Introduction
Normally every customer gets the same confirmation email when you confirm their booking. With this feature switched on, the app looks at how far away the pick-up is. It can then send one of two other confirmation emails instead: one that asks for an advance on a booking made well ahead, and one that asks for the full rent plus the deposit on a booking made at the last minute. Everything in between keeps the ordinary confirmation. The settings sit on a small screen headed Edit Advanced Payment Terms, and the wording of each email is a template your company writes.
You would set this up because:
- Customers book the summer camper in January, and you want a share of the money now rather than all of it or nothing.
- A customer books on Thursday for Saturday, and there is no time left to chase the rent and deposit separately.
- You want the confirmation to say plainly how much to pay and by when, without someone at the desk typing it in each time.
- You are checking, before the busy season starts, that customers who book early are asked for the right advance and not the full amount.
- A colleague asks why one customer was asked for €180 and another for €1,400 on the same vehicle.
Words this screen uses
| The screen says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Advanced payment configuration | The main on/off choice for this whole feature |
| Advance payment | Asking for part of the money when the pick-up is far away |
| Full payment | Asking for the whole rent plus the deposit when the pick-up is close |
| Threshold | A number of days before pick-up where the app switches from one email to another |
| Automated | The app's word for an email template it sends by itself |
Which of the three emails a particular booking gets, and the exact edges of the two thresholds, are explained on Confirm a booking. This page is about setting the feature up and what each email asks the customer to pay.
How to use
Configuration
Setting this up takes two parts: the settings, and one template for each extra email. Do the templates first. The moment the settings are on, the app starts choosing the new emails, and if their template does not exist yet the customer gets no confirmation at all.
Part 1: write the two extra templates.
- From the main menu open Admin, then Communicator, then click the Bookings tile. The list headed Automated opens, with a column for Automated type and one for Language.
- Press New Automated. The screen Edit Automated opens.
- Fill it in as below and press Save.
- Repeat for the second type, and again for every language you write to customers in.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Active | Yes. A template set to No counts as missing |
| Automated type | Booking confirmation advance payment for the far-ahead email, or Booking confirmation full payment with deposit for the last-minute one. Booking confirmation is the ordinary one you probably already have |
| Language (optional) | The language this version is written in. The app tries the customer's language first, then your company's, then that of the person signed in |
| Subject | Required. Give each type its own subject, such as "Your booking – advance payment due", so you can tell them apart later |
| Body | Required. The text of the email. Include the amount to pay; the balance field, written ${balance}, fills in the right figure for each version (see Key details) |
If Save answers Template already present, your company already has a template of that type in that language; open it from the list with the edit icon on its row instead. How templates work in general, including every field you can place in the text, is covered in Set up the automatic emails.
Part 2: switch the feature on and set the thresholds.
- From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, then click the Operational tile. The screen headed Operational settings opens.
- Click the Payments tab. Under the heading Payment advanced, set Advanced payment configuration to Yes. It starts on No.
- Press Setup (the link with a cog icon just below). This saves the Operational settings screen as it stands at that moment and opens Edit Advanced Payment Terms.
- Fill in the fields below, from the top, and press Save. Cancel closes the screen without keeping your changes to it.
Skim the table once; you will come back to rows as they come up. The fields, top to bottom:
| Field | Starts as | What it does | What it accepts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pickup reminder threshold | 1 | Belongs to the pick-up reminder, not to confirmations; see Send customers reminders before and after a rental | Whole days only |
| Advance payment | No | Yes turns on the advance-payment email. A grey reminder to fill in its template appears | Yes or No |
| Advance payment threshold | 28 | Pick-ups more than this many days away get the advance-payment email | Whole days only |
| Advance payment type | Percentage | Ask for a share of the booking total or a fixed sum. Greyed out while Advance payment is No | Percentage or Amount |
| Advance payment percentage | 20 | The share of the booking total, including value-added tax (VAT), you ask for. Greyed out unless the type is Percentage | 0 to 100, decimals allowed |
| Advance payment amount | 400 | The fixed sum you ask for, in euros. Greyed out unless the type is Amount | Decimals allowed |
| Full payment | No | Yes turns on the last-minute email. A grey reminder to fill in its template appears | Yes or No |
| Full payment threshold | 4 | Pick-ups fewer than this many days away get the full-payment email | Whole days only |
Changes apply from the next confirmation. Bookings already confirmed keep the email they got. To switch the feature off, set Advanced payment configuration back to No and press Save on Operational settings; to switch off one email only, set Advance payment or Full payment to No.
Before you start: only a company administrator can open Settings and Communicator. If you do not see them under Admin, ask whoever administers your company. Confirming bookings afterwards needs nothing extra: any staff account that can confirm a booking triggers the right email.
