Introduction
A payment request is an email that tells the customer how much is still owed on a booking, with a link to pay it online. You raise it from the booking. The popup headed Payment Request has two choices under Amount type, an Amount box, and a Total Due line showing what is still owed; Create and send sends it. Every request then appears on the booking's Payment Requests tab, and on the screen headed Pending Payments Overview, which has two tabs, Overdue and Pending.
You would be here because:
- A customer booked online but has not paid the rent yet, and the pickup is next week.
- A customer agreed to pay part now and the rest at the desk.
- A request went out last week and the customer says they never received it.
- You are checking which requests ran past their date without being paid.
- A customer paid by bank transfer and you want to know whether the request closed itself.
Words this screen uses
| The screen says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total Due | What is still owed on the booking's rent, without the deposit |
| Custom | You type the amount yourself, instead of asking for everything owed |
| Pending | Sent, not yet paid, and still within its date |
| Paid | Enough money has arrived on the booking to cover it |
| Overdue | Its Expiry date passed before it was paid |
| Reminder Count | How many times you have sent it again |
Every way a payment request is raised
| Route | What the customer is asked for | Covered here |
|---|---|---|
| New Payment request on the booking's Payment Requests tab | Everything owed, or an amount you choose | Yes |
| Payment Request on the booking's Booking payments screen | The same | Yes |
| Email with payment request when you change a booking's dates | Everything still owed after the new price | No, see Change a booking's dates |
| An automatic email of the type Payment request | Everything owed | No, see the page on automated emails (automated-emails.md) |
Use this page whenever you want a customer to pay online before they come in, or to follow up a request that has not been paid.
How to use
Configuration
There is one setting, the number of days a request stays open. A company administrator sets it:
- From the main menu, open Admin, then Settings, then click the Operational tile.
- Open the Payment Request tab.
- Fill in Expiration period (Days). It starts at 10 and takes whole numbers above 0.
- Click Save.
The new period applies to requests raised from then on. Requests already sent keep the Expiry date they were given.
The email itself is written by your company's Payment request email template, set up under Admin → Communicator; see the page on automated emails (automated-emails.md). The link in it takes the customer to online payment, which must be connected for your company; see the page on card and online payments (card-and-online-payments.md).
Before you start: any staff account can raise, resend and delete a payment request. Only a company administrator can change the expiry period, see the email history of a request, or change a request's status by hand. The customer on the booking needs an email address.
Using payment requests
From the main menu, open Bookings, then Overview, and open the booking.
- Scroll down to the row of tabs near the bottom of the booking and open Payment Requests. It lists every request on this booking, with Sent Date, Amount, Status, Expiry date and Reminder Count.
- Click New Payment request. The Payment Request popup opens. (The Payment Request button on the Booking payments screen, opened with Payments on the booking, opens the same popup.)
- Under Amount type, leave Total Due selected to ask for everything still owed. Amount is filled in with the figure on the Total Due line.
- Or choose Custom and type the amount into Amount. It must be more than 0 and less than the Total Due figure.
- Click Create and send. You see Email sent and the popup closes. The request is now on the tab with the status Pending. Nothing was saved before this click: Cancel in the popup discards the request completely.
To send a request again, click the envelope icon at the end of its row, on the booking's Payment Requests tab or on Pending Payments Overview. A popup headed Manual email opens with the payment request email already filled in. Change Expiry date at the top if the customer needs more time and click Send email. The email always goes to the email address on the customer record: Email to must hold a valid address, but a different address typed there is ignored; put a second recipient in Email cc (see Send a customer a one-off email from a booking). You see E-mail sent succesfully! and Reminder Count goes up by one.
To withdraw a request, click the red bin icon at the end of its row. There is no "cancelled" status: the request is removed from the booking and from the lists. An email the customer already has is not recalled, so tell the customer.
To follow up requests across all bookings, open Operational from the main menu and click the Overdue Payment Requests tile on your daily overview. The tile starts switched on; its switch is called Pending Payment Requests, as described in Change which tiles your dashboard shows. This opens Pending Payments Overview. The Overdue tab is first, then Pending; paid requests are not listed. Each row has these icons, left to right:
| Icon | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pencil | Changes the status by hand. Only there if RentVisie support has switched it on for your company, and only for a company administrator |
| Eye | Opens the booking |
| Envelope | Sends the request again, as above |
| Clock | Shows every email sent for this request (Payment request E-mail history) |
| Red bin | Deletes the request |
Key details
When a request expires. The expiry date is counted from the end of the day the request is sent, so a request sent at 09:00 and one sent at 23:00 on the same day expire together. Payment status is refreshed daily, as the overview says: once a day the app first closes any request that has been paid, then moves the unpaid ones past their date to Overdue. Until that daily run, a request can be past its date and still show Pending.
