How payments work
There are two flows of money in ReservationBay and it is worth keeping them apart in your head.
Your customers pay you for their rentals — online through the widget, or with cash and card at the counter.
ReservationBay charges you for the software (your monthly package and a commission per booking) and for the payment processing (a price per transaction).
This section covers both.
Where your money comes from
| Way to pay | What it is |
|---|---|
| Online | The customer pays on their phone or computer, in the booking widget or from their own booking page. iDEAL, Bancontact, cards, PayPal and more. |
| Cash | Taken at the counter and completed on the spot. |
| Card at the counter (PIN) | Taken on a payment terminal. |
Which online methods your customers see is your choice, per location — see Payment methods.
Where our charge comes from
Two things, on two separate invoices each month:
Subscription — your package for the coming month, plus commission over the bookings of the month just gone.
Payments — the transaction fees, refunds, chargebacks and payouts of the month just gone, listed as quantity × price so you can check it line by line against what actually happened.
Withheld at source, or invoiced
This is the one idea worth understanding, because it explains what you see on your screens.
When a customer pays you online, our fee for that transaction is withheld from the payment as it passes through. You receive your share; we keep ours. Nothing is invoiced to you afterwards for that piece — but the line still appears on your invoice, marked already settled, so your invoice is a complete record of the month rather than a partial one.
When a charge could not be withheld at source — a monthly package fee, a commission on a cash booking, a fee too small to split — it stays outstanding and is collected when your invoice is raised.
On the Payments screen you therefore see three totals:
- Total excl. VAT — everything charged in the period.
- Withheld at source — the part already taken from the payments as they came through.
- Still outstanding — the part that will be collected.
How the outstanding part is collected
In order, cheapest and least intrusive first:
- From your balance at the payment provider, if you gave permission for that when you signed up.
- By direct debit, from the bank account you registered.
- To your wallet — a running account with ReservationBay, which then has to be topped up within seven days.
See Invoices and wallet.
Before you can take online payments
Taking money online means a verification check — the same one any payment provider must run. It is described in Getting verified.
Until that is finished you can run your whole business at the counter: cash, card terminal, invoices. Nothing else is blocked.
In this section
- The Payments screen — what you see in the portal.
- Getting verified — the KYC check and its documents.
- Payment methods — choosing what your customers can pay with.
- Deposits — holding security money without charging it.
- Invoices and wallet — how you are billed and how it is collected.
- Payouts — when the money reaches your bank.
- Refunds and chargebacks — what they cost and when they are blocked.
- Subscription — your package, changing it, and your direct debit.