Payment Plan Activity

This article outlines Majestri's direct debit process as it relates to activated Payment Plans.

Once a Payment Plan is activated, the perfect scenario is when all scheduled debits occur without issue until the plan is completed. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, so we talk about the small workflows that are kicked off when a member's debit is rejected.

Essential Reading

Not much of this article is going to make sense unless you understand pretty well how Payment Plans work. We advise having a good look at all of these pre-requisite articles:

If you are looking at an answer for a specific question, it may already be in the Payment Plan FAQ.

Direct Debit Run

Let us explain to you how our Direct Debit Run works, so you're across the sequence of events as they occur.

  1. At roughly 9:00am AEST each Tuesday and Friday, we have a process that creates a debit record for each Payment Plan (across all clubs) where a debit is scheduled for that day. Each member of each club is sent a notification email (and opt-in SMS) notifying them that the debit is going to occur that day.
  2. Each member is notified that they have 3 hours to notify us if the debit is destined to fail. If we receive that notification, the debit is cancelled, and the club is notified. We provide this exit option to members as there is no point attempting a debit that is going to be rejected.
  3. At roughly 12:00pm AEST that same day, the remaining (uncancelled) debits are assembled into what is called an ABA (Australian Bankers Association) file. This file is transmitted securely to our banking partner to complete the entire set of debits. At this point, all involved Payment Plans are locked for clearance. This means nothing about the Plan can be altered until the debit has cleared or failed.
  4. Over the course of the next few days, we may receive one or more rejection reports from the bank notifying us of debits that failed. The pending debit is then failed, resulting in the member and the club both being notified. The member is charged a rejection fee which is appended to the next scheduled debit.
  5. After 3-5 business days (either the Friday or the Monday), we have enough confidence in the remaining debits to have cleared, so we will finalise all pending debits. This results in the debit payment being applied to a member's outstanding debt, and them being sent a receipt via email.
  6. The proceeds of the debit are include in our usual disbursement process that happens each Tuesday.

Cancelled Withdrawals

On the morning of a debit (Tuesdays and Fridays), at approximately 9:00am AEST, we pull together the list of members across the clubs who are going to have their bank accounts debited. They get sent a notification at that time about the pending withdrawal.

The notification states that they have a three hour window to let us know if the withdrawal should not happen for any reason. There is no point attempting the debit and suffering a rejection fee if there is no chance that it will succeed.
If a member contacts us to pull out of the debit run, we cancel the withdrawal. The member receives a notification to that effect, which we also CC the club Treasurer (or Administrator) on.
The downside is that it pushes their entire schedule out by one week, but this would happen anyway in the event of a rejection, so we do what we can to be fair about things.

Failed Withdrawals

At approximately 1:00pm on the day of debit (Tuesdays and Fridays), for the remaining withdrawals that have not been cancelled by account holders (see above), we generate a file that contains the entire list of debits and transmit it securely and encrypted to our bank.

Over the next few days, we may receive a notification from the bank that one or more of those listed debits has been rejected. In this instance, we fail the withdrawal. The following happens:
  • The member receives an email and SMS (if applicable) notification that the attempted debit was rejected. The club Treasurer or Administrator gets CC'd on that communication.
  • The debit is automatically scheduled for the following Tuesday, and a rejection charge is tacked on to the next debit to cover the failed withdrawal of the current week.

Frozen Payment Plans

Majestri may have cause to freeze a Payment Plan, which will prevent any further debits being attempted until the 'unfreezing' of the Plan. There are two reasons why we may take this course of action:

  1. An attempted debit has been rejected due to incorrect bank details being specified.
  2. Two successive attempted debits have failed.

It's in everybody's best interest for rejection charges to not keep racking up, so we put these plans on a temporary hold and we will make contact with you to determine the best course of action. In some circumstances, it's an anomaly, and after some discussion, we'll remove the "freeze" and things will resume from the next scheduled debit date. At other times, we may decide together that it's unlikely that successful debiting will happen, and we may elect to cancel your member's Payment Plan. Money that was previously committed via the plan, will be moved back onto their outstanding debt where payment can be solicited via the usual means.

Alterations to Active Plans

It is not possible to change the terms directly on an active Payment Plan. There are, however, some options available to you when circumstances change.


Payment Plan Amendments

It's very common for the requirement to come up to alter a member's current Plan. They may wish to add more debt to it, they may pay some off early, or make a catch-up payment. Regardless, it's easy to do in the system.

Simply locate the link shown below when viewing somebody's Plan and make the necessary changes. You will need to enter a reason for the change, as that gets sent as an email to the member and the club. Once upon a time, this action would cancel the original Plan and create a new one in its place, but that is no longer the case. Altering a Payment Plan will retain the original Plan and just update it with the changes.

Payment Plan - Alter Terms

Modifying the next Instalment Date

Circumstances may arise where a member contacts you ahead of their next debit and advises that they'd like it pushed back for whatever reason. You have the ability to push back the next debit anywhere from 1 to 5 weeks. This will modify the entire debit schedule, pushing it all back by whatever delay you set.

Payment Plan - Change Next Withdrawal Date

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