Note:
The legacy auto payments feature will be discontinued soon. Switch to the new payment automations for a more flexible and powerful way to manage payment schedules.
Payment automations allow you to set payment policies per listing and collect guest payments automatically. Use these best practices to optimize your setup, prevent payment discrepancies, and handle specific booking scenarios effectively.
Important:
Payment automations are created only when a reservation status is "Confirmed".
Avoid payment discrepancies
Limit manual payment actions
Limit manual payment actions to ensure the system functions correctly. Payment automations recalculate automatically if the total payout changes on the booking channel. However, manual changes stop this recalculation, which may result in incorrect charges.
If you perform any of the following actions, check that the remaining payment automations are correct:
Adding a payment manually, even if scheduled for future collection
Adding an authorization hold manually
Collecting a payment automation manually before the scheduled date
Editing or canceling a specific payment automation on a reservation
Editing or canceling a specific authorization hold on a reservation
Prevent incorrect charges
When setting up multiple payment automation rules for a listing, set the final rule to Charge rest of payment rather than a percentage. If the reservation total changes after the first guest payment and no manual changes were made, the payment automation rule adjusts automatically to charge the correct amount.
Important:
After setting the initial rule, you can set only one condition for Rest of payment. The remaining balance is charged based on this second rule.
Prevent duplicate payments
If a payment automation is not approved on the first attempt, Guesty retries twice in one-hour intervals. If all three attempts fail over a two-hour period, the payment status changes from "Pending" to "Failed".
To prevent duplicate payments, don't collect payment manually during this two-hour process. To collect manually, cancel the pending payment automation first.
Avoid guest disputes
Clarify payments for guests
Clearly state or describe any additional fees applied by default to the reservation within your listings. If you use the Guesty rental agreement, add this information to the agreement.
Inform guests about transaction timing
Advise guests that payments may be processed in separate transactions, even if charged at the same time. Listings often have multiple payment automation rules. Because these are set to a time relative to confirmation, check-in, or check-out, they may occur on the same date but as separate charges.
Protect your revenue
Secure full payment
Schedule payment automations to collect 100% of the payment before check-in. This prevents guests from leaving the property without paying the full amount.
Validate funds: Schedule an authorization hold shortly after confirmation to ensure the guest's credit card has sufficient funds. You can release the hold one hour later.
Damage deposits: Schedule an authorization hold no more than seven days before check-out. If no damages occur, the hold expires automatically after seven days.
Track payment status
Set payment notifications to stay informed about failed payments, refunds, and overcharges.
Manage payments
Payment automations are set per listing. To update a specific payment automation on a reservation, cancel the scheduled payment and create a new manual payment if necessary.
