Release Notes - 2024

SmarterPay have introduced Credit Anti-Fraud functionality to SmarterPay Cloud and SmarterPay Cloud API.

Credit Anti-Fraud gives clients the option to remove the possibility of creating credits until an initial successful Debit payment has been collected from the customer's bank account.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • “credits_allowed” & “debits_allowed” parameters added to the request and response for Bank Account records
  • When Credit Anti-Fraud is enabled, new Bank Account records will be created with the “credits_allowed” override automatically set to “false”
  • Changing a Mandate status to “ongoing collection”, when Credit Anti-Fraud is enabled, will update the “credits_allowed” value, on the Bank Account, to “true”
• Portal
  • New “Credit Anti-Fraud Enabled” setting added to System Settings
  • New “Override Allowed Debits and Credits” option added to User Permissions
  • “Allow Debits” & “Allow Credits” fields added to the Creation and Editing of Bank Account records
  • When Credit Anti-Fraud is enabled, new Bank Account records will be created with the “Allow Credits” override automatically set to “False”
  • Changing a Mandate status to “ongoing collection”, when Credit Anti-Fraud is enabled, will update the “Allow Credits” value, on the Bank Account, to “True”
• Services
  • When Credit Anti-Fraud is enabled, the DD Set To Successful Service will update the “Allow Credits” value, on the Bank Account, to “True”
• Webhooks
  • “credits_allowed” & “debits_allowed” properties added to the Bank Account V2 webhooks

New fields have been added to payment links, when setup using the API, to allow custom metadata to be applied to the records that get created.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • Account Validation
    • Optional “metadata_bank_account” field added to the POST request.
    • Optional “metadata_mandate” field added to the POST request.
  • Payment Links
    • Optional “metadata” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_account_validation” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_bank_account” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_card” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_customer_account” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_mandate” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
    • Optional “metadata_recurrence_schedule” field added to the POST & PUT requests.
• Portal
  • Webhook Subscriptions
    • “payment_link.create” Event added for V2 subscriptions
    • “payment_link.update” Event added for V2 subscriptions
• Webhooks
  • New Payment Link Event added.

Bulk processing has been added, for Credits and Payments, to the SmarterPay Cloud API.

This allows multiple Credits or Payments to be inserted into the system in one call, rather than one at a time.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • New API Request endpoint added.
  • Credits - New endpoint added for bulk inserts.
  • Payments - New endpoint added for bulk inserts.
• Portal
  • “credit_request.failed” event added to available options for Webhook Subscriptions.
  • “payment_request.failed” event added to available options for Webhook Subscriptions.
• Webhooks
  • New Credit Request Event webhook added.
  • New Payment Request Event webhook added.

Added support for 3 new DDICA reports:

• Direct Debit Indemnity Claim Challenge and Response Audit Report for Service Users
• Direct Debit Indemnity Claim Service User In Progress Challenge and Response Report
• Direct Debit Indemnity Claim Service User In Progress Reason Code 7 Requests Report

These new reports can show the progress and status of a DDICA challenge.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new feature, are:

• Portal
  • New section added to the Bacs Report Details View, for DDICAs.
• Bacs Rejection Service
  • The BACS Rejection Processing Service now processes the new reports.

SmarterPay Cloud API now handles OAuth 2.0 for securing API requests.

OAuth 2.0 is considered more secure than API keys as it can separate the authentication process from the access to the resource, which limits the exposure of the credentials.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud and SmarterPay Cloud API, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • Handling of OAuth authentication added to API requests. More information, and setup flows, can be found Here.
• Portal
  • “OAuth”, and it's associated fields, added to the creation and editing of Connected Applications.

SmarterPay has added the ability to update payment schedules to have a £0 value “future payment”. This can be useful to see an upcoming “payment break” in either an ongoing schedule or a payment plan.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud and SmarterPay Cloud API, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • Allow a 0 value upcoming_payment entry in the Recurrence Schedule PUT endpoint.
• Portal
  • Allow a 0 value payment in the Future Payments Edit Page.

SmarterPay has added the ability to manually apply Bacs codes onto records using either the API or the Portal, for example, a Payment can be updated to have a Bacs Code of “ARUDD 2”.

Updating the Bacs Code on a record will cause its status, and the statuses of related records, to be changed in accordance with the Rejection Profile applied to the Service User Number that the record belongs to.

For a list of Bacs Codes, and the default processing of these codes please click Here.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud and SmarterPay cloud API, for this new feature, are:

• API
  • Added the, optional, “bacs_code” parameter to the Credit PUT endpoint.
  • Added the, optional, “bacs_code” parameter to the Mandate PUT endpoint.
  • Added the, optional, “bacs_code” parameter to the Payment PUT endpoint.
• Portal
  • “Bacs Code” dropdown, and “Bacs Description” field, added to the Credit Edit Page.
  • “Bacs Code” dropdown, and “Bacs Description” field, added to the Mandate Edit Page.
  • “Bacs Code” dropdown, and “Bacs Description” field, added to the Payment Edit Page.

Small enhancements have been made to the API Idempotency feature

• An Idempotency key is now unique for all endpoints, not just the one it was initially used on.
  • A “422 Unprocessable Entity” response will be returned if the same Idempotency key is used on a different endpoint.
  • A “409 Conflict” response will be returned if the system is currently working on a request with the same Idempotency key.

Please see Here for full API Idempotency Key details.

SmarterPay have introduced the Input Report Webhook into the system.

The webhook gives a breakdown of Direct Credit and Direct Debit totals, by Client bank Account.

Changes, in SmarterPay Cloud, for this new webhook, are:

• A new “input_report.create” event has been added to the Subscription's Events Setup List.

More details on the webhook structure and content can be found Here.

From the inception of SmarterPay Cloud there has been a bug in the System Webhooks, where the “bacs_reason_code” field value was incorrectly populated as “ARRUD” instead of “ARUDD”.

We have now fixed this spelling in the webhooks, which will be applied to all of our new clients going forward, however, we have kept the incorrect spelling for our existing clients so that it doesn't break your integrations.

If you are currently receiving the incorrect spelling, but wish to change your webhooks to the correct spelling, please contact Client Services, either by telephone on +44 (0)1482 240886, or by email at support@smarterpay.com

API rate limiting has been introduced for all our clients to help the stability and performance of SmarterPay Cloud API.

For more information please click Here.