- Zifty connects to your own GoCardless account.
- Customers are charged for each clean you mark done, not on a fixed date.
- Rained off or skipped means no payment is taken.
- Failed payments show up straight away, with a retry or a new link in a tap.
Direct Debit is the best way to get paid for window cleaning. But the usual set-up, a fixed amount on a fixed date, doesn’t fit a round where the weather writes the diary. So we built it the other way round.
The trouble with a fixed monthly Direct Debit
A fixed monthly payment works for a gym. Window cleaning is paid per visit. A four-weekly round doesn’t line up with calendar months, and a rained-off week means a customer has paid for a clean that didn’t happen.
Then come the refunds, the credit notes and the awkward texts. All of it is admin, and all of it chips away at trust.
How Zifty does it: one payment per clean
In Zifty, Direct Debit is the method, not the schedule. Here’s what happens:
- Your customer sets up a Direct Debit mandate once, through GoCardless. That gives you permission to collect, but nothing is taken yet.
- You clean the windows and mark the job done.
- Zifty raises the invoice and asks GoCardless to collect that amount.
- GoCardless lets the customer know the payment is coming, and it’s collected a few working days later.
- When it lands, the invoice shows as paid and Zif gives you a shout.
Rained off? Nobody pays.
Because every payment belongs to a finished clean, a skipped or rained-off visit simply isn’t charged. There’s nothing to refund and nothing to explain. Move the visit, do the clean, and it’s collected then. Chris covers the round side of wet weeks in Rained off?.
Your own GoCardless account
Zifty doesn’t sit in the middle of your money. You connect your own GoCardless account and payments go to you through it. GoCardless’s fee for each payment is paid straight to them. If customers already pay you by Direct Debit through GoCardless, they come with it.
Customers are covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee, which is a big part of why so many are happy to pay this way.
Moving customers onto Direct Debit
You don’t have to switch everyone at once. Send a Direct Debit link by text or email to the customers you’d like to move, and they set it up on their phone. Until they do, they stay on cash or bank transfer, and Zifty keeps track either way.
It helps to tell them why. Most customers like hearing they’ll only ever pay for a clean that’s actually been done, and that the Direct Debit Guarantee has them covered.
When a payment fails
It happens: a new bank account, a cancelled mandate, an empty account on the wrong day. Zifty shows it in Payments straight away and Zif flags it. Retry it in a tap, send a new mandate link, or put the next clean on hold until it’s sorted.
Seeing who owes what
The Payments screen shows what’s owed to you, what’s being collected, what’s come in this month and your collection rate. One look tells you where the money is.
Collect window cleaning payments by Direct Debit through GoCardless, once each job is done. No job, no charge. Cash and bank transfers logged too.
See how it works →