Using the confirmation emails
Once it is set up there is nothing new to press. You confirm bookings exactly as before, and the app picks the email.
- Open the booking from Bookings in the main menu and press Confirm, as described in Confirm a booking.
- Tell the customer what to expect. With the standard settings, for a pick-up more than 28 days away that is the advance; for one fewer than 4 days away that is the rent plus the deposit; otherwise the ordinary confirmation.
- To check what was sent, a company administrator opens Admin, Communicator, then the Sent Emails tile. Find the booking by its Booking Number; the Subject column shows which version went, as long as each template has its own subject.
Key details
What each email asks for. The balance field in the email works out a different amount for each version. Anything the customer has already paid is taken off first.
| Version | Balance shown to the customer |
|---|---|
| Advance payment | The advance: the percentage of the booking total, or the fixed amount |
| Ordinary confirmation, between the two thresholds | The rent, without the deposit |
| Full payment with deposit | The rent plus the deposit, minus any amount already held on the customer's card |
Worked through on a booking of €900 including VAT, with a €500 deposit, nothing paid yet and the standard settings. Confirmed 49 days before pick-up, the advance-payment email asks 20% of €900, which is €180; the deposit plays no part. With the type set to Amount it asks €400 instead. Confirmed 10 days before pick-up, between the thresholds, the ordinary email shows €900. Confirmed 2 days before pick-up, the full-payment email asks €900 + €500 = €1,400. Had the customer already paid €100, those figures become €80, €300, €800 and €1,300.
Bookings between the thresholds. A pick-up that is neither more than the advance threshold nor fewer than the full-payment threshold away gets the ordinary Booking confirmation. So does every booking whose band is switched off: with Full payment on No, a booking two days out simply gets the ordinary email.
The email is chosen once, at the moment it is sent. The app does not send a second confirmation when a far-ahead booking comes within 28 days. Asking for the rest later is the job of the payment reminders (Send customers reminders before and after a rental) or a payment request.
Every automatic confirmation follows these rules. That includes Resend confirmation email, Reconfirm new data, a booking made on your website and a quote the customer accepts online. When Advance payment is Yes, the payment step of your website's booking widget also asks for the advance instead of its own setting; see Set up the booking widget on your website.
When the confirmation is sent by hand. If your company has Manual booking confirm email set to Yes (see Confirm a booking), the email window opens with the text of your ordinary Booking confirmation template. Adjust the wording yourself before pressing send if the customer should be asked for an advance.
What to do next: once a customer has paid the advance or the full amount, record it as described in Record a payment a customer has made.
Q&A
The booking is confirmed, but the customer got no email and I saw "No email template available. Please create a template first." The app chose the advance-payment or full-payment version and found no active template of that type in any language it tried. It does not fall back to the ordinary confirmation. Ask your company administrator to create the missing template (Part 1 above), then press Resend confirmation email on the booking.
A customer was asked for €400 on a booking that only costs €300. Why? With Advance payment type set to Amount, the app asks for the fixed sum whatever the booking total is. Either switch the type to Percentage, or tell the customer to pay the booking total and record what they actually pay. A fixed amount works best when it is well below your cheapest far-ahead booking.
Why did Resend confirmation email send a different email from the first one? The choice is made again every time an email goes, based on how far away the pick-up is on that day. A booking confirmed 30 days out got the advance email; resent three weeks later it is 9 days out and gets the ordinary one, with the rent as the balance.
I switched Advance payment on, but far-ahead bookings still get the ordinary confirmation. Check these in order:
| Check | Where |
|---|---|
| Advanced payment configuration is Yes as well | Payments tab of Operational settings |
| Advance payment was saved with Save, not closed with Cancel | Edit Advanced Payment Terms, opened with Setup |
| The pick-up is more than the threshold away, not exactly on it | The booking's pick-up date |
| Manual booking confirm email is No, because the hand-sent window always opens with the ordinary text | Email tab of Operational settings |
Why can't I type in Advance payment percentage? It is greyed out until Advance payment is Yes and Advance payment type is Percentage. Advance payment amount works the same way for the type Amount. A percentage above 100 or below 0 is refused with Should be between 0 and 100.
If I change the thresholds, does anything else change? Yes. The payment and deposit reminders use the same two numbers, even when Advance payment and Full payment are No. See Send customers reminders before and after a rental before changing them.
Can I choose the advance email by hand for one booking? No; the app always chooses from the pick-up date. To ask one customer for a particular amount, send them a payment request, or write to them from the booking as described in Send a customer an email from a booking.
Related pages: Confirm a booking for the confirm buttons and exactly which email each booking gets; Set up the automatic emails for writing templates; Take a deposit or hold it on the customer's card for how a held deposit reduces the full-payment amount.