The problem
Termly bank transfers and cash mean someone matches payments to swimmers and chases late payers. If a school with 150 swimmers spends 2 minutes matching each payment and 15 minutes on each of 12 late payers, that's 300 plus 180 minutes, 480 minutes, 8 hours a month.
What the AI does
GoCardless's pricing page says its Standard plan is for collecting one-off or recurring payments, at 1% + 20p per UK transaction, capped at £4, with no setup costs; prices exclude VAT. Set up a monthly Direct Debit for each family's lesson fee. The parent is the payer, so use a family reference, not the child's name, where you can. GoCardless handles the collection, and you check the failed ones. Standard doesn't list automatic failed-payment recovery, which is on Advanced and Pro. Your terms should say the lesson fee, what happens if a lesson is cancelled by the pool and how a parent stops lessons.
A worked example
A swim school in Norwich teaches 150 children and charges parents £38 a month per swimmer. Payments arrive by bank transfer and cash, and about 12 parents are late each month.
Before
150 payments matched at 2 minutes and 12 late payers chased at 15 minutes: 480 minutes, 8 hours
After
Collection automatic, about 60 minutes a month to check failures and contact parents: 1 hour
What it's worth
About 7 hours a month saved (480 minus 60 minutes), worth about £140 at £20 an hour, if automatic collection removes the matching and most of the chasing (an assumption). Cost is Standard's fee on each payment: 150 x (1% of £38 = 38p, plus 20p) = 150 x 58p = £87, or about £104 with VAT you can't reclaim. The fee is per payment; there is no monthly subscription on the page.
How to set it up
- Work out the monthly fee for each family and list your terms: fee, pool closures, how to stop lessons.
- Open a GoCardless account on Standard and check the fee against your payment amounts.
- Send each family a link or request to set up a Direct Debit for the fee, using a family reference rather than the child's name.
- Test with one family before inviting the rest.
- Each month, check failed payments and contact those parents yourself.
What goes wrong
- Parents' bank details are handled by GoCardless as payment provider; check its data terms and tell parents.
- Failed payments are not recovered automatically on Standard. Advanced adds Success+ at a higher fee.
- Keep children's information out of payment references.
- Be clear about what happens to fees when a pool closes; unclear terms lead to disputes and refund demands.