How to set up an amenity for payment

1. ) Before you begin — confirm payments are enabled for your community

1. In your community, go to Amenities and open any amenity

   

   

   2. Click “Edit”

   

   3. Check whether "Payment Settings" appears as the last tab in the amenity settings menu. 

   

   → If you see it — you're all set. Continue to section 2. 

   → If you don't see it — please contact Support to have amenity payments enabled for your community

    

2. ) Making an amenity bookable and configure booking settings

1. In your community, go to Amenities, open any amenity, and click “Edit”

2. Go to the "Booking Settings" tab

3. Under the booking availability options, select one of the following: 

• "This amenity is not bookable" — the amenity will not accept new booking requests and its schedule will not be visible to residents. Any existing bookings are kept

   

• "This amenity can be booked" — the amenity is open for booking requests. The settings below must be configured

  

Note: Wording is currently incorrect

You’ll see that the booking settings currently says “Use of this amenity does not require/requires a booking”, but soon an update will be made to match what is written above in item 3

3.) Configuring booking settings

1. Set an Assignee — this is the person who will be assigned to review and approve or deny booking requests for this amenity

2. Under Accessible Buildings, select which buildings in your community have access to this amenity

3. In the Booking Instructions field, add any instructions you want residents to see when making a booking request. You can also attach a file if needed

The remaining settings depend on whether your amenity is hourly or daily. This is determined by how the amenity was set up in the system and cannot be changed from this page.

If this is an hourly amenity: 

   4. Under "Allow residents to book this amenity in increments of...", select the booking increment: 

• 15 min — residents can book in 15-minute slots (e.g. 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hr...) 

• 30 min — residents can book in 30-minute slots (e.g. 30 min, 1 hr, 1 hr 30 min...) 

• 1 hr — residents can book in 1-hour slots (e.g. 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr...)

   5. Set the Maximum Booking Duration — the longest a single booking can be, in hours and minutes

   6. Set the Minimum Booking Duration — the shortest a single booking can be, in hours and minutes

   7. Optionally, enable Add Maintenance Buffer Time and set a duration in hours and minutes. A block of that length will automatically be added to the calendar after each booking, to allow time for maintenance

   8. Optionally, enable Minimum Notice and set a number of hours or days. 

• Residents will not be able to request a booking within that many business hours of the current time. Public holidays are not counted. For example, with a 24-hour minimum notice, a booking requested on a Saturday must start no earlier than Thursday. 

• Note: Minimum Notice is not applicable if Auto approval is enabled for the amenity

   9. Optionally, enable Advance Booking Window and set a number of months. Residents will not be able to request a booking further ahead than that limit

If this is a daily amenity:

   4. Set the Room Capacity — the maximum number of people allowed per booking

   5. Set the Check-in time — the time residents can check in on their booking start date

   6. Set the Check-out time — the time residents must check out on their booking end date

   7. Set the Maximum Booking Duration — the longest stay a resident can request, in days

   8. Set the Minimum Booking Duration — the shortest stay a resident can request, in days

   9. Optionally, enable Add Maintenance Buffer Time and select a number of days. A block of that length will automatically be added to the calendar after each booking

  10. Optionally, enable Minimum Notice and set a number of hours. Residents will not be able to request a booking within that many business hours of the check-in time. Public holidays are not counted.

  11. Optionally, enable Advance Booking Window and set a number of months. Residents will not be able to request a booking further ahead than that limit

  12. Click Save to apply your changes

4.) Enabling payment for an amenity

1. By default, amenities do not require payment. To require payment, select "Residents must pay to use this amenity". Additional payment settings will appear below:

5.) Configuring payment settings

Fee

1. Check the box "This amenity requires a fee." to enable the fee
   Note: In the future, you'll also have the option to add a damage deposit. For now, only the fee is available

   2. Enter the fee amount in the price field

   3. Choose a fee calculation method:

a. Per booking - a flat fee, regardless of how long the booking is

b. Per increment — the fee multiplies based on the length of the booking

   4. The booking increment is shown in the helper text below "Fee calculation." To change it, go to the "Booking settings" tab on your amenity's Details & Settings page.

Resident Cancellation Policy 

This section controls what happens to a resident's payment if they cancel a booking

1. By default, the amenity fee is refundable. If a resident cancels after paying, they will receive a full refund of the amenity fee

   

   Note: The online processing fee is not refundable. This fee is charged at the time of payment to cover credit card processing costs.

   To make the fee non-refundable, uncheck “Fee is refundable upon resident cancellation.”

    

2. A cancellation limit can be applied if you want to control how close to a booking start time a resident can cancel and still receive a refund
   
   No cancellation limit set — the resident can cancel any time before the booking starts and receive a refund. 
   Cancellation limit applied — the resident will only receive a refund if they cancel the selected number of days before the booking start time

Important: Resident cancellation vs. management denial
 

These are two different actions with different outcomes: 

1. Resident cancels - The resident clicks "Cancel this booking request" on their amenity ticket, any time before the booking starts

   

• Ticket status changes to “Cancelled”

• Booking is removed from the calendar

• A refund is issued based on the cancellation policy (whether the fee is refundable and whether the cancellation is within the cancellation limit) 
   

  2. Management denies a booking — A management user manually changes the ticket status to "Denied"

• Booking is removed from your calendar

• A full refund is always issued, unless the denial happens after the booking start time

• If you need to issue a refund after the booking has started, please contact AR

Payment Timing

This setting controls when the resident is required to pay

Choose one of the following options:

1. “Resident is required to pay to complete their booking request”
   
   The resident must enter their credit card details and complete payment when submitting the request. 

   The booking can only be submitted if payment is successful. (Other payment methods will be available in the future.) 

   This is the default if the amenity is set to auto-approval — the ticket is automatically set to "Approved" once submitted. Auto-approval can be changed in the "Approval settings" tab

  2. “Send a payment request to the resident after the booking is reviewed”

     The resident submits their booking request first. The ticket assignee then sends a payment request email

     The resident has 24 hours to complete payment, or the booking will be automatically cancelled

     The ticket is always created with "Requested" status in this flow

     This is the default if the amenity is set to council/board approval. This can be changed in the "Approval settings" tab

Note: If neither approval is enabled, you can freely choose either payment timing option

6.) After booking handling

6.1.) Requesting payment after booking has been made

Amenities that are set up for payment upfront require minimal handling from the management team. 

Some amenities require additional review from the management team before payment is collected. When booking one of these amenities, residents will go through the usual booking steps, but they will not be asked to pay upfront. 

The amenity cost will still be shown to you during the booking flow.

1. After a resident completes their booking request, a ticket will be created with "Requested" status

2. The management team should review the request and, once ready, send a payment request by clicking the “Send payment request email” button in the Requirements section of the ticket

• They will receive an email notification and complete your payment

• If they don’t complete payment within 24 hours, their booking will be automatically cancelled and removed from the calendar

   3. When the resident completes payment, the assignees of the ticket will be notified and the ticket information will be updated to display the new payment status

   4. After this, the ticket can be set to “Approved” status
          a. Note that status cannot be set to “Approved” until payment is completed

6.2.) Cancelling/denying bookings

1. Bookings can be cancelled at any time before it starts by the resident, or denied by management, by changing the ticket status to “Denied”

2. If a booking is cancelled or denied, a refund will be issued automatically and the resident and assignees will be notified by email

• Note: The cancellation policy applies only if the resident cancels. If they cancel after the cancellation limit has passed, they will not receive a refund

• If a booking is denied, a refund is always issued. Cancellation policy only applies if the resident cancels