Pay your taxes and professional fees with Qonto

2 mins

June 11, 2019

By Lucie Casamitjana

Peace of mind with SEPA direct debits How to set up a Direct debit on Qonto

Corporate taxes, property taxes and local contributions, Value Added Tax, URSSAF... The taxes and social charges companies are responsible to pay into for are plentiful - and their deadlines just as complex.

But what if we told you that you can set up a simple payment method that takes the mystery out of paying your business taxes?

Peace of mind with SEPA direct debits

There are now several payment methods available to pay a public institution: direct debits, online payments by credit card, transfers, etc.

SEPA Direct debits are now the norm for paying taxes and contributions - and that comes to no surprise. It’s the ideal way to curtail unpleasant surprises and late fees, while being secure. Not to mention you can anticipate and spread out your payments over time.

How to set up a Direct debit on Qonto

Generally speaking, you can pay a public institution with a SEPA B2B Direct Debit transfer. The payment process consists of signing and uploading a direct debit mandate to your Qonto account, which is provided by the creditor (here the public institution). This authorizes them to debit your company's Qonto account.

1- Get the SEPA B2B Direct Debit mandate

The first step is to get the direct debit mandate from the public institution concerned. Log into the related public institution website with your regular login information. Most institutions allow you to manage your payment methods from your professional space or online profile. You generally have a choice of several payment methods. All you have to choose the direct debit option to fill out your SEPA B2B Direct Debit mandate.

A direct debit mandate requires the bank details of your business banking account (account owner, account owner's address, IBAN, BIC). you can access your IBAN anytime from the Account section of your Qonto account.

2- Sign the mandate

The direct debit mandate is an agreement between the public institution and your company. It provides legal legitimacy for the merchant to collect money from your account. Like any agreement, it requires your signature.

🔔 If you don’t sign the mandate, the direct debit won’t go through and you run the risk of making late payments.

Step 3: Qonto takes care of the rest

1- Log in to your Qonto app and go to the Direct debits section, then click Set up a new direct debit.

2- Answer Yes to the question Did you receive a B2B SEPA mandate from your creditor? then upload your signed mandate to the page.

3- Fill out the information about your creditor (the institution), the Unique Mandate Reference (UMR) and SEPA Creditor Identifier (SCI) from your mandate form, then choose the frequency of your direct debits.

Good to know: The UMR code is a unique reference code for a mandate. It’s provided by the beneficiary of the direct debit and refers to information found on the direct debit mandate. It can contain up to 35 characters composed of letters, numbers and special characters. The ICS is the Creditor SEPA Identifier. This is a unique reference number that identifies each issuer. It’s assigned by the country's financial institution (e.g. Banque de France) at the request of the creditor's bank.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lucie Casamitjana

Our Product Marketing Managers have one simple goal: to help our customers get the most out of Qonto’s many tools and features.