Which payments settle a request. You never mark a request as paid yourself. Every time a payment is recorded on the booking, by any route (the online link, the desk, a bank transfer, an import), the app checks the open requests, oldest first. A request becomes Paid when all three are true:
| Condition | What to check |
|---|---|
| The payment is on this booking | It shows on the booking's Booking payments screen |
| It is dated on or after the request's Sent Date | Money received before the request never counts towards it |
| It has not already settled another request | Each payment settles one request only |
Up to 5 cents short still counts as paid, to absorb rounding.
Total Due or Custom decides what the link charges. With Custom, the link asks for exactly the amount you typed. With Total Due, the link asks for what is owed at the moment the customer clicks it, which can differ from the amount on the request if the booking changed in between.
Worked example. A booking's rent is €640 and the customer paid €240 when booking, so Total Due reads 400. On 3 March at 14:30, with the expiry period at 10 days, you choose Custom and type 150:
- 150 is more than 0 and less than 400, so it is accepted. Typing 400 is refused with Amount must be less than the total due. — use Total Due for that.
- The request expires at the end of 13 March.
- On 5 March the customer transfers €149.97, and you record it. It is dated after 3 March and only 3 cents short, so the request becomes Paid. €250 is still owed on the booking.
- Had the customer paid nothing, the daily run on 14 March moves it to Overdue.
What to do next: record money that arrives outside the link as described in the page on recording a payment (recording-a-payment.md), and work the Overdue tab regularly, starting with the oldest rows.
Q&A
The customer paid, but the request still shows Pending or Overdue. Why? Most often the payment is dated before the request's Sent Date, for example money received the week before you sent the request. That payment never counts towards it. Other reasons: the payment was recorded on a different booking, or it already settled an earlier request on the same booking. If the customer really has paid, delete the request with the red bin icon, or ask a company administrator to change its status with the pencil icon where that is switched on.
The customer paid €400 in one go for two requests of €150 and €250. Why is only one Paid? A single payment settles one request only; it is not split. The €150 request, being the oldest, took the whole €400, and the €250 request stays open and will turn Overdue. Delete the second request with the red bin icon, since the money has been received.
Why does a newer request stay open when the customer has clearly paid it? The app settles requests oldest first and stops at the first one that is not covered. An older request that will never be paid, such as one for an amount the customer disputed, blocks the ones behind it. Delete the old request with the red bin icon; the newer one closes the next time a payment is recorded or at the daily run.
The request says Paid, but I have since refunded the customer. Why has it not reopened? A request never goes back from Paid. If money is owed again, raise a new request.
I resent an overdue request with a later Expiry date. Why is it still on the Overdue tab? Sending it again changes the date but not the status. It stays on Overdue until it is paid, even though the customer's link still works.
I clicked Create and send and saw Email sent, but the customer received nothing. Why? Email sent means the email was handed over to be sent, not that it arrived. Check the email address on the customer record, correct it there if needed, and send the request again with the envelope icon. If no payment request emails arrive at all, ask a company administrator to check the Payment request template under Admin → Communicator.
New Payment request says "No outstanding amount for this booking." Why? Nothing is owed on the rent: the customer has already paid it all. The deposit does not count towards Total Due, so a payment request cannot be used to collect a deposit; see the page on deposits (deposits-and-pre-authorisation.md).
Custom refuses the exact amount that is owed. Why? A custom amount must be less than Total Due. To ask for the full amount, choose Total Due instead.
A request is missing from Pending Payments Overview but shows on the booking. Why? The overview only lists requests for bookings whose pickup and return locations are both among the locations you are allowed to see, and it never lists paid requests. The booking's Payment Requests tab always shows all of them.
Can I see which payment settled a request, or detach a payment from it? No screen shows this, and there is no way to detach a payment from a request yourself. If a payment was matched to the wrong request, ask RentVisie support.
Related pages:
- Change a booking's dates — sending a request together with an extension.
- The page on recording a payment (recording-a-payment.md) — money that arrives by transfer or at the desk.
- The page on card and online payments (card-and-online-payments.md) — what the customer sees behind the link.
- The page on reminders (reminders.md) — automatic reminder emails.