Payments and card capture are both a great way of ensuring your restaurant's revenue is secure and that customers attend their booking so you avoid the dreaded no-show. Requesting a card from a customer for a booking is now becoming common practice for restaurants and payment is being taken in advance for certain types of bookings.

Important: simpleERB has recently made changes to the payment process. We received feedback that some customers were abusing the old process where the payment rule for the booking was not enforced, leaving some customers not making the payment or supplying a card prior to the booking date. See the new enforced process for bookings outlined further in the article and how the auto cancellation process works here.

simpleERB payment rules are flexible allowing you to set specific payment amounts based on date or time, party size and bookable offer. You could charge per cover or per table and you can also set deadlines for telephone customers to pay by, which you can monitor, and set a due date for auto reminders before it is auto-cancelled in the system.

All of this is done securely and PCI and SCA (PSD2) compliant so that you don’t have card numbers or payment details lying around or visible to staff. It also usefully helps out your cash flow!

Please note: We currently integrate with the following payment providers to securely process and manage the payment process; Stripe and takepayments. Please be aware that the payment provider will charge you a transaction service fee on all payments processed.

If the online widget booking request matches a payment rule, the customer will be notified of this in the blue messages for customers box and then again when confirming the booking confirmation details. It will highlight either of the following conditions outlined in the images below.

The customer will need to select in order to confirm they agree to these conditions in order to proceed with confirming the booking.

They will be directed to your payment gateway provider, as per the example below for Stripe, to securely supply either card details or to make the payment.

For a payment, customers will be given the opportunity to tick in to receive a copy of the payment receipt via email to the address provided. Customers are also able to download the receipt at the completion of the booking or via a link supplied on their booking confirmation email.

Online widget customers will only receive a booking confirmation email if the payment is successfully completed or card details have been correctly supplied.

You will be able to see these unpaid cancelled bookings in the payment reports here.

Any payment rules in place with a specified payment ‘due date’ are overridden for online widget bookings with payment information mandatory to confirm a booking.

If the online widget booking is abandoned by the customer and no payment information or card is supplied via the payment gateway, the customer will not receive a booking confirmation email.

However, the booking will temporarily be recorded in your simpleERB diary as a provisional booking. This is to reserve the table in the system, in case the customer's first attempt at entering the payment information fails for any reason and is required to be re-entered by them again to complete the booking.

If the booking is not updated with a successful payment or card details, the system will then automatically cancel the booking within 15 mins of this being placed as outlined in the example image below. This will be recorded on the cancelled booking for your information if required.

You will be able to monitor these types of bookings, using the payment report here and selecting ‘Unpaid Cancellations’. This will allow you to keep tabs on how many bookings you are losing from people not supplying the payment details to see if you need to adjust your rule settings.

Telephone bookings are still PCI and SCA (PSD2) compliant due to customers being required to make their payment or supply card details via a secure payment link emailed to them.

When your staff input a telephone booking that requires payment or card details, this will be flagged to them in the blue staff notes. The staff will also be unable to confirm the booking without adding an email address to receive the secure payment link for your payment gateway provider. Staff are again prompted via a pop-up to advise the customer they will receive a payment email link and that the booking will be auto cancelled if the required payment conditions for the booking are not met by the specified due date on the email.

Once confirmed by staff, the customer will receive only an email with the secure link to supply card details or make the payment. It will state the booking is provisional until the requirement is successfully supplied by the outlined due date and time.

The payment link email will outline to the customer if the required information is not supplied that the booking will be automatically cancelled and a cancellation email will be sent.

After the customer has successfully supplied the card/payment, only then will the customer receive the booking confirmation email.

If a customer doesn't supply the requirements prior to the due date, the booking will be cancelled and the customer will receive the cancellation notification email.

Once again, you will also be able to monitor your telephone payment bookings within the payment report here. This will help you to view outstanding bookings that still need payment details or any telephone bookings that were auto-cancelled when the due date was reached and not requirements not fulfilled.

Click here to find out how to set up payment for customers within simpleERB.

Click here to see how to set up payment rules for bookings.

Click here to see how the auto cancellation process works.

Other helpful articles regarding payment are;