Managing Bookings with Credit Card registrations

This article will contain information on how to enter and manage bookings that should have credit card registrations to protect against no-show bookings

When a booking qualifies for credit card (CC) registration , whether it be online or phone booking the user or staff member will be prompted to enter the credit card details. This information will be kept indirectly in the system for possible charging at a later date if the customer fails to abide by your booking policy.

Inevitably some customers will fails to register correctly or choose to ignore the request for Credit Card registration, these articles will help you manage these booking, spot possible no-shows and instruction you on how to push a charge to the CC.

Summary

The new inhouse booking is created, you decide how to obtain the CC details or mark it as CC not required. Choose between 'Send email' with CC capture link or capture card (eg take details over the phone) or mark booking as 'no card required'. * The automatic processes after this will include, sending a CC reminder 15 minutes after the booking was created if no card details were taken and then another reminder a specific intervals of your choosing for a specific number of times, so the customer is constantly pestered for the credit card registration.

If 'auto cancel booking' is switched off, the booking will remain in the system until you cancel and will have the status of 'CC Required' (red). All these bookings that have not registered a card will be viewable on Menu--> Recent bookings --> CARDS button.

More detailed info below...

*Internet bookings will enter the process at this point if credit card registration is not completed at time of booking.

Taking a phone booking

When taking a phone that qualifies for CC Registration you will be presented a dialog box with a choice of options after pressing SAVE.

(A credit card is required to secure this booking)

Deciding on what option will depend on your company policy, or whether you are busy, you know the customer etc.

Send email - this will send the customer a 'credit card request' email with a payment link to the stripe payment screen
Capture Card - this will popup the stripe payment screen in a browser where you take the CC details over the phone and enter them directly
No Card Required - Use this if there are reasons you dont want to take the credit card from the customer, e.g. you know them, you have take an alternative deposit etc. This will mark the booking to never request a card and to exclude this booking from any credit card reminders or auto cancellations.
Cancel - this will cancel the dialog box and no setting will be made, the booking will then follow the configured set of rules to send reminder or possibly auto cancel after reminders and subsequent CC registration have not been actioned by the customers.

Credit Card BOOKING Statuses

Booking that qualify for credit card will have have one or other statuses, Credit Card Required (red) or Credit Card Supplied (bright green) on the grid or plan view as below. This will quickly give you a visual indication of status of the days booking

Managing Bookings - that are 'Credit Card Required'

To give you an overview and allow management of bookings/customers that have failed enter bookings for whatever reason. There will be a few that get to that stage and abandon at the sight of the CC screen so to manage these and give you the opportunity to find out the reason and take appropriate action we have a list of these available on TMS at MENU --> Recent Booking --> 'Cards' button.

Once the list is visible you can click on the word date (1) to order the booking by date and allow you to prioritise who should be contacted...

You can RIGHT CLICK on a booking to bring up a menu, where you can view the booking, where you can get the info to contact the customer or mark the booking as 'No C/C required', cancel etc

Viewing the booking interaction or automatic processes

Click the 'stripe c/c' button on a booking to view the history of the different processes. Here you will see if a booking registered a card, clicked on a registration link, had been sent a series of reminders. This is useful to see if there has been interaction with the email reminders etc.

From the example below we can see that the booking is CC Required, on clicking the stripe CC button we can also see that they have been sent the 'Card reminder' and click on the link but still have not registered the card. 'Card registered' would display if the card was registered (2nd image)

A card is registered on this booking.

Charging a no-show

With the booking open, change the status of the booking to no-show, you will be asked to confirm that, then the Charge Card dialog box will popup, where you can adjust or put through the default charge

When a booking is set to no-show it will from the plan. No show booking can also be found on Menu --> Todays Bookings and selecting the drop down down the bottom to show no-show.

The image below show a card that was successfully charged for a no-show

Charging for reduced covers - or just pushing a charge

Open the booking and click the stripe c/c button, press the charge button and adjust the covers/amount/total you want to charge.

The image above show a card that was successfully charged for a no-show, but a partial charge would look similar.

Editing a booking that may require a Credit Card Registration

Any time you open a booking and save, the booking will be accessed whether it now needs a CC even if it did not before for example maybe the cover qty had been adjusted and now is above the threshold. If the booking is above the threshold then a popup box, the same as when you make a new booking will popup, here you have the 3 options again, send email, capture card, no credit card required. Choose one depending on the circumstance, but remember it will go through the CC reminder process if it hasn't done so before the edit.