What happens when a customer books online
How an online booking becomes a confirmed order, what a hold is, how deposits and balances work, and how refunds and disputes update the booking.
An online booking lands in Events like any other order. The difference is that payment decides when it's confirmed, and refunds and disputes in Stripe change it.
The customer's side
On your booking page the customer picks dates, a delivery time, a pickup time, rentals and any add-ons, then enters their address and contact details, reviews the order, accepts your rental terms and goes to Stripe to pay.
If their email matches one of your customers, the booking is filed under that customer. Otherwise a new customer record is created.
Hold: while they pay
When the customer starts checkout, PartyPad creates the order with the status Hold. The hold reserves the rentals and the delivery and pickup times for 35 minutes, so nobody else can take them while the customer pays. Stripe's payment page stays open for about 30 minutes.
If the customer doesn't pay in time, the hold stops reserving stock right away, and the order is set to Cancelled about an hour later. If you turned on the "finish your booking" email, the customer gets one reminder.
Confirmed: once they pay
When Stripe reports the payment, PartyPad:
- sets the order to Confirmed,
- marks it Paid, or Deposit Paid if you take a deposit,
- creates its delivery, setup and pickup tasks, the same as any confirmed order (see How tasks are created),
- emails the customer a confirmation and tells you about the new booking.
Deposits and the balance
With a deposit, the rest of the order is recorded as the balance due. To collect it, open the order in Events and select Send balance link. The customer is emailed a link to pay the balance online. You can also set the booking page to send that link automatically a set number of days before delivery.
Paid, but not confirmed
Sometimes a payment arrives that PartyPad can't safely confirm. For example, the rentals were booked by someone else after the hold ran out, or you'd already cancelled the order. PartyPad never drops the payment. The order stays on Hold marked as paid, a note on it explains why, and both you and the customer are emailed that the payment was received but the booking isn't confirmed yet. Nothing is refunded automatically.
Open the order and decide: set it to Confirmed if you can still do the job, or refund it in Stripe. The booking page settings also show how many paid bookings are waiting on you.
Cancelling a paid booking
Cancelling an online booking in PartyPad does not refund the customer's card. Refunds happen in your Stripe dashboard. When you cancel a paid booking, PartyPad warns you and offers Cancel without refund, so nobody cancels thinking the money went back.
To cancel and refund, refund the payment in Stripe. PartyPad does the rest.
Refunds
- Full refund: the order is set to Cancelled and marked Refunded. Its rentals free up, its crew tasks are cancelled, and you and the customer are both emailed.
- Partial refund: the order stays as it is, marked Partially Refunded, and the customer is emailed about the refund.
If a full refund was meant to keep the booking, set the order back to Confirmed.
Disputes
When a customer disputes the charge with their bank, the order is marked Disputed and you're emailed. Respond to the dispute in Stripe.
- If you win, the payment status goes back to what it was.
- If you lose, the order is cancelled like a full refund and marked Dispute Lost.
Changing an online booking
If you move an online booking's dates or times, or confirm one that was waiting on review, the customer is emailed about the change.