Use cases: Payment scheduling

If you want to split up the booking amounts into 2-3 payments instead of charging 100% at the time of booking, and want to find out more about the different scenarios and possible setups, take a look at the use cases in this article.

Read about:

Case 1: Schedule and charge subsequent payments in Lodgify

🔎 Case: You want Lodgify to automatically charge the guest's credit card for scheduled payments on due date. If the payment fails for whatever reason (i.e. credit card expired) Lodgify will automatically send a payment request to the guest.

💡 Note: This option only works with credit card payments (Payyo, Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.Net). If you are switching from Paypal to credit card payments, Scheduled Payment does not apply to existing bookings.

Setup: 

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select the amount or percentage you want to collect at the time of booking.
3. In Payment 2 select a date when the residual payment is due, i.e. 2 days before arrival.
4. Then go to your Payments Settings and into Credit card. Click on the little pencil icon to edit the payment gateway setting. In Scheduled Payment, ensure that the box for Automatically charge credit card for all subsequent scheduled down payments is ticked.
   💡 Note: Automations to charge scheduled payments start running at 00:00 (UTC +0 timezone). If a payment cannot immediately be charged, additional attempts will automatically be made.

As soon as the payment becomes due, the system will automatically charge the amount due from the guest's credit card. If the credit card charge was successful, a payment receipt email will be sent. In case the payment fails, a payment request email will be sent automatically to the guest. In the Quote box of the booking, the residual amount would appear as Scheduled and show a credit card icon indicating that the card will be charged automatically.

Case 2: Schedule and request subsequent payments in Lodgify

🔎 Case: You want Lodgify to automatically send payment request emails for scheduled payments 3 days before the payment becomes due.

💡 Note: This one is recommended if you use Paypal or manual payments.

Setup: 

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select the amount or percentage you want to collect at the time of booking.
3. In Payment 2 select a date when the residual payment is due, i.e. 2 days before arrival.
4. Then go to your Automatic responses section and make sure the notification email for Notify Guest when the owner requests a scheduled payment 3 days before due date is switched on.
   
   
   

In the Quote box of the booking, the residual amount would appear as Scheduled and show a letter icon indicating that emails are sent automatically.

Case 3: Schedule subsequent payments in Lodgify but request manually

🔎 Case: You want to use Lodgify to help automatically calculate the due dates of all your scheduled payments, but will manually send payment requests via Lodgify whenever payments are due.

Setup: 

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select the amount or percentage you want to collect at the time of booking.
3. In Payment 2 select a date when the residual payment is due, i.e. 2 days before arrival.

The system then automatically calculates the due date of a payment and labels whether the payment is Overdue. In the Quote box of the booking, the residual amount would appear as Scheduled. Whenever a payment becomes due, you can then manually send a payment request email to the guest from the reservation system.

Case 4: Don't schedule or collect subsequent payments in Lodgify

🔎 Case: You only want to take the first down payment via Lodgify and will collect the subsequent payments manually outside the Lodgify system as well as calculate the due dates manually yourself. 

💡 Note: This is generally not recommended as it requires a lot of manual work.

Setup:

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select the amount or percentage you want to collect at the time of booking/booking confirmation.
3. In Payment 2 select Do not schedule in Lodgify.

In the Quote box of the booking we would split the amount into the first down payment Total Scheduled Payments and the amount not scheduled in Lodgify, i.e. Amount to be collected manually.

Case 5: Don't receive payment with booking confirmation

🔎 Case: You don't want to charge your guest at the time of booking or in order to confirm the booking request.

Setup:

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select 0% of booking amount (at time of booking).
3. In Payment 2 select Residual balance i.e. 3 days before arrival.

💡 Note: You can combine this setting with Case 1, 2 or 3 depending on your payment gateway.

Case 6: Don't collect any prepayments

🔎 Case: You don't want to collect any prepayments but prefer to charge after arrival.

Setup:

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select 0% of booking amount (at time of booking).
3. In Payment 2 select Residual balance i.e. 0 days after departure.

💡 Note: You can combine this setting with Case 1, 2 or 3 depending on your payment gateway.

Case 7: Don't schedule any payments in Lodgify

🔎 Case: You don't want to collect any payments in Lodgify and prefer to collect the amount of the reservation for instance in cash on arrival.

Setup:

1. Go to your Policies, create a new policy or edit one and scroll down to Payment Schedule.
2. In Payment 1 select 0% of booking amount (at time of booking).

3. In Payment 2 select Residual balance: Do not schedule in Lodgify.