Lump-sum payouts from a debit-order collector
How a gym records a debit-order collector's lump-sum payout against each member's invoice, books the collector's fees and reconciles the bank line.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Some clubs still prefer debit orders. Members like not having to remember, and the club likes cash arriving on a known day. So the club signs up with an outside collection service: the service holds the members' mandates, runs the debit orders each month, and pays the club one lump sum, less its fees, a few days later.
On the bank statement, that payout is a single line. Behind it are dozens of members, some of whom paid and some of whose debit orders bounced. The job in your books is to turn that one line back into the right answer for each member. This article shows how to do it in Achekam.
Why Achekam runs no debit orders itself
Achekam never charges a business's customers automatically. There are no saved cards and no debit orders, and the credit-control reminder e-mails carry no pay link. Every payment is either made by the member or collected by someone else on your behalf.
So if you want debit orders, an outside collector does the collecting, and Achekam records the result. That split is clean, as long as you treat the collector's report, not the bank line, as the source of truth.
In South Africa, the Payments Association's guide to debit orders explains the three types, DebiCheck, Registered Mandate and EFT debit orders, how each is authorised, and what to do about unauthorised debits. Ask your collector which type it runs for your members, because it affects how disputes and reversals reach you. Nigerian and Kenyan clubs should ask their collector the same questions about their own country's direct debit schemes.
The collector's report as the source for allocations
Each collection run produces a report from the collector. You need, for every member:
- the member's name and your reference for them;
- the amount the collector tried to collect;
- whether it was collected, failed or later reversed;
- the collector's fee, per member or for the whole run.
Ask the collector to use your invoice numbers or member codes as the reference on its side. Matching by name alone falls apart the first time two members share a surname.
One receipt per member, from the report
Each member's monthly fee is an invoice in Achekam. Issuing it posted it to debtors, sales and output VAT. What the payout needs to do is mark the right invoices as paid.
Work down the collector's report and record a payment for each member who was successfully collected. A payment can be recorded against one invoice or spread across that member's invoices. A part payment leaves the invoice part-paid, and anything over is held on the member's account. A receipt can be re-allocated later if you put it against the wrong invoice.
Members whose debit order failed get no receipt. Their invoices stay unpaid, and credit control picks them up: once a day it e-mails overdue reminders, by default at 7, 14 and 30 days overdue, and it records whether each e-mail went out. A member whose debit order bounces will hear from you without anyone at the desk having to remember.
The total of the receipts you record should equal the gross amount the collector says it collected. Check that before moving on.
Why matching the bank line alone does not mark invoices paid
Import the bank statement as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053; each import is checked so the opening balance plus movements equals the closing balance. The payout appears as one line.
Bank lines are matched by suggestion, and a person accepts each match. It is tempting to treat that as the whole job. It is not: matching a bank receipt to a customer invoice does not record the payment on the invoice. It must also be recorded in receivables. If you skip the member-by-member receipts, the bank reconciles but every member still shows as owing, and credit control starts chasing people who have paid.
So the order is always: receipts from the collector's report first, then the bank line.
The collector's fees as a supplier bill
The payout is smaller than the receipts by the collector's fees. Record the collector's fee invoice as a supplier bill, line by line with its VAT. A bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts. When it is approved, record it as paid from the same bank account the payout went into, dated the payout date, because the collector took its fee out of your money before paying you.
Once the receipts and the fee payment are both in the books, the receipts less the fee come to the net payout on the statement. A reconciliation completes only with no difference left or with every leftover line explained, so if the matching suggestions do not pair the payout neatly with the receipts and the fee, explain the line rather than forcing a match.
A monthly routine
- Download the collector's report as soon as the run settles.
- Record a receipt for each collected member against their invoice.
- Check the receipts total the collector's gross figure.
- Record and approve the collector's fee bill, paid on the payout date.
- Import the statement and reconcile the payout line.
- Leave failed collections to credit control, and follow up members whose debit orders fail repeatedly.
For clubs collecting without any debit orders at all, see collecting membership fees without debit orders, and when a collected amount lands against the wrong month, read member overpayments and the wrong month.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
