Hotels and guest houses: deposits, pre-auths and multi-terminal sites

A reservation with no money attached is a statement of intent. For weekends, weddings and Christmas parties — the bookings with the highest value and the longest lead time — that is a significant exposure.

A payment link sent at the point of booking, backed by clearly stated cancellation terms, converts the intent into a commitment. For group and event bookings it is also working capital: money that arrives months before the cost of delivering the event.

Pre-auth at check-in covers incidentals and protects against walk-outs, but it is also the most common source of guest complaints when it is handled badly. Guests object to the amount being unclear, to the hold lasting longer than expected, or to being told 'it's just a check' when it is not.

Say the amount, say roughly how long the hold lasts, and release it promptly at checkout. Consistency here reduces both complaints and chargebacks, and it costs nothing.

Reception, bar, restaurant, spa and any shop should each have their own terminal and their own reporting line. Sharing a terminal between the bar and reception saves a small monthly cost and destroys your ability to see which department is actually making money.

Once departments are separated, the reporting becomes genuinely useful: you can see that the bar carried a wet January, or that the restaurant is running at a loss on Sunday evenings, and act on it.

For groups running several properties, one account structure with per-site and per-department breakdown removes the spreadsheet stage entirely. That is normally where the real time saving sits, not in the processing rate.

No-show billing is the most disputed transaction type in hospitality. The pattern that wins disputes is boring and consistent: terms captured in writing at the point of booking, card-present pre-authorisation where possible, a clear receipt, and an audit trail that ties all three together.

The pattern that loses is charging selectively, months later, with no record of the terms the guest agreed to. If you are going to have a cancellation policy, apply it every time.

Hotels earn unevenly across the year and spend heavily in the shoulder seasons — refurbishing rooms in November, repainting in February, buying garden furniture in March. Fixed repayments land hardest in the months with the least income.

Teya settles card takings the next working day as standard, and qualifying businesses can choose everyday or Instant Settlement options, with conditions and in some cases an extra charge. Turnover-linked funding handles the larger items by repaying as a share of card income, so a room refurbishment repays quickly in August and slowly in January.

For a group, changing payments is an operational project rather than a procurement decision. Pilot one representative property for two full weeks including a weekend, agree the reporting hierarchy before hardware is deployed, and roll out in waves rather than all at once.

The single biggest predictor of a smooth rollout is having a named account lead who answers the phone during service, rather than a support ticket queue. That is how we handle group rollouts, and it is the part that is hardest to buy from a large processor.