How do payment plans and paying at the venue work?

Let customers pay a deposit at your venue in cash or by card, take the rest of the payment by a date before a special date, mark money paid in person, and see what is owed or overdue.

A payment plan is what a booking owes and when: a deposit (paid when they book, or at your venue by a date) and, on a special date that asks for it, the rest of the payment (due a number of days before the date). Customers can pay online, at your venue in cash or by card on your own card machine, or a mix of both — and your team records the money taken at the venue so every screen stays true. Nothing is ever cancelled for not paying: the customer gets one reminder, and if it is still unpaid your team sees it as overdue.

Paying at the venue comes with deposits (Plus plan and above). The rest of the payment comes with pay in full and pre-orders (Pro plan and above). Switching either off works on every plan.

Letting customers pay at the venue

On Settings → Payments and deposits → What guests pay, the Paying at the venue section has three rows:

Without Stripe: a venue that hasn't connected Stripe can still ask for a deposit once paying at the venue is on — the booking page then offers only paying at the venue, and the Without Stripe row says so. With paying at the venue left on Online only, no deposit can be asked without Stripe.

A special date can choose differently from your everyday setting: open the date on Settings → Bookings → Special dates and set Paying at the venue to Same as normal or Custom (Online only, At the venue only, or Both). A date always wins — so Christmas Day can let customers pay at the venue even when it's off on other days.

Taking the rest of the payment before a date

For a date like Christmas Day, open it on Special dates and set The rest of the payment: "The rest is due" a number of days before the date (for two weeks before Christmas, 14 days — Fri 11 Dec), and How much is the rest? — the price of their pre-order once they choose their food, and A set price per person until then (or if they never choose). The rest is that price less what they have already paid.

One price: a date whose pre-order menu is one set menu can keep its set price the same as that set menu (Keep the set price the same as the set menu), and its deposit can be A share of the set price — change the set menu's price and the rest and the deposit follow.

Worked example — a party of 4 for Christmas Day: a £10 a head deposit is £40 when they book; their Christmas lunch comes to £300, so £260 is due by Fri 11 Dec. On a date with the rest set, food chosen while booking is recorded, not charged — the customer is told "Your food comes to £300. You pay £40 now; the other £260 is due by Fri 11 Dec."

The editor warns when the rest is due before pre-orders close (customers would pay before choosing their food) or when no price is given, and offers Use it to line Money back if they cancel up with the rest's due date.

Customers pay the rest from their manage-booking page (Pay £260 now — a fresh secure link each time), or at your venue. If you accept gift cards for online payments (Settings → Gift cards), the page also takes one of your gift cards: its balance is used first and they pay any difference by card — a gift card that covers it all needs no card payment. A party smaller than booked pays a smaller rest automatically; if they've paid more than the new total, the difference becomes a refund owed.

When the party's guests choose their own food by link (see How do guests choose their own food by link for a big party?), Who pays for the food? decides how the rest is paid — the food is never asked for twice. With Organiser pays it all (the starting point), guests only choose and the rest is the organiser's: everyone's food less the deposit, paid once by the due date; until everyone has chosen, each seat still to choose counts at the set price per person, so the rest is never too small. With Each guest pays their own, each guest's share is their food less their part of the deposit, so the shares add up to the rest; guests choose and pay until the day before it's due, the reminder to the organiser counts what they've already paid, and on the due date any share still unpaid is the organiser's. If the organiser pays the rest first, the guests' links stop taking money.

What customers see

On the booking page, under the date, What you'll pay says the deposit, when to choose food and when the rest is due. At Check and book, where both are allowed, they choose Pay £40 now (card, Apple Pay or Google Pay) or Pay at {your venue} by the pay-by date. A booking paid at the venue is confirmed straight away.

Their confirmation email lists each payment — paid online, paid at the venue, or to pay at the venue by a date ("Pay at {your venue} by Tue 20 Oct (cash or card)") — and their manage-booking page has a Your payments card. About 3 days before each due date, at 10am your time, they get ONE reminder email, only if that part is still unpaid ("Already paid at the venue? You can ignore this"). When your team records money taken at the venue, they get a receipt email.

A booking's Payments card

Open a booking and go to its Money tab: the Payments card is at the top. Each payment on the booking is one line — what it is (Deposit, The rest, The pre-order, a payment link and what it's for, a card saved for no-shows), the amount and a label saying where it stands: Paid online, Paid at the venue, Due and the date, Overdue, Link sent, Link expired, Refund owed or Refunded. Under the lines, Still to pay gives the total still owed (an open payment link for the deposit is the deposit — it's never counted twice), or All paid once everything asked has come in. A booking with nothing on it says "No payments on this booking".

Take a payment opens a short menu with only the choices that booking can use:

A choice your plan doesn't include shows greyed with its plan ("Plus and above"); a choice your role doesn't have permission for isn't shown. When no choice can be used — a cancelled booking, say — there's no button. Refunds stay on the card too: Refund… under a payment taken online or a paid link, and Record a refund at the venue for money handed back.

