Knowledge Centre - Case Study

Training Helps Breakthrough Breast Cancer Reduce Unpaid Direct Debits by 50%

Charity looks to collect payments more efficiently

Breakthrough Breast Cancer is a leading breast cancer charity in the UK. It aims to save lives by improving the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The charity encourages regular giving from donors and wants to make it easy to donate. As a result, it became a paperless Direct Debit service user so that donors could set up Direct Debits online. It's important for the charity to make every donation count and it needs to process Direct Debits efficiently. Elsie McGinn, Gift Administration Supervisor at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, says: "We don't want to miss any donations, so we have to process things quickly and within agreed timescales. There is quite a lot we need to be aware of to do this and we need to make sure we comply with the Bacs regulations."

Training with the experts

The Gift Administration team wanted to improve its knowledge of Direct Debit to ensure it was collecting payments efficiently. "We wanted to make sure we were collecting correctly and that the whole team was aware of the importance of things such as the timelines and advance notices," says McGinn. The team eventually found what it was looking for on the website of Direct Debit Limited, a company that specialises in payments-management software and Bacs-accredited scheme training. The company's Direct Debit Essentials Plus course looks at the Direct Debit scheme in detail and Direct Debit Limited's experts share best practices and advice on how to comply with the Bacs scheme rules. McGinn contacted Direct Debit Limited and arranged for one of its expert trainers to deliver the course at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer offices in London.

Improves efficiency

The Gift Administration team found the course extremely useful and decided to apply what they had learned to the organisation's existing processes. "The course gave us a huge insight into the Direct Debit system," says McGinn. "We've changed our whole process now, so that things are done on a daily basis rather than every week or couple of weeks. As a result, we've reduced the time we spent on Direct Debit administration by about 60 per cent."

Reduces unpaid items

Having streamlined its processes, Breakthrough Breast Cancer now gets less rejected Direct Debits each month. Before the training, the organisation had an average of 400 rejected Direct Debits a month and now it gets less than 200 each month. McGinn says: "We now do things better and we have a much better understanding of the Bacs scheme rules."

Aids communication with donors

The Gift Administration team now has more confidence that it can answer donors' queries about their Direct Debits. "We can give our donors better information because we understand the Bacs transaction codes and reports better," says McGinn. In addition, the materials provided on the course have proved to be an invaluable reference tool for the team. "We keep the course materials on our desks and we reference them a lot," she says.