We've added some new information and features to make managing payments easier in Caterbook.
Card details.
There is a new column with the last 4 digits of the card, and it's expiry date, next to the Payment reference.
Expiring card alerts.
Along with this, if a booking is made with a card that will expire before the check in date, you'll get a dashboard notification about that 14 days before arrival, or on the day following the booking being received if the booking lead time is less than 14 days.
Repeat transactions.
We've made it simpler to perform repeat transactions in the Finance tab of the booking record.
Whenever you have:
- tokenised card details in an OTA booking that you want to verify or charge;
- a card that you have previously verified or charged in Caterpay, that you now want to rebill;
- any card or cash transaction that you now need to refund, in part or in full;
you are able to perform any subsequent actions by clicking an icon on the record of the original transaction on the Finance tab.
1. OTA tokenised cards.
Instead of clicking to create a "New" payment, you will now verify or charge a tokenised card using the icons to the right of the transaction row.
As before, if you verify or charge a token, the token can not be used again. Instead, you would have a subsequent transaction row for a "Caterpay - Charge token", and this can now be rebilled, or refunded, using similar icons.
In the event that a transaction is declined - with tokenised cards from Booking.com you would have the option to report a card as invalid. When this is performed successfully, an information icon shows in red to indicate you have previously reported this card to booking.com.
In the above screenshot of a Booking.com reservation, the blue Charge token icon was clicked and £101 entered as the amount. This declined, and so we are presented with the option to report the card as invalid to Booking.com. Having done that, we would then see the red information icon to illustrate that you have reported this card.
Even if you do report the card as invalid, Caterbook doesn't prevent you from attempting to charge that card again in the future - it might be that there were insufficient funds at the time you tried to charge it.
2. Caterpay Sale or Verify transactions.
Once a card has been verified or charged, whether for a website booking or for a guest on the phone, as with a token that was charged, the blue icon to rebill the card would then be available. For a "Caterpay - Sale" transaction there would additionally be an option to refund the transaction, in part or in full.
3. Non-card transactions.
Cash, cheque and other payment records can similarly have any refunds recorded using the red refund icon.
Now, the only refund transaction that needs to be initiated manually is where the original payment method is no longer valid, for example where that card has now expired and cannot be refunded. In this case, you would continue to create a new transaction with a Purpose of "Refund", and the Type "Miscellaneous Refund" would automatically be selected for you.