It’s always a good idea to keep focused when making a payment because, after all, it’s your money. The volume of money transferred through the various internet systems is constantly increasing, but the number of errors that occur during these operations isn’t decreasing, in spite of all the warnings. Bilderlings has compiled a list of the most common mistakes we see clients make in the process of making a payment.
- Formulate the “purpose of payment” correctly
First, when a client is transferring money from his account, he needs to provide information specifying the purpose of the payment in a special field on the payment order. It is important to indicate the name of the document due to which the payment is being made, for example, “contract” or “invoice”. It is important to note that the wording “payment” is not suitable for this field.
Second, the client must provide the precise number of the document. Third, it is necessary to specify the date. Finally, the client has to formulate what exactly the payment is for. That is, you need to specify a clear purpose of payment, say, for a certain type of product or service. For example, there may be “Contract number 1 for the purchase” of a certain product.
Often, clients don’t take these details seriously: for example, they write in Cyrillic letters when the fields need to be filled out in Latin letters, and preferably in English. As part of post-monitoring, a company-recipient may request additional explanations from the client. To answer the company’s questions, the client will have to spend some of his time – something he won’t want to lose.
- The amount of the payment must be the same as indicated in the document
Let’s look at an example. The client’s partner sends an invoice, say, for 10,000 euros, but at the same time, following a certain mutual settlement, they send 11,000 euros. This situation will lead to additional questions. It is always very important that the transferred amount of money matches what is indicated in the invoice.
If we are talking about partial payment, that’s another story – then it’s understandable. And in such cases you must specify “partial payment” in the “purpose of payment” field. This is one of the most frequently occurring errors we see during money transfers, and one which is easily avoided with a little care and attention.
- Always check the account number twice!
What could be more important than to correctly indicate the account number of a private person or organization to which you are transferring money. But here mistakes are common too.
Clients must always understand that even one incorrect number or letter will send their money to a completely different addressee. There are known cases of serious misunderstandings: one person is trying to convince the other that he has transferred the money on time and to the correct address, and the other sees that he received nothing.
In fact, when making payments and entering basic information to create a payment order, whether through a classic bank, or a fintech company, everything is more or less the same for a physical person.
In order to create a payment order, it is important to know the recipient’s full details – his name, his account number, purpose of payment, the name of the recipient’s bank, the bank’s SWIFT, the recipient’s legal address, and ideally the recipient’s company registration number and the legal address of his bank. The best way for the sender to avoid the risk of sending money to a wrong address is to provide as much information as possible.
After all the data are entered into the payment order, the client must check whether he has indicated everything correctly. In addition, he must be even more careful when it comes to international payments. It is one thing when it comes to payments within your own country, and another when it is performed in the international field. Otherwise, if the information in the payment was specified with an error, then there is a possibility that the payment will be returned or you will need to provide clarification, which will take a lot of time.
Through the SWIFT system, the return of payment is at least as fast as the payment itself. On average, a refund takes up to 14 days. If, the payment is made in the SEPA zone, for example, then it will take about 2-3 business days to return money in the same system. But even a few days in certain situations can be crucial.
So, awareness and awareness once again.
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