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Take card and online payments

Taking a card payment on a payment terminal from a booking, connecting the online payment provider and syncing terminals, and why card and online payments arrive on the booking as deposit

11 min read

What this page covers

  • Card terminal at the counter
  • The waiting-for-terminal screen
  • Online payments recorded as deposit
  • Rows left by failed attempts
  • Incomplete address blocking payment
  • Live payments on a test environment

Introduction

RentVisie takes card payments in two ways: on a payment terminal at your counter, and online, where the customer pays on their own phone or computer. Both go through Mollie, the payment company your RentVisie account is connected to. You start a terminal payment from the window headed 1. Deposit or Rent?, 2. Payment amount? and 3. Payment method?, which opens when you click New Payment on a booking. The amount appears on the terminal, the customer taps or inserts their card, and a moment later the payment shows on the booking by itself. Online payments need no action from you at all: they land on the booking the same way.

You come here when:

  • a customer at the counter wants to pay the rent or the deposit by card on the terminal;
  • a new terminal arrived and has to appear in the list at the desk;
  • a customer paid on the website and you want to know where that money shows up;
  • the booking says the deposit is paid twice over and the rent not at all, after a card payment;
  • a terminal payment did not start, or nothing showed on the terminal.

Terms used on these screens

The screen saysIt means
MollieThe payment company that runs your terminals and online payments
POS, PointOfSaleThe payment terminal at your counter ("point of sale")
POS IdMollie's number for one terminal, starting with term_
Payment referenceMollie's number for one payment, starting with tr_
RentalRent, as opposed to Deposit

Every way card and online money reaches a booking

RouteWho starts itCovered
Terminal at the counterYou, from New Payment on the bookingHere
Booking and paying on your websiteThe customerSet-up in Set up the booking widget on your website; how the money lands is here
A payment link, or Pay in the customer portalYou send the link; the customer paysSend a customer a payment request; how the money lands is here
Holding a deposit on a card without charging itYou, with Authorize (credit card)Deposits and pre-authorisation
Card, cash or bank payment typed in by handYouRecording a payment

Use this page when the card is physically at your counter, or when you need to understand an online payment that has already arrived.

How to use

Configuration

A company administrator connects your company to Mollie once, then adds the terminals.

1. Connect your Mollie account.

  1. From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, then click the Integrations tile.
  2. On the screen headed Integrations, find the Mollie row. It has two buttons. Click OAuth (beta). (The Setup button beside it holds an older kind of key that the payments on this page no longer use. Leave it alone.)
  3. On the screen headed Mollie Connector (OAuth), click Init authorization. Mollie's own login page opens. Log in to your company's Mollie account and approve the connection. Mollie then sends you back to RentVisie, to your daily overview.
  4. Open the Mollie Connector (OAuth) screen again (steps 1 and 2) and fill in the rest:
FieldStarts asWhat it doesWhat it accepts
is activeNoMust be Yes before you can fetch terminalsYes or No
enable recurringNoAllows repeated collections by direct debit. See Direct debitYes or No
Profile idEmptyTells Mollie which of your Mollie websites the payments belong toThe profile number from your Mollie dashboard, starting with pfl_
Access token, Refresh token, Token expiration dateFilled in by step 3The app's keys to your Mollie account. The app renews them by itselfDo not type here
Redirect URI, ScopeFilled in by step 3Technical details of the connectionCannot be changed
  1. Click Save.

The Mollie switch on the Integrations screen itself is only a note for RentVisie. It does not switch anything on or off.

2. Add your terminals.

  1. On the Mollie Connector (OAuth) screen, click POS Terminals. The screen headed Terminals opens.
  2. Click Sync terminals. The app fetches every terminal Mollie has registered for your account and lists it with its POS Id, Description, Mode and Status.
  3. To give a terminal a name staff will recognise, click the pencil icon on its row, change Description (for example Counter Utrecht) and click Save. A later sync keeps your name. The Location box on the same window is for your own reference only: the desk list shows every terminal, whatever its location.

You need a new terminal from Mollie itself; the screen says "Please contact support if you need additional terminals."

Before you start: connecting Mollie and managing terminals needs a company administrator account. Taking a terminal payment works for every staff account. The booking must have a customer, and at least one terminal must have the status active.

Using the terminal

Open the booking first: from the main menu open Bookings and click the booking's row. At the top of the booking, click Payments. The screen headed Booking payments opens.

