The Problem
Before we would wait until after the job was completed to charge the credit card. That worked…unless the person’s card declined, then we would suffer a loss unless the client updated a new credit card. We lost a lot of money this way.
Next step was to charge the credit card before we started the job. Problem then was having clients cancel before we got there and having to issue refunds (or having folks be mad that we charged their credit card even before we showed up).
The Solution: Pre-Authorize the Credit Card for the Total Amount
Pre-authorize the credit card for the amount of service. So each morning we now pre-authorize all cards. If a card fails, we contact the client to update it. If we do not get an updated card, we cancel the job. This practice can reduce losses due to non-payment.
How it Works:
On the Charge Customers page, you will now see a “Hold” button. Click that to put the Amount of the booking on hold.
At the end of the day, you can come back and hit “Charge” to charge the client. Note: cards are kept on hold for 7 days.
If something happens and you need to reverse the hold, simply paste the Stripe hold confirmation code into the “Refund” field and reverse the hold.