Sometimes a customer tells you they've already paid you another way, or you spot a mistake, and you go to stop a Direct Debit, only to find you can't cancel or edit it. This usually means the payment has already been Submitted. Here's what that means and what you can still do.
Why a Submitted payment can't be stopped
Direct Debit payments are sent to your customer's bank around 2 working days before the collection date. Once that happens, the payment moves to Submitted status: the instruction is with the bank and on its way, so it can't be recalled, cancelled or changed.
While a payment is Submitted, these options are unavailable:
Cancelling or voiding the payment
Editing the amount or the collection date
Pausing collection
Deleting the invoice
The payment stays Submitted until the bank confirms it. If it succeeds, it's marked as paid. If it fails, Adfin retries it automatically (see A direct debit payment failed).
What you can do: cancel future retries
You can't stop this collection attempt, but you can stop Adfin retrying if it fails. On the payment, under 'More actions' click Cancel payment retries.
If this attempt succeeds, we'll mark the payment as paid. If it fails, we won't try again, and the payment stays unpaid so you can collect it another way.
Stopping a collection before it's Submitted
If the collection date is still more than about 2 working days away, the payment won't have been submitted yet, and you can pause collection on the invoice or the customer to stop it going out, along with edit it's details. See How to pause reminders and collection.
If a payment has gone out that shouldn't have
If a Submitted payment shouldn't have been collected, let it complete, then refund your customer directly.