Marking a payment paid in person

On the booking's Payments card, press Take a payment → Mark paid in person and fill in:

Press Record £40 paid (the button shows the amount). It needs the permission Record payments taken at the venue — on by default for Owners, Admins, Managers and Hosts, and changeable per role — and no password or PIN. Every record keeps who recorded it, when, the amount and how it was paid, and shows in the booking's history and the Activity log. There is no ResoFlow fee on money paid at the venue.

If the booking had an open payment link for the same money, marking it paid cancels the link (the customer is emailed) so they can't pay twice. If a card payment landed first, nothing is recorded: "This was just paid online — … Nothing was recorded." — hand the cash back.

The pre-order, paid in advance at the venue. Any booking with chosen food shows The pre-order on this card — even with no payment plan, or when the deposit is already paid — with what is still owed for the food (anything paid online for it, and the booking money counted towards it, come off first). Mark paid in person → The pre-order — £180.00 records it like any other payment: who, when, how, no fee, a receipt, in Payments and your takings ("Paid at the venue"), and in "Paid ahead" on the Pre-orders page. Taking the order on the phone? Take their order → Paid now at the venue — £180.00 records the dishes and the payment in one go. If the customer paid online first, nothing is recorded; an open pre-order payment link for the same food is cancelled. Undo that record and the food shows as owed again — on this card, and on the Pre-orders page ("Not paid yet" for an order that was to be paid online); a booking whose only plan was that record can then be given a payment plan with Take a payment → Ask for a deposit or the rest.

Recorded it by mistake? Press Undo this record on that row. The record stays on the booking, struck through; it can be undone once, and not after money was given back.

Bookings your team makes, and existing bookings

When your team makes a booking (by phone, say) on a date that asks for a deposit, the New booking sheet's payment step offers Send a payment link, Paid in person — £40 (recorded now, with your name), They'll pay at the venue by {date} (where paying at the venue is allowed) and Skip — no charge. The confirmation email says which applied. If you change the date, the time or the party after answering and the answer you chose is no longer one of the choices (or the change brings in a deposit that wasn't there), a Send a payment link? question asks as you save, with the same choices: Send payment link, Paid in person now (then Cash or Card machine), They'll pay at the venue by {date} and Skip — no charge. Walk-ins have no payment step. When you tick Customer agreed to the cancellation policy and terms (verbal / in person), the terms recorded with the booking include its payment plan — the deposit at the venue, the rest and its date — and View terms on that step shows exactly that text, so read it out from there.

A booking someone already made with no plan can be given one: on its Payments card press Take a payment → Ask for a deposit or the rest, then choose A deposit (They pay at the venue where paying at the venue is allowed, or Send a payment link when Stripe is connected and the booking has an email address) and/or The rest of the payment (The rest is due by a date, with A set price per person — Pro and above), and press Add the plan. It needs both Record payments taken at the venue and permission to edit bookings. A plan added this way doesn't change the terms the customer already agreed to; the plan's own emails tell them what's due and when.

If a customer doesn't pay by the date — overdue, never cancelled

The morning after a due date, at 9am your time, a part still unpaid is marked overdue: the booking's chip turns red (Deposit overdue or "£260 overdue"), and the bell shows ONE row that day, "2 bookings on Fri 25 Dec have a payment overdue." It opens the Bookings list with the Payment overdue filter on. The booking is never cancelled — contact the customer, send a payment link, or mark it paid when they pay. Once it's paid the overdue mark comes off; if that part is later owed again (a payment undone, a bigger party) and goes past its date, it's marked overdue again and the bell tells you again — once each time, never twice for the same unpaid spell.

The day sheet's Money owed option prints what each party still has to pay and the day's total to take at the venue.

Refunds and the money records

Card money is refunded exactly as before. Money paid at the venue can only be handed back by your venue: when a booking is cancelled within your money-back rules (or you decline it or close the day), or a smaller party has paid too much, the booking shows a "refund owed" chip, its Payments card a line Owed back to the customer marked Refund owed, and the Payments page's amber strip lists it under Refund owed at the venue. Choosing to keep the deposit when you cancel sets nothing owed.

Give the money back in cash or on your card machine, then press Record a refund at the venue on the booking's Payments card, enter the Amount given back and confirm with your password or a manager's PIN (it needs the refund permission). The customer gets a refund email. Or choose Back on the gift card to put the money back on one of your own gift cards instead of handing it back: the card the customer paid with is offered first (or pick Another card and type a code), and the money goes on the card straight away — a card can never hold more than its original value, and an expired or voided card can't take it. The record shows the card's last four characters, the customer's refund email says it's back on their gift card, and it's never counted as cash handed back: the Payments page shows it as "Refunded — back on a gift card". It can't be undone: if the money went on the wrong card or for the wrong amount, open the gift card and correct it with Adjust balance (it needs a reason, and every correction is recorded) — see Gift card refunds, voids and corrections.

On the Payments page, money taken at the venue shows as "Paid at the venue", an undone record as "Paid at the venue — record undone" and money handed back as "Refunded at the venue" (under Refunds). None of it is counted in the card totals — it never passed through ResoFlow or Stripe — and it has its own "Paid at the venue" line in the daily takings email and the monthly pack, and its own column in the income CSV.

These records (the amount, which part it paid, cash or card machine, when, the optional reference and note, and who recorded it) are kept for you as your processor: section 2 of our Data Processing Agreement covers them, and a card number must never be typed into them.

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