Payments - Plugixa Car Rental

Payments has two halves:

• Payment methods, under Settings, decide what a customer can choose at the end of the booking form.
• Payments, on each booking’s page, is the record of every amount paid and refunded. What a booking has paid and still owes is always worked out from that record. Nobody types it in.

Payments is part of the core of the plugin and cannot be switched off.

Payment methods

Open Settings -> Payment methods.

“Choosing an offline method confirms the booking; you collect the money yourself.”

Option	Default	Notes
Pay at pickup	On	The customer pays at the desk when they collect the car.
What to tell the customer	empty	The text shown for Pay at pickup. Empty uses “Pay at the desk when you collect the car.”
Bank transfer	Off	The customer pays by transfer.
Bank details and instructions	empty	“Shown on the confirmation and in the email. {reference} becomes the booking reference.” Empty uses “We will send you our bank details. Quote your booking reference with the transfer.”

The texts can be several lines long. Write {reference} where the booking reference should go, for example:

IBAN PT50 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0
Please quote {reference} with your transfer.

Pro adds online methods with their own sections: Stripe PRO for cards, PayPal PRO, and Pay part now PRO, which lets a customer paying online pay a share now and the rest at pickup.

What the customer sees

The last step of the booking form asks “How would you like to pay?” and lists every method that is switched on, each with its text.

Method chosen	What happens
An offline method (Pay at pickup, Bank transfer)	The booking is confirmed at once, with nothing paid yet. The button reads Book now. The done screen and the confirmation email show the method’s text under Payment.
An online method PRO	The button reads Continue to payment. The booking stays Pending until the payment is recorded, and is then confirmed.

An offline method confirms the booking because you collect the money yourself. Record it on the booking when it arrives (see below).

If every method is switched off, the form shows “Online booking is not available right now. Please contact us.” and customers cannot finish a booking. Keep at least one method on.

The Payments panel on a booking

Every booking’s page has a Payments panel. See Bookings for the rest of that page.

Part	What it shows
Paid	What the booking holds: payments less refunds.
Still owed	The total less what has been paid.
When	The date and time the money moved.
How	At the desk, or the name of the online method.
What	Paid in full, Part paid now, Balance, Taken at the desk or Refund, with the note underneath. A payment that failed or is still waiting is marked Failed or Pending.
Amount	The amount. Refunds are shown as negative, in red.

Recording a payment

Record a payment appears while the booking still owes something. “Money taken at the desk: cash, a card terminal, a bank transfer that arrived.”

Field	Notes
Amount	“Up to (amount), what the booking still owes.” More is refused: “That is more than the booking still owes (15.00).”
Note (optional)	Shown under the row, such as “Cash at the desk”.

Click Record payment. The row is added as Taken at the desk.

Refunding

Refund appears while the booking holds money. “Money paid online goes back to the card or account it came from, newest payment first. Money taken at the desk is recorded as handed back at the desk.”

Field	Notes
Amount	“Up to (amount), what the booking holds.” More is refused: “That is more than the booking holds (281.00).”
Note (optional)	Shown under the refund row, such as “Full damage cover not used”.

Click Refund (amount). The refund is taken from the newest payment first, then the one before it, until the amount is covered:

• From a payment made online PRO, the money is sent back through Stripe or PayPal.
• From a payment taken at the desk, a refund row is recorded and you hand the money back yourself.

If an online refund fails part way, what went back is recorded and the rest is reported: “(amount) could not be refunded online. Refund it another way, then record it.”

Recording payments needs the permission to create records; refunding needs the permission to delete them. Staff without them do not see the buttons.

The paid state

Each booking has a payment state, shown as Payment on its page. It is worked out again every time money moves:

State	When
Not paid	Nothing has been paid.
Partly paid	Something has been paid, less than the total.
Paid	What has been paid covers the total.
Refunded	Money had been paid and all of it has gone back.

A payment that arrives for a Pending booking confirms it. If the booking’s hold ran out and its car was taken in the meantime, the payment is still recorded, because the money was taken, and the booking stays Pending for you to refund or rebook.

When a customer cancels

When a customer cancels from the customer portal, the refund their cancellation rule allows is sent back automatically, but only from money paid online PRO. Money taken at the desk is left for you to hand back and record with Refund.

Payments are never deleted

A payment or refund row cannot be edited or deleted. A booking that has had money through it can be moved to the trash, and comes back with its payments, but cannot be deleted permanently.

The security deposit of a model is not a payment. It is held at the desk and never appears in this panel.