  1. Click New Payment. A window opens with three numbered parts.
  2. 1. Deposit or Rent? — pick Deposit or Rental in Payment type. It starts on Deposit.
  3. 2. Payment amount? — check Amount. It starts at everything still unpaid on the booking: the rent and the deposit together, minus what was already paid. Changing Payment type does not change this amount, so type the amount you want to charge.
  4. 3. Payment method? — click the Terminal card. It gets a green border, and a list of your active terminals appears, with each terminal's name in the POS column.
  5. Click Pay on the row of the terminal in front of the customer. The amount is sent to the terminal straight away; there is no second question.
  6. Let the customer pay on the terminal. Meanwhile a window headed POS Payment says "Follow the instructions on the terminal".
  7. Click Close when the terminal shows the payment is done. The window says "Feel free to close this page after handling the payment."

What you see when it worked: a new row in the Booking payments table, with Payment method PointOfSale and a Payment reference starting with tr_. It can take a few seconds to appear. Close the screen and open Payments again to refresh it.

Undo: you cannot cancel a card payment from the app. To give money back, see Refunds.

Key details

How card and online payments land. After every card or online payment, Mollie sends the app a short message. The app then asks Mollie for the real result and, if the payment is paid, adds a row to Booking payments by itself. A payment that is cancelled, failed, expired or still open adds nothing. So the table only ever shows money that has really been paid. A booking that was still unconfirmed becomes Confirmed at that moment, and the customer gets the confirmation email.

Every card and online payment is recorded as Deposit. This goes for the terminal (even if you chose Rental in step 2), the website and payment links. The booking's rent-paid and deposit-paid totals follow that type.

Worked example. Booking 30152 has €480 rent and a €300 deposit, nothing paid, so Amount starts at €780. You take two terminal payments: €300 as Deposit, then €480 as Rental. Both arrive as Deposit, so the booking shows €780 deposit paid and €0 rent paid. To correct it, click the €480 row in Booking payments, set Payment type to Rental in the Edit Payment window and click Save. The booking now shows €480 rent paid and €300 deposit paid. For one payment that holds both, see Deposits and pre-authorisation.

Which method is recorded.

Paid withPayment method shows
The terminalPointOfSale
Credit card onlineCreditCard
iDEAL or BancontactiDeal / Bancontact
Direct debitDirectDebit
Any other method, for example Apple Pay or PayPaliDeal / Bancontact

The customer's address does not stop a payment. When the customer's address, email or phone number is missing, the app sends Mollie placeholder details instead. The payment goes ahead, but Mollie's records for it carry those placeholders instead of the customer's own details. Fill in the address first if your bookkeeping needs them — see Record a customer's address.

Real money or test money.

Where you workTerminal, payment links, customer portalWebsite booking
Your normal RentVisie appReal moneyReal money
RentVisie's own test copyTest moneyReal money
Any other copy of RentVisieReal moneyReal money

A website payment made from a copy of RentVisie is reported back to your normal app, not to the copy. Never try out payments in a copy without asking RentVisie support first.

What to do next: if the booking is fully paid, go on to invoice the booking. If a payment the customer made does not show up, go to Fix a payment that is missing, doubled or not in the accounts.

Q&A

Why does the booking show the deposit paid twice over and no rent paid? Card and online payments always arrive as Deposit. Click the payment's row, set Payment type to Rental and click Save, as in the worked example above.

Why does the "Follow the instructions on the terminal" window open, but nothing appears on the terminal? Mollie refused to start the payment. Just before, a message "Cannot create payment:" appeared, followed by Mollie's reason. No money was taken. Click Close, check the reason, and try again. A common cause is a Mollie connection that is not active: ask a company administrator to check the Mollie Connector (OAuth) screen.

Does a failed or cancelled attempt leave anything on the booking? Not in Booking payments. The app keeps a note of every attempt behind the scenes, but only a paid payment becomes a row in the table and counts towards the balance. If the customer cancelled on the terminal, start again with New Payment.

Why does the app say "Please assign a customer first."? A terminal payment needs a customer on the booking. Add the customer to the booking, then click New Payment again.

Why does the app say "Please select valid POS"? The terminal you picked has no POS Id. Ask a company administrator to open Terminals and click Sync terminals.

Why is the terminal list empty, or missing our new terminal? The list shows only terminals with Status active. Ask a company administrator to click Sync terminals on the Terminals screen. A terminal that Mollie has not activated yet stays off the list.

Why does "Sync terminals" say "Please set up active Mollie Connector"? is active is set to No on the Mollie Connector (OAuth) screen, or the connection was never made. Set it to Yes, click Save and sync again.

Why does a terminal we returned to Mollie still appear at the desk? A sync adds new terminals but does not remove old ones. Delete it with the bin icon on its row on the Terminals screen. A terminal that still exists at Mollie comes back on the next sync.

The customer paid on the website but the booking shows nothing. What now? Wait a few minutes and refresh. If it is still missing, follow Fix a payment that is missing, doubled or not in the accounts.

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