Instant Bank Pay Flow
How Instant Bank Pay works from the Debts screen, including existing links, amount and description defaults, and cancel-and-recreate behaviour.
Choose Instant Bank Pay from the debt payment choices when you want to send a one-off payment link through Open Banking. This route is useful when the customer needs to pay now but you do not want to record a manual payment or set up an ongoing Direct Debit mandate.
Before the Link Is Created
- Existing link check: The popup first checks whether this debt already has a pending payment link. If it does, Work Planner brings that link back instead of creating another one straight away.
- Amount: Defaults to the remaining balance still left on the debt after any pending collections are taken into account.
- Description: Starts with the service name and today's date. Leave that in place if it already explains the payment clearly enough.
- Email requirement: The customer must have a saved email address before Work Planner can create the link, even if you plan to send the finished link by text afterwards.
When the Link Is Ready
- Payment link ready: The popup switches to a copyable link view once creation succeeds.
- Status: Pending links show a status badge so you can tell that the request is still live.
- Copy or Open link: Use these when you want to paste the link manually or open it in a new tab.
- Send payment link: Opens the Message Customers Popup on your Payment link email and Payment link text, with the link filled in. The customer gets an email, or a text if they prefer texts or have no email address, and you can check the message before it goes. Change the standard wording in Settings, Document Templates.
Cancel & Create New
Use Cancel & Create New when the existing link should no longer be used, for example because the amount changed or the old link has already been sent to the wrong place. Work Planner cancels the pending link first and then creates a fresh one with the current amount and description.
What Does Not Happen Yet
Creating the link does not clear the debt on its own. The debt only moves on when the customer completes the bank payment and the provider feeds that result back into Work Planner. Until then, the debt row shows that a payment link has been sent.
Related articles
- Taking a Payment: Shows how Instant Bank Pay sits beside manual payment and Direct Debit options.
- Transactions List: Useful when you want to watch for the resulting payment entry afterwards.
- GoCardless Billing Request Flow: Use this instead when the goal is setting up an ongoing Direct Debit mandate rather than a one-off bank payment.