With Online Payments, guests can check availability and pay a deposit on your booking page, by MoMo or card. Paystack, our payment provider, sends your share straight to your payout account, normally the next business day. There's no balance to withdraw: the money comes to you automatically.
Set up your payout account
- Open Online Payments in the sidebar and choose Add payout account.
- Choose a bank account or, where Paystack supports it, a mobile money wallet. Use an account in your business's name.
- Save. Paystack checks the account, and you may be asked to confirm with two-factor verification.
Fees
HostIQ keeps a small fee on each online payment: 5% of booking payments and 3% of room orders as standard. Paystack's own processing fee is paid by HostIQ, so you receive the payment minus HostIQ's fee. Online Payments shows every payment, the fee, and what you receive.
Share your booking link
Turn on your booking page under Online Payments → Booking page. Then, from Bookings, choose Share booking link to send a guest your rooms, or one room with the dates already filled in, on WhatsApp.
Guests can search your booking page by dates and number of guests to see which of your places are free and what the whole stay costs.
Instant booking or request to book
Choose how guests book in your booking page settings. With instant booking, the guest pays the deposit and the booking is confirmed at once. With request to book, the guest sends a request without paying, and it appears under Bookings, Inquiries.
Where website bookings show up
When a guest books on your booking page, everyone who works on Bookings (owners, managers and receptionists) gets a notification in the bell. Choose it to open the booking.
- A guest who booked and paid appears at the top of Bookings, under New from your booking page, with their phone number, dates and what's left to collect at check-in. The booking is already confirmed and the room is held.
- Click Got it once you've seen it. It then leaves the list, and HostIQ records who saw it and when. In the bookings table it's marked Website.
- Booking requests wait under Bookings, Inquiries until someone approves or declines them.
- A turnover clean is added for housekeeping, as with any confirmed booking.
- Approve it (owners, managers and receptionists): the booking is confirmed, the dates are held, and the guest is texted and emailed a link to pay the deposit within 48 hours.
- Decline it: the guest is told their request couldn't be accepted. Your reason stays in your records only.
- If the deposit isn't paid in time, HostIQ tells you, so you can cancel the booking to free the dates or send a new payment link.
Send a payment link
Agreed a stay with a guest on WhatsApp or the phone? Record the booking, then choose Request payment on it. Pick the deposit, the full balance or another amount, and send the link by WhatsApp, SMS or copy and paste. When the guest pays, the payment is recorded on the booking automatically, a pending booking paid in full is confirmed, and the guest gets a receipt.
Record money paid another way
When a guest pays in cash, by MoMo to your own number, by bank transfer or by card at the desk, choose Record payment on the booking. Enter the amount, how they paid, the date, and the transaction reference if there is one. Recording how each payment came in keeps cash and bank money apart in your records.
Remind a guest who still owes money
Choose Send reminder on a booking with money still due (on Bookings, or Send now on the dashboard and in the Action Center). HostIQ texts the guest how much is due, with a link to pay by MoMo or card when Online Payments is set up. The message then opens on screen so you can also send it on WhatsApp.
- A guest gets at most one reminder text every 12 hours. Within that time, Send reminder still gives you the message for WhatsApp.
- If the guest has no phone number on file, opted out of texts, or your plan doesn't include guest texts, HostIQ says so and you can send it on WhatsApp instead.
- Every reminder shows on the guest's activity timeline as sent or failed.