Accept Payments for Bookings
Feature overview
You may now accept payments for online bookings using Stripe Connect. You can treat these payments as refundable deposits or full payments for their selected service.
Customers will be redirected to a Stripe Checkout page to add their payment information and process payment. To keep their booking, customers have 5 minutes to complete the payment.
Your waitlist and reservations pages will show customers' payment status, along with a link to manage the payment (issue a refund, etc.).
Stripe is a global payments and financial services company that makes it easy for us to provide these solutions to you, and for you to manage your own payments. You can learn more about them at www.stripe.com.
Getting started
Connect to Stripe
For TablesReady subscribers on the Premium plan with Manager or higher privileges, go to Settings > Integrations.
However, since you'll need to create a payment account in Stripe, it's typically best if a business owner completes these steps.
You'll see a new integration option at the bottom of the page:
Click "Connect" to get started.
You'll be directed to a Stripe Connect page where you enter your email to create your payment account, or, if you already have a Stripe account, you can link that one:
Follow the steps in the Stripe Connect set up depending on if you have an account or need to create one.
You'll need to enter your banking details for payouts and for identity verification.
Once you complete your Stripe account setup, you'll be redirected back to TablesReady.
Sometimes it takes Stripe a few minutes to process and verify you, so the integration may not show as successfully connected at first. If this happens to you, just give it a few minutes and refresh.
You should eventually get a screen like:
Setting up Services for Payments
Once Stripe Connect has been enabled, you should head to Settings > Services to set up your bookings for payments.
If you haven't already set up your business to take online bookings, you should go through that article to set up your schedules, services, resources, and booking options.
Click to enable the ability charge for services via Stripe:
Then, edit the services you want to charge for. You should fill in the amount you want charged, as well as a description.
If you're charging a deposit that is not the full price of the service, you should clarify that in the description.
And that's it!
What Your Customers See
Then, check out what this looks like for customers on your online booking page:
Click "Complete reservation" takes your customer to a Stripe Checkout page, where they have 5 minutes to complete the payment, otherwise the booking will be automatically canceled.
They will then see their reservation confirmation page and will receive their reservation confirmation SMS, if you've configured it.
On your end, you will see the reservation show on your waitlist and reservations page, something like:
It shows the status, Paid or Unpaid. Unpaid reservations will be removed after 5 minutes.
The "Manage Payment" link is a direct link to the payment in Stripe where you can refund the payment if the reservation ends up being canceled, or if you forget to apply the deposit to their full tab and need to refund it later.
Fees
Note that Stripe and TablesReady fees are non-refundable, even if the full amount is refunded to the customer.
Stripe fees are currently 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
TablesReady charges an additional 2% fee.
Coming soon
- We will add Stripe-specific messages and notifications to the Notification Settings.
- We will add a cancellation policy where customers can cancel via SMS or their bookings page and have their refund processed automatically if done early enough.