What does the customer see when paying a deposit or saving a card?

What happens at the payment step of online booking — deposits and full payments are charged immediately, no-show protection only saves a card.

A customer booking online sees at most one payment step. What it does depends on the booking: it either takes a payment (a deposit, the full booking price, or paid extras) or saves a card for no-show protection — and where the restaurant offers extras, any paid extras simply join that one step's charge.

If the booking needs a deposit — or is paid in full

The customer pays by card before the booking is confirmed — Apple Pay and Google Pay work too. This is a real, immediate payment (not a hold): the money goes straight to the restaurant's own Stripe account. For a deposit the step is headed Deposit Payment; where the restaurant requires the whole booking price up front it's headed Full Payment and shows a Total to Pay, with the customer told on the first step — "This booking is paid in full when you book — £X per person". Any paid extras the customer chose are itemised in the same breakdown and charged in the same payment. The confirmation screen and email show what was paid, and any refund later follows the restaurant's cancellation policy — the manage-booking page always warns the customer of the exact amount they'd lose before a cancellation goes through. Where the restaurant offers a My account page (Pro and above, or with the Loyalty product), the customer's booking card there also shows what they paid and any refund — "£20.00 deposit paid", "£10.00 of £20.00 refunded", "Refunded in full" (see What can customers do in the customer portal?).

A paid extra on a booking that otherwise needs no payment still brings up the card step — the payment is just the extras.

If the booking qualifies for no-show protection instead

The customer is asked to save a card — and nothing is charged. The card sits on file purely as no-show cover. It can only ever be charged if:

• the restaurant's team deliberately mark the booking as a no-show and choose to charge the flat no-show fee (an automatic system never charges, and a customer who turns up is never charged), or
• the restaurant has switched on late-cancellation charging and the customer cancels inside the free-cancellation window — never as a surprise: the manage-booking page names the exact fee and the customer must confirm it before the cancellation goes through.

If the fee is charged, the customer receives an email explaining it.

The card is only ever held while the booking is live: as a privacy protection, it's released automatically as soon as the booking is completed, cleared or cancelled — after that point no fee can be charged to it.

Booking payments and no-show protection never combine

A booking that pays a deposit or is paid in full is never also asked to save a card — the payment already covers the no-show risk. Where a booking qualifies for both, the payment takes priority (pay-in-full beats a deposit, and either beats the card save). The one combination that does happen: a customer buying paid extras on a booking that qualifies for no-show protection completes a single card step that charges the extras and saves the card.

Who the money goes to

All customer payments — deposits, pay-in-full bookings, paid extras, payment links, no-show fees and event tickets — are paid directly to the restaurant's own Stripe account. On a bank statement the charge comes from the restaurant, not from ResoFlow.

Related: How do I take booking deposits? · How do pay-in-full bookings work? · How do I sell extras with bookings? · How do I charge no-show fees? · How do I share my online booking page? · What can customers do in the customer portal?