In this article, you can find all the steps needed to activate the no-show fees add-on, as well as other relevant details regarding it. Unfortunately, many restaurants experience no-shows and lose revenue as a result. Our booking system can help with that! Implementing no-show fees can significantly reduce missed bookings and protect your establishment’s revenue.
How to activate the no-show fees add-on
To activate the no-show fees feature on your resOS profile, you can follow these steps:
- Go to Menu–> Settings–> Payment–> Online payment and activate this add-on first.
- Set up a Stripe account/connect to an existing Stripe account (if you already have one). Stripe is our payment gateway so that means that you’ll use it to manage the fees received by your guests for refunds, payouts, and others.
- Go to Menu–> Settings & add-ons–> Payment and enable “No-show fees“.
- Go to Menu–> Settings & add-ons–> General–> Opening hours–> Payment and choose which opening hour you’d like this feature to be enabled for. This can be enabled for all the opening hours and special opening hours, or only for some.
- Choose the amount the system should charge your guests, if it should be charged per booking or per guest, the minimum number of guests, and the cancellation policy that suits your establishment.
Payment completion time
Once you’ve activated the no-show fees add-on for the opening hours and special opening hours needed, your guests will have to insert their payment details on the last step of the online booking flow in order for the booking to be confirmed and completed. With resOS, you can customize this time frame by going to Menu–> Settings & add-ons–> Payment–> Online payment–> Payment completion time.
Status of the no-show
Perhaps you’re wondering how the system charges the no-show fees. Stripe stores your guests’ payment information and charges them no-show fees only if the booking status is set to “No-show” on your resOS profile. In order to change the booking status, you’ll have to go to Menu–> Pick one of the booking views–> Click on the specific booking–> Booking status–> No-show.
The system will then try to charge the fee that you previously chose, and you’ll be able to see the status of the transaction both on your Stripe profile, as well as on your resOS profile on the booking itself.
Manual bookings
If you’re using the booking system to manually add walk-ins or bookings made through the phone/email/DMs/etc., resOS offers the option to charge your guests for manual bookings too! Here there are two ways you can make sure their guests add their payment information for manual bookings:
1. Create a booking and enable the no-show fee: Menu–> Pick one of the booking views–> Create a new booking–>Add all the contact information–>Require a no-show fee–>Add amount–>Save booking. Then, your guests will receive a Stripe link where they have to add their payment information, and only after the booking will be confirmed.
2. Access your Stripe profile and send them the link automatically there, or generate the link and send the link via the chat option on the right side of the booking form though resOS.
How the no-show fees add-on works for your guests
When requiring a no-show fee from your guests, the last step of the online booking flow will display the needed fields provided by Stripe for the guests to introduce their payment information. The same information will be sent to guests as well if the booking was made manually and the no-show fees were enabled. If the payment information is not added during the settled payment time, then the booking will automatically be cancelled.
❗NB: Refunding the fees is done through Stripe and it can take 5-10 business days. In case you have a customer requesting their payment information to be deleted permanently from Stripe, these are the steps to do so:
- First, go to this link: https://dashboard.stripe.com/customers.
- Search for the guest’s name/email address.
- Go to “Payment Methods” on the bottom part of the screen.
- Click on the three dots and then on “Delete”.