Prefilling customer details into Billing Request Flow#

If you already hold information about your customer (the payer), you can provide this information before sending your customer through a Billing Request Flow. As a result of prefilling customer data, the customer will need to perform fewer steps to complete their payment flow. This leads to a more seamless experience with less friction for the customer and will result in higher conversion.

There are three ways that prefilling can be done.

1. Collect Customer Details endpoint — Creates a fully pre-populated customer record so the customer skips the details page. Requires GoCardless Pro or GoCardless Enterprise with the custom payment pages upgrade.
2. Existing customer record — Link an existing customer ID to the Billing Request. The customer's details are already known and they skip the customer details page entirely.
3. Billing Request Flows API — Pass prefilled values into the Billing Request Flow. The customer sees their details pre-populated in the form and only needs to confirm them.

This flowchart explains which of the above methods you would use for various situations:

This doc explains how to prefill customer details using each of these approaches before sending someone into a Billing Request Flow.

Create a Billing Request#

Create a Billing Request for whatever resources you want to create - our example will ask for a payment of £5. Omitting a customer ID means we'll create a new, blank customer linked against the request.

Use the Create a Billing Request endpoint:

POST /billing_requests
{
  "billing_requests": {
    "payment_request": {
      "currency": "GBP",
      "amount": "500",
      "description": "Large pot of Marmalade"
    }
  }
}

You will receive a full Billing Request. This will contain new customer and customer billing details linked against it which are empty.

It will look like this:

{
  "billing_requests": {
    "id": "BRQ123",
    "status": "pending",
    "mandate_request": null,
    "payment_request": {
      "currency": "GBP",
      "amount": "500",
      "description": "Large pot of Marmalade"
      "scheme": "faster_payments"
    },
    "links": {
      "customer": "CU00016VR36GVW",
      "customer_billing_detail": "CBD000010M15PAC"
    }
  }
}

Create a Billing Request Flow With Prefilled Customer Details#

Create a Billing Request Flow to retrieve a link that can be provided to your customer to complete the request. Provide prefilled customer details in this request:

POST /billing_request_flows
{
  "prefilled_customer": {
      "given_name": "Paddington",
      "family_name": "Bear",
      "email": "paddington.bear@acmeplc.com"
    },
    "links": {
      "billing_request": "BRQ123"
    }
  }
}

This returns the Billing Request Flow:

{
  "billing_request_flows": {
    "id": "BRF000012CV7SZN9ZJC3S27AAZ1JFWCW",
    "auto_fulfil": true,
    "redirect_uri": null,
    "authorisation_url": "https://pay.gocardless.com/billing/static/flow?id=BRF000012CV7SZN9ZJC3S27AAZ1JFWCW",
    "lock_customer_details": false,
    "lock_bank_account": false,
    "expires_at": "2021-05-14T15:34:44.693Z",
    "created_at": "2021-05-07T15:34:44.707Z",
    "links": {
      "billing_request": "BRQ123"
    }
  }
}

If the customer visits the authorisation_url, they will begin the checkout flow asking for their customer details, but with given and family name already prefilled:

The customer can amend any of the prefilled information and complete those fields that haven't been prefilled.

Final note#

It's worth noting that this same functionality means customers who leave the flow and come back later will resume from where they left off.

What's next?#