How to use credit card readers with the booking system

The WebReserv Gold version now allows you to swipe credit cards directly into the reservation form and the virtual terminal form.

To use the credit card swipe, you need a compatible credit card reader that can emulate keyboard strokes. It’s easy to test if a credit card reader is using keyboard emulation: open textpad, wordpad or another wordprocessing program and swipe a card. A long line of text and numbers should immediately show up in the wordprocessing program.

How to use a credit card reader with WebReserv.

1. Position the cursor in the card number field  (either on the reservation screen or the virtual terminal screen).

2. Swipe the card. The name, card number and expiration year/month field will automatically be filled.

3. Verify that the last 4 digits of the card number on the screen matches the last 4 digits of the card number shown on the card.

4. Enter the security from the front or the back of the card manually. You may also have to manually adjust the credit card type (Visa, Mastercard etc).

Note: For security reasons, you must turn off “auto-fill” on all browers that are used to accept credit card information.

Staggered booking payments

The WebReserv booking system now supports staggered payments. This allows you to require a deposit at the time of reservation and an additional amount prior to arrival. In order to use this feature, you need to be set up for automatic payment processing using one of the recommend merchant account providers.

To configure your product(s) for staggered payments, go to Setup – Products & Reservation Rules – Product – Tax/Deposit. Select Custom/Staggered as the deposit type and enter the payment amounts or percentages.

Once you have activated staggered payments, the system will automatically charge the customer card the specified number of days in advance if the reservation is confirmed. The system will not charge automatically if the reservation is pending or cancelled.

Booking System PayPal Additions

The WebReserv booking system now receives IPN (Payment Notifications) from PayPal. This makes it easier to keep track of reservations that have been paid and reservations that have not been paid.

When a PayPal reservation is made, it will be marked with the status Awaiting Payment.

This status indicates that the system has not yet received a payment notification from PayPal. As soon as the payment notification is received, the status will automatically changed to Pending or Confirmed, depending on the setup.

No payments

It can happen that a customer does not complete the payment process with PayPal. The WebReserv booking system will automatically cancel the reservation after the expiration time. The default expiration time is 15 minutes after the reservation as made. You can adjust the expiration time or turn off the automatic expiration under Setup – Business Information – Payments.

Note that PayPal may send a Pending payment notification. A pending payment notification indicates that the payment is pending, but not yet completed. The WebReserv booking system will treat a pending payment notification as if a payment was received, i.e. the reservation status will change to Pending or Confirmed.

WebReserv releases First Data Global Gateway interface

We are pleased to announce that you now can use First Data Global Gateway for payment processing.

The WebReserv Booking System now supports the following payment gateways:

• Authorize.net
• Chase Paymentech Orbital
• First Data Global Gateway
• PayPal
• Quickbooks Merchant Services
• Official Payments

For a list of recommend merchant account providers, please go to: http://www.webreserv.com/recommended-merchant-account-providers.do

WebReserv now supports Quickbooks Merchant Services

We are pleased to announce the release of the Quickbooks Merchant Services (QBMS) payment gateway. The QBMS payment gateway makes it possible to use Quickbooks Merchant Services directly with WebReserv.com.

This is great news for businesses that already use Quickbooks for accounting as it is now possible to use a single merchant account for both WebReserv reservations and credit card charges made through Quickbooks.

The QBMS payment gateway can be used by all businesses that have a WebReserv Gold or WebReserv Enterprise account.

If you do not have a merchant account with Quickbooks already, we have a great offer for you: Sign up for Quickbooks Merchant Services and get it for free. That’s right – no setup fee, no application fee and no service fees for the first two months. Take advantage of this great offer, by calling Quickbooks Merchant Services at 1-800-601-3751 and mention Web Reservation Systems, Inc. to take advantage of this offer.

WebReserv now supports credit card processing through the following payment gateways and merchant account providers:

US:
National Merchant Alliance
1-800-707-4095

Quickbooks Merchant Services
1-800-601-3751

Official Payments (municipalities, state and federal)
www.officialpayments.com

As always, you can automate credit card processing through WebReserv with all merchant accounts that are compatible with Chase Paymentech.

Introduction To Online Payments – Comparing payment options: Credit cards, PayPal and Checks/Cash

With online bookings you have several different methods for receiving payments from your customers. Which method applies to you depends on several factors, including the volume of bookings and the value of each booking.

Credit cards

Many businesses require a credit card to reserve a product or service. The reason is simple; credit cards allow the business to receive the payment right away. In most cases, the booking process is automated and will not even allow a booking to take place unless the customer provides a valid credit card.

Since credit card payments can be automated, businesses with many bookings tend to prefer this payment type. Another benefit of credit card payments is that many online booking systems keep the credit card on file. By keeping the credit card on file, the business can charge remaining outstanding deposits to the same card.

In order to process credit card payments, you must set up a merchant account for your business. The merchant account functions as a connection between the credit card companies and your bank account. Many banks provide this service, but specialized merchant account providers (also called ISO’s) may offer better terms and are typically more familiar with online payments and credit card terminals.

The one drawback with credit card payments is the cost. It is common to pay $25-$30 per month just for having the merchant account, whether you use it or not. In addition to the monthly fee for the merchant account, you will be paying a transaction fee for each transaction. The transaction fee may either be a percentage of the amount or a percentage of the amount plus a fixed fee per transaction, typically $0.30.

The transaction percentage, often called the discount rate, depends on the merchant account provider, your industry and your sales volume among other factors. It is common to have transaction fees around 2.5% – 3.5% of the total sale.

It can be worthwhile to shop around between different merchant account providers to find the best option (low transaction cost and monthly fee). However, bear in mind that you also want to use a merchant account provider or bank that understands your business and online transactions. You also want to make sure that your merchant account is compatible with your online booking system.

PayPal

PayPal was invented to create a method for people and business to transfer funds electronically without having to go through the hassle and cost of creating a merchant account. It quickly became the preferred payment mechanism for companies like eBay. Although PayPal has gained some traction outside of eBay, it is still more common for most business to accept credit card transactions over PayPal transactions.

In order to accept PayPal transactions, you have to create a PayPal account. It’s free and can be done in just a few minutes. With PayPal you can accept payments from other PayPal users. You can also upgrade to a business account and accept credit card payments from non-PayPal users. In this case, PayPal essentially becomes the merchant account for you.

PayPal charges a small fee for PayPal-to-PayPal account transfers and a larger fee for credit card payments through PayPal. For business with high volume of credit card transactions, it is worth comparing Merchant Account and PayPal rates.

There are some drawbacks of PayPal compared to credit card payments. Most importantly, PayPal payments go to a PayPal account and you will have to transfer the funds to your own bank account. While the funds are transferred around the PayPal system, and until the funds are transferred to your bank account, PayPal earns the interest, you don’t.

With PayPal you don’t have a credit card on file. This is an issue in cases where the business needs to charge outstanding deposits to the same card. With a credit card/merchant account, you can charge the balance due, but with PayPal you’ll have to ask the customer to initiate the funds transfer.

Checks/Cash

The use of checks (or cash) for deposit payment is declining for many businesses. There are two reasons for this; the use of checks delay the payment processing and introduces manual labor in the process. First you have to wait for the check to arrive in the mail. Secondly, you have to bring the check to the bank and sometimes you have to wait for the check to clear depending on the amount and the state in which the check is drawn.

In total, you should expect 10-15 days processing time for checks. The booking must be held during this time. This is important to take into considering, especially for bookings in the near future.

For example, say that a booking is made for your vacation rental one month from today. You receive the check in the mail and give it to the bank but unfortunately the check bounces. You cancel the booking. Now you only have 15 days left to rent out that same time that was held for this booking, and it will often be difficult to book another customer in such as short timeframe.

Tip: You can reduce the clearing time by requiring your customers to send a cashiers check.

Charging a deposit

You should require an initial payment, the deposit, at the time of booking. The deposit payment is a down-payment for the service and serves to keep the customer committed to the booking. If the customer later cancels the booking, some or all of the deposit may be refunded to the customer depending on your business rules.

If there is no deposit, the customer may not show up (often called a no-show) and you have lost revenue by keeping the service or unit reserved.

The deposit amount depends on the type of product or service, the value of the booking and the difficulty it will be for you to sell the same product or service later on if a customer decides to cancel a booking.

For the full article and more online payment tips, go to http://www.webreserv.com/articles/20090128

Transaction Report

You can now view, download and print a report containing all transactions registered in WebReserv. The report includes all automated credit card transactions, credit card transactions performed using the Virtual Terminal and Cash/Check transactions entered for each reservation.

Transaction Report

To view or print the report, to do Frontdesk – Reports – Transaction Report. Tip: All WebReserv reports can be downloaded as CSV and imported into most spreadsheets and databases.

Creditcard on file

With WebReserv.com, you can now process additional charges when your customer’s creditcard information is on file. To process additional charges to the creditcard on file, click view/update payment information from the reservation screen and select Charge creditcard on file. From the same menu, you can easily process refunds to the same creditcard.

For security reasons, you should never refund to other cards than the creditcard that was used to make the original payment. The reason for this is that some hackers may try to make a reservation with one (usually stolen) creditcard and request a refund to a different card, thereby pocketing the money while leaving you to cover the charge back.

Charge creditcard-on-file

Online payments made E-A-S-Y

We have improved the payment options on WebReserv, making it easier for you to control when and how customers pay for their reservations.

With the new payment module, you can specify which payments that you accept such as cash/check, PayPal and credit cards. You can also specify which credit cards you accept, such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners and Discover cards.

To view and update your payment settings, log on to your WebReserv account and click Setup – Business – Payments. In addition to the payment settings, you can specify your currency if different from US dollars.

 

Payment options include:

Cash/Check

If you allow cash or check payments for reservations, select this check box.

PayPal

If you accept PayPal for payments, mark the PayPal box and enter the PayPal email address associated with your PayPal account. Upon completing a reservation with PayPal payments, the customer will be directed to a PayPal site where their payment can be completed.

Credit cards

For credit cards, you can choose between capture and auto-processing. With credit card capture, WebReserv will keep the credit card information on file, but will not process the credit card payment. This is similar to many hotel reservations, where the credit card is processed only if the customer does not show up (no-show). Automated processing gives you to flexibility to have the credit card charged immediately when a reservation is made. Don’t forget to specify which credit cards that you support.

The new payment screen will be available on Wednesday, July 9th. We recommend that you log in on this date to review your payment settings and accepted credit cards.

 

 

 

Attract more customers with discount codes

Discount codes are a very powerful way to increase sales to new and existing customers. By offering a limited-time discount, you encourage your customers in several ways. First, everybody loves a good deal and by offering a good deal to new or existing customers, they are more likely to do business with you instead of somebody else. A time-limited discount encourages your customers to make the reservation now instead of waiting, which also helps to drive sales. And finally a discount is a useful tool to increase business during slow periods.

The latest version of WebReserv now offers support for discount codes. You can add discount codes to the system and your customers can apply the discount codes to reservations during the reservation process.

How to add a discount code

 To add a discount code, go to Setup – Discount Codes (http://www.webreserv.com/setupdiscountcodelist.do) and click Add new discount code. You will now have an empty discount code field as shown in the screenshot below.

Code: This is the code that must be entered in the discount code field when making a reservation. A code can be up to 20 characters long and consist of characters or numbers, but no spaces or special characters. Use easy to use codes such as SUMMER08 or FRIEND. If you are advertising through several channels, for example flyers and ads, you can create a different code for each type of ad and use the code to track the responses.

To control when a discount code can be used, enter a valid from date and a valid to date. A reservation must be booked within the valid from and valid to dates for the discount code to be valid.
You must also specify a Reservation From date and a Reservation To date. Use these dates to specify when the reservation must start for the code to be valid.

Finally you must enter either a discount percentage or a discount amount. This is the discount that will be applied to the reservation. The discount will be applied before taxes, if any.

When using a discount percentage, you can also specify a minimum or maximum discount amount. Use can use this feature to give a percentage discount up to a certain level, for example, 10% up to a maximum of $100.00.

When you have entered the discount information simply click Save and continue and you will be taken back to the list of discount codes.

Example:
In this example we want to provide a 10 % discount (up to $200.00) for August reservations, but the reservation must be done before July 15. The values for this discount code become:

How to apply a discount code
WebReserv.com will automatically show a discount code field in the payment section whenever one or more valid discount codes exist for the selected product. If no discount codes are valid, the discount code field will not be shown.

Availability
The discount features is available in all premier WebReserv accounts (Silver and Gold).

For more information or questions, please contact WebReserv.com support.