Software tutorial Applies to: Pro

Create your first SEPA Direct Debit collection in Pro

Last updated: 25 October 2026

This tutorial walks through one complete collection in the Collections workspace of SEPA Generator Pro: from your creditor details to a pain.008.001.08 file ready to submit to your bank, and how to repeat it the following month.

The example is a fictional sports club, Harbour Rowing Club, collecting a €45.00 monthly membership fee from its members.

What Pro does — and what your bank does

Pro prepares and checks the collection file on your computer. Your bank collects the money. You upload the file through your bank’s channel, and the bank processes it according to its own cut-off times and checks. Pro does not connect to any bank, does not debit accounts, and does not schedule or repeat collections automatically. It also cannot tell whether a collection was paid, rejected or refunded.

Before you start: bank prerequisites

Direct Debit collection is a service your bank has to enable for you. Before your first file, make sure that:

• your bank has agreed to process SEPA Direct Debits from your account, for the scheme you intend to use (CORE, B2B or both);
• you have a creditor identifier (CI);
• you hold a signed mandate from each customer you will collect from. For B2B, each customer has also confirmed the mandate with their own bank;
• you know which file version and upload channel your bank expects, and its submission deadline before the collection date;
• your customers have been notified of the amount and date in advance, as agreed with them (pre-notification).

These are scheme rules and bank requirements, not software settings. SEPA Direct Debit mandates explained summarises them with links to the official rulebooks.

1. Set up the creditor profile

Open Collections. If no creditor exists yet, Pro asks you to create a creditor profile: Name, IBAN, BIC and Creditor ID. You can also use Manage creditors… at any time. Choose the creditor in the selector at the top of the workspace; collections, customers and history are shown per creditor.

2. Record customers and mandates

On the Customers & Mandates tab, add each member with Add customer…, or import the whole list with Import customers…. For each mandate you need the mandate reference, the debtor IBAN, the signature date and the scheme; a default amount of 45.00 saves typing later. Manage customers and mandates covers this step in detail.

3. Create the collection

On the Collections tab, click New collection… and set:

• Name, e.g. “November 2026”;
• Collection date, the date on which you ask the bank to debit the members;
• Scheme: CORE or B2B. One collection contains one scheme only;
• Format: pain.008.001.08 (the default) or pain.008.001.02 if your bank still requires it.

Select members and click Add to collection to include their active mandates. Then, as the dialog says, tick the customers to collect and enter the exact amount for each. Only ticked lines are included. Lines take the default amount when one is saved. If amounts vary, Import amounts… updates the draft from a CSV or Excel file with one row per mandate reference.

4. Check the sequence type

Each line has a sequence type:

Code	Meaning
RCUR	Recurring collection under a mandate for repeated payments.
FRST	First collection of a recurring series.
OOFF	One-off collection under a single-use mandate.
FNAL	Last collection of a recurring series.

Pro proposes RCUR for new lines. Under the current EPC rules, the first collection of a recurrent series may also be sent as RCUR, but some banks still ask for FRST: follow your bank’s instructions. A line shown as Choose… needs your decision.

Click Save draft. The draft stays in the workspace until you export it; no file is created yet.

5. Review

Select the draft and click Review. Errors block generation; warnings need your attention but do not block it. The review flags, for example:

• a mandate that is paused or inactive, or whose scheme differs from the collection’s scheme, which must be fixed or removed before export;
• a further FRST for a mandate that was already exported;
• a collection on a mandate previously collected as FNAL or OOFF;
• an amount that changed since the collection you repeated, or a customer who may be collected twice for the same period.

Check the number of payments and the total against what you expect. Edit payment… lets you correct a line from the review.

6. Generate the XML

Click Generate & Save XML… and choose where to save the file. Pro builds the pain.008 file, validates it against the bundled official schema, archives a copy and records the export in Export History. The exported collection can no longer be edited.

7. Submit it through your bank

Upload the file through your bank’s channel before your bank’s deadline. A schema-valid file is not a guarantee of acceptance: banks apply their own rules, so test your first collection with your bank. After uploading, you can click Mark as uploaded to bank in Export History. That mark is your own note, not a confirmation from the bank.

Returns, rejections and refunds are reported by your bank. Pro does not reconcile them, so check your bank statements and update your records (for example, set a cancelled mandate to Inactive).

8. Repeat next month

In Export History or on the Collections tab, select the exported collection and click Repeat as new collection…. Pro creates a new draft:

• the name moves to the new month, e.g. “December 2026”;
• fixed amounts are reused, and variable amounts can be updated or imported;
• RCUR lines stay RCUR, and other sequence types are set to Choose…;
• the original collection and its history are not changed.

The draft notes that SEPA Generator does not know whether your bank collected those payments, so check your bank’s results before you repeat. Then review, generate and upload as before.

Troubleshooting

• The bank rejects the file: compare its message with common SEPA XML rejection errors and your bank’s format documentation. XML Tools in Pro can validate the exported file and produce a detailed report.
• You need a one-off file from a spreadsheet: the File Generator creates Direct Debit XML from CSV or Excel without saving customers, as on the SEPA Direct Debit XML generator page.