Direct Debit · Guides
Collection as a service
Upload a portfolio of obligations and let Monato create and submit the charges.
With Collection as a service, you upload a portfolio of obligations to Monato and the platform manages the collection lifecycle. Monato creates and submits charges according to the collection strategy defined for you. You provide the obligations; Monato handles the rest.
Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | The full set of obligations you give Monato to collect. Each upload or update replaces the active state of the portfolio for the upcoming collection cycle. |
| Portfolio debt record | A single obligation in the portfolio: one item to collect. It holds the amount, the customer and instrument, and your debt identifier. One debt record can generate more than one charge over its lifecycle, depending on the collection strategy. |
| Debt ID | Your identifier for the obligation. You set it when you upload the portfolio, and it appears in charge results, webhook events and reports so you can reconcile charges with your records. |
Upload a portfolio
Upload portfolios in the Monato Portal. There is no API or SFTP upload for portfolios. Each upload is a CSV file that follows the layout specification:
- Download the Obligations Upload Layout
The file has one row per debt record, including the debt identifier, customer details, instrument details, amount and any other parameter the collection strategy needs.
Upload every day you want to collect
Debt records must be activated daily to be included in that day’s collection cycle. Monato activates debt records when it receives that day’s upload.
If you don’t upload a portfolio on a given day, no debt records are activated for that day’s cycle.
Upload or re-upload the portfolio each business day you want collections to run. Including a debt record in the upload activates it for that day. Leaving it out means it won’t be collected that day, whatever its status in earlier uploads.
How charges are created
Once debt records are activated, Monato creates charges according to the collection strategy configured for you. The strategy decides:
- How many charges are created per debt record.
- The timing and sequence of charge attempts.
- How retries are handled for declined charges.
Because one debt record can have several charges, debt_id is the stable identifier for tracking the full outcome of an obligation across all its attempts.
Track results
Every charge result carries your debt ID so you can link each charge to its obligation: in webhooks as client_debt_id, and in the API as the charge’s reference.
Webhook events
The charge_result event includes client_debt_id and instrument_identifier when the charge belongs to a Collection as a service debt record. The debt ID is also sent in charge_reference. Both fields are null for standard charges.
{
"event": "charge_result",
"timestamp": "2026-01-15T12:01:30.000000+00:00",
"data": {
"charge_id": "88888888-8888-4888-8888-888888888888",
"charge_result": "confirmed",
"charge_reference": "DEBT-00001",
"amount": 250.0,
"declined_reason": null,
"risk_status": "ok",
"risk_reasons": null,
"client_debt_id": "DEBT-00001",
"instrument_identifier": "000000000000000001",
"is_test": false
}
}Charge reports
Charge reports downloaded from the Portal include a debt_id column, so you can reconcile collection outcomes against your original portfolio file. See Reports.