mandates

A SEPA mandate is the authorization from a member allowing your club to debit their bank account. Each mandate is stored alongside the member's payment method and includes:

• IBAN -- the member's bank account number.
• Account holder -- the name on the bank account.
• BIC -- the bank identifier code (optional, as it can be looked up from the IBAN).
• Mandate date -- the date the member signed the authorization.

Updating payment details

When a member's bank details change, you can update them from the quick view dialog. Updating creates a new payment method and mandate, and deactivates the old one. All existing memberships using the old payment method are automatically switched to the new one.

Mandate lifecycle

• When a new SEPA payment method is created, a fresh mandate is issued with the current date.
• The first debit under a new mandate uses the FRST sequence type.
• All subsequent debits use the RCUR sequence type.
• When payment details are updated, a new mandate is created and the old one is deactivated.