Bacs References Explained

A Bacs reference is the unique identifier which is applied to each Direct Debit Instruction and is the only part of the Direct Debit Instruction that cannot be amended. Bacs have specified various requirements and restrictions for these references which we will cover here:

Please see below:

• Must be a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 18 characters long
• Must contain at least 6 alphanumeric characters (i.e A-Z and 0-9)
• The first character must be alphanumeric
• May contain the following special characters; a hyphen(-), solidus(/), full stop(.), ampersand(&) and space ( ), but cannot end with a space.
• It must not begin with 'DDIC' as this is reserved for special use cases only
• It must not consist of all the same character (e.g. 000000)
• In the case where it is being created to match a signed Instruction it must match exactly to that Instruction
• Must be unique for your Service User and SUN

These Bacs references can either be created by yourself or, to save some time, SmartDebit can auto-create these for you whenever you create a new Direct Debit Instruction.

If you do decide to manually create a reference, SmartDebit's system checks for duplicates so if you enter a duplicated Bacs reference via whatever method, the system will display an error and will not create the Direct Debit.

If you have any queries regarding Bacs references or would like SmartDebit to generate these for you, please make contact with our Customer Services team on 01276 851820. Alternatively you can email us at [e-mail]