Incidental charges are costs of items and services that are not part of the main bill. The guest must give a credit card to cover any incidental charges such as phone calls, room service, service fees, or costs incurred in addition to the main services.
The ability to authorize incidentals is a common practice for properties to perform. This article will walk you through the steps on how to charge these incidentals using Cloudbeds Payments.
How to Authorize an incidental
- Open the Reservation Details.
- Click on the Credit Cards tab.
If you do not have the credit card details saved in the reservation
*If you already have the card on file (saved in the reservation) you can skip this step and go to the Step 5 below.
- Click Add to manually add the details or
- Click on Add with Terminal in case you are using Cloudbeds Payments terminal or a physical card in hand.
If you do have the credit card details saved in the reservation
- Click Authorize.
If the reservation has more than 1 credit card on file, choose the desired credit card first.
- Type in the Amount for authorization — you can edit the amount in order to hold a partial amount.
- Click Authorize to complete.
- Authorizing the amount will not actually process the payment, it will only check if the card has funds and hold the specified amount for a period of time (30 days).
- The minimum amount for an authorization is USD 0.50. The amount authorized will be a pending charge on your guest's credit card and will affect their available balance.
Actions for a credit card that has been authorized
When the credit card has already been authorized, you will see three buttons next to it:
1. Authorize
- If the previous authorization was expired (more than 30 days), authorizing the card again will create a new authorization with a new amount.
- Example: A credit card was authorized for a deposit of $100, 31 days ago. The authorization period has now passed and the fund was released — if you click Authorize and enter $100, the new Total Authorized will be $100.
- If the previous authorization is still valid, authorizing the card again will void the authorization and create a new one for the combined value.
- Example: A credit card was authorized for a deposit of $100, 5 days ago. The authorization period has not yet passed — if you click Authorize and enter $100, the new Total Authorized will be $200.
Clicking Authorize and entering a new amount will update the Total Authorized with the new authorization amount — for both valid and expired authorizations.
Example: A credit card was authorized for a deposit of $100 , 5 days ago. The authorization period has not yet passed — if you click Authorize and enter $120, the new Total Authorized will be $120.
2. Capture
- Will capture the funds of the existing authorization. A field will appear to enter the amount, which can be less than or equal to the authorization amount.
- If a smaller amount is entered, the remainder of the amount will be voided. If a larger amount is entered, the transaction will fail.
3. Void
- Will void the existing authorization and release the hold.
- The void is processed when requested on our end, but it can take up to 14 days to release the hold on the side of the financial institution that issued the card.
Some banks do not release the authorized funds immediately after we void them.
You will be able to make as many authorizations as needed for a reservation and at the end of the guest's stay, you may also void the authorization and process a payment in full amount.
If you are interested in Cloudbeds Payments, click here for more details and talk to our team!
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