Configuring ecommerce settings for deposits, payment types, order confirmation, and recaptcha

---

Plan Availability: ✓ Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise  | ✓ Flex |
Locate: Manage > Ecommerce Setup > Settings
Prerequisites: 

• Admin permissions to manage settings.
• The Ecommerce Setup feature applies to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please get in touch with our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

Be sure to review the first article in this series for information on how to navigate and activate your payment provider via the Payments tab.

 

---

The settings configured here apply to bookings made through your website's embedded Booking Widget or your Customer Booking Page.

 

---

To make changes to this section, you must first activate a payment provider. The Test Payment Provider can be used for testing if you haven't yet configured a third-party solution.

 

You can find more instructions for setting up your payment provider of choice here: Payment Providers.

 

---

The following settings determine how payments and deposits are handled.

 

Deposit Mode

Choose whether to process payments (full or partial) and whether a deposit (percentage or fixed) amount is required at the time of booking.

 

Do not process payments online, just take reservations

Reservation-only mode. No payment is collected. Reservation-only mode is also used if the order value is zero.

 

Charge customer full amount at time of booking

This charges the customer the entire order total at the time of booking. Upon checkout, the customer must pay the invoice balance in full.

 

Take a percentage deposit

Upon checkout, the Customer is required to pay a portion of the booking total as configured by you. You can choose a set percentage, and the system calculates the deposit owed during checkout.

 

Important! If you choose to Take a deposit percentage at time of booking, and there is also an item-specific deposit or product-specific deposit, then the item or product-specific deposit overrides this Ecommerce setting.

 

Take a fixed amount deposit

This setting is similar to the previous option, only this option takes a predetermined amount regardless of the invoice total. Once completed, the booking reflects the amount paid and shows a balance due.

If you enabled the Pay Now Link in the invoice setup, the Customer can pay the remaining balance at a future date. This can be used with scheduled notifications to send the customer a payment reminder before the booking date.

 

Important! Fixed deposit amounts combine with any item-specific deposit or product-specific deposit amounts configured. For example, if a $500.00 fixed deposit is configured and there is also an item or product-specific deposit of $500.00, then the total deposit is $1000.00 when booking that item/product.

 

Customers can visit the same payment link given to them, such as the Pay Now Link in their invoice, to pay a deposit as well as to pay the remaining balance.

 

Charge customer full amount if booking is created less than X days from start date

You can optionally charge the full amount of the booking during checkout if the start date falls within a certain amount of time from the creation of the booking. You can configure this time frame to suit your business's needs.

 

Restrict customers from paying full balance after a deposit is made

Check this option if you wish your Customer to pay a deposit when booking online, but pay their final balance on location when they visit your business.

 

Allow customers to optionally pay the full balance or deposit

You may require a deposit to be paid at booking time, but sometimes Customers want to pay the entire balance all at once. Checking this option provides them with the ability to do that.

For Customers to see this option, the Pay Now Link needs to be shown on the invoice. You can activate this within Invoice Options (Manage > Layout > Invoice > Pay Now Link).

 

---

Checkfront enables you to collect payments from various credit card platforms. These include Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Diners Club, Discover, and JCB.

Check with your payment provider before making your selections here, as not all payment providers can offer all card types.

 

Only allow payments from these card types (support varies between payment providers)

Should you wish to display the payment types only if your payment provider supports them, then check this box.

 

Requires CVC's for staff payments

By default, when a Staff