Configuring the Tasks properly is of upmost importance to ensure the desired automation without encountering any issues related to 'forgotten' payments of overcharging. Below you can see a couple of Tasks which we have identified as most popular and explanation of the configurations. We will gradually be adding more examples over time.
Important: Configuration of Tasks is strongly individual per property and heavily depends on your overall settings and conditions in the system - Guarantee policy settings; rate/package settings and more. We are showcasing below some basic examples to give you an overview of some of the opportunities you have at hand. We strongly recommend contacting us at [email protected] to discuss your needs, check your overall configuration and assist you with creating the most accurate setup of tasks.
Automatically charge an Expedia Virtual Card on the arrival date of a booking
When working with Expedia Virtual cards there is the peculiarity that you can charge those cards only from the arrival day of the respective booking onwards. Similar approach is applied by other OTA's that utilize virtual cards as well.
This adds a level of complexity as you need to implement charging Virtual cards in your daily operations, which requires training and has its risks of errors - missed charging, charging wrong amounts and more.
With the Payment Autopilot, you can create a Task which will automatically charge those cards and you do not need to worry about these steps.
Here is a task that we have created to handle this operation and you can find explanations below:
We have configured:
- (1) - The task to be performed 0 hours Up to Booking arrival, meaning that it will be processed on the arrival date.
- (2) - We indicated that only OTA bookings (such created through the channel manager) will be processed and that out of those OTA bookings only the ones having Expedia attached as an Agent will be processed.
- (3) - We indicated that a Payment should be done and to use the OTA (Virtual card).
- (4) - We indicated to charge the folio balance.
- (5) - We indicated that if the payment is successful, the folio will be closed with 'invoice' and a ToDo task will be created to notify us and that the folio will be hidden from the MyBooking portal
- (6) - If the payment fails, a ToDo task will be created to notify us.
Hide folios of bookings with OTA Virtual cards from the MyBooking Portal
OTA's that collect payment for you and send a Virtual Card also tend to send those bookings with a price that already has their commission deducted. This means that the charges in the Folio will be the ones sent by the OTA, not what the guest actually paid to the OTA - for example, they paid 1000 EUR to the OTA, the OTA sends to us price of 850 EUR (their commission deducted). Since guests have access to their folios in the MyBooking Portal, they might see that folio and start wondering what is this price, why is it lower than what they actually paid and why does this bill exist at all, since they already paid.
By using the Payment Autopilot you can create a Task which will hide folios of such bookings after the creation, eliminating the potential confusion.
We have configured:
- (1) - The task to be performed 0 hours after booking creation.
- (2) - To process OTA bookings and moreover, OTA bookings that have only an OTA (Virtual) card in them.
- (3) - The task to perform only the 'On success' action - there will be no payment/pre-authorization involved.
- (4) - The task will be completed only if the folio contains charges of the 'Rooms' and 'Packages' revenue groups..
- (5) - The On Success action that will be performed is to hide the folio in the MyBooking Portal.
Charging remainder of a deposit
With this example, we want to showcase how you can automate charging of remainder of a booking before arrival.
In this case, we have a 'Flexible 50%' guarantee policy which requires 50% pre-payment at time of booking and the remainder will be charged 1 day before arrival. The purpose of the task is to automatically charge that remainder.
We have configured:
- (1) - The task to be performed 24 hour Up to Booking arrival.
- (2) - The task to process only bookings with 'Flexible 50%' Guarantee policy.
- (3) - The task to process payment and use the Guest card in the booking.
- (4) - The task to charge the folio balance. Since 50% has already been paid at time of booking, the balance of the folio will be for the remaining 50%. Please note that if between time of booking and 1 day before arrival the guest has added extra services through the MyBooking Portal, they will also be charged since they will be part of the folio balance. Depending on your setup, this can be avoided (if needed).
- (5) - If charging is successful, the task will send an email created in the Guest Mailer to advise the guest about the successful transaction and a ToDo will be created to notify us.
- (6) - If charging fails, the task will send an email created in the Guest Mailer to advise the guest about the failed transaction and request from them to sort it out - either contact you or go to the MyBooking Portal and pay the remainder. The status of the booking will also be changed to 'Not guaranteed' and a ToDo will be created to notify us about the failed transaction.
