Auto payments allow you to set payment policies per listing and collect guest payments automatically.
Our suggested best practices can help optimize the setup of your auto payment rules and provide valuable information about scenarios relevant to your business. See the information below.
Important:
After you set auto payment rules, the auto payments will only be created when the the reservation is in "confirmed" status.
Avoid payment discrepancies
Limit manual payment actions
- Add a payment manually (not through auto payments), even if it is scheduled to be collected in the future.
- Add an authorization hold manually (not through auto payments).
- Manually collect an auto payment before it was scheduled to be charged automatically.
- Edit or cancel a specific auto payment on a reservation (not the entire auto payment template).
- Edit or cancel a specific authorization hold on a reservation (not the entire auto payment template).
Prevent charging the guest incorrectly
Important:
After setting the initial rule, you can only set one condition for the "rest of the payment", meaning all the remainder of the payment will be charged according to the second rule.
Prevent duplicate payments
If an auto payment is not approved on the first attempt, Guesty will attempt it two more times, in one-hour intervals, for up to three total attempts in the span of two hours. If all three attempts fail, the payment will transition from "Pending" to "Failed".
To prevent duplicate payments, do not attempt to manually collect the payment during this two-hour process. If you do want to collect manually, cancel the pending auto payment first.
Avoid guest disputes
Help guests understand what they will be paying for
Help guests anticipate potential payment issues
Maintain your financial interests
Ensure you receive the funds you are owed
- Schedule the auto payments to have 100% of payment taken by the time of check-in, to prevent guests from leaving the property without paying the full amount.
- Schedule an authorization hold for shortly after confirmation, to validate that there are sufficient funds on the guest's credit card. The hold can be released even an hour later.
- Schedule an authorization hold no more than 7 days before check-out, to act as a damage deposit. The hold expires automatically and the guest's funds are released after 7 days. Your damage-deposit hold will expire after check-out, so you can collect the necessary funds if damages are discovered.
Stay updated on your payments status
Set notifications for your payments and always be informed in real-time of failed payments, refunds, overcharged payment, and more.
Manage your payments
Perform changes for specific bookings
Auto Payments are currently only supported on the listing level. However as a workaround, if you need to update a specific auto payment on a reservation, you can go ahead and cancel it.