Online bookings will come through to Felix as confirmed bookings, with automated deposit and balance payments processed from the card provided during booking.
If a guest fails to complete payment during the online booking (or you manually add a booking into the system), then the booking will still come into Felix, but as a 'Request' booking. You can then send a link for payment (deposit or balance according to your Ts & Cs and how far away check-in is) using the Mail & Actions tab of the booking.
If you need to add the booking yourself, click on the ‘Add Booking’ button on any screen, or click here:
Choose the correct property, change the rate if offering a discount, add the guest details and click on the 'continue' button at the top right.
Double check the charges (Charges & Payments tab) and dates (Summary tab) are correct.
Send a link for payment via the 'Mail & Actions' tab.
- If 30 days or less until check-in, send ‘Payment Request - BALANCE’
- If more than 30 days to check-in, send ‘Payment Request - 50% deposit’
If guest is paying by EFT, send the ‘Payment Request – EFT’ email and be sure to record any payments received manually into the booking (by adding the payment description and amount in the payments
section of the ‘Charges & Payments’ tab and then pressing the + button to record the payment)
Press ‘Save’ to save and close booking
The guest will receive the following automated emails:
- Duve Guest Portal email
- Security deposit and terms and conditions email
The booking will be sent to Duve.
The guest will receive a confirmation email from Duve straight away.
According to your settings, a pre-check-in email will also be sent straight away if check-in is within the specified timeframe.
The booking will be sent to Operto Teams and a check-out clean will be created and auto-assigned according to task assignment rules. Any other task rules you have set up in Operto Teams will also be instigated automatically.
If payments are being made by credit card, you will receive notification from Stripe when payment has been made.
You can also check your ‘Financials’ dashboard to keep track of deposit payments.
Please note the following alternative process option using 'Request' bookings:
When you are originally entering the booking, choose it to be a ‘Request’ booking instead of 'Confirmed'.
The guest won’t get automated emails. However, the booking will automatically be confirmed when payment has been made and then automated emails will be sent. Request bookings get cancelled after 3 days if no payment has
been made. Please note this will not block the calendar for that property. You will still be able to receive instant bookings and you will need to cancel the request booking straight away if it becomes no longer available, as the link for payment will still be able to be used until the booking gets cancelled.
If check-in is more than 30 days away, an auto 50% balance payment will be added and will be processed automatically (you will need to double check this process if the booking is entered, say 31 days from check-in, especially if it takes 2 days for the guest to pay).
Security Deposit:
The security deposit will be withheld from the card on file 1 day before check-in. Because withheld payments get cancelled after 7 days in Stripe, if the booking is longer than 5 nights, the system will re-process the security deposit every 7 days until check-out.
If there is no card saved to the booking (eg. the guest paid by EFT and a security deposit was not added to the cost of booking) you will need to send the ‘Security Deposit Manual Email’ from the Mail & Actions tab of the booking in Felix. You do have the option for EFT bookings to add a 'Refundable Security Deposit' item to the charges of the booking and accept the payment by EFT, then refund it at the end of their stay.
The guest will receive any other auto communication set-up in Duve, including their instructions for check-in automatically once they have completed pre-check-in.
All communication with guest should happen via the Duve Communication Hub.
Guests will receive pre-check-out via Duve the day before check-out, including a review request.
The security deposit hold will be released 7 days after the final hold or will need to be refunded manually if guest paid by EFT.
Cancellations:
To cancel a direct booking, delete any charges that are due to be refunded to the guest (or alternatively add correlating negative charges to reduce the amounts to zero if required for trust accounting) and reduce the rental amount to the agreed amount as per your cancellation policy.
Refund any payments that are required to be refunded via Stripe according by following this article.
Refund EFT payments manually by bank transfer to the guest and add a negative payment to the booking by following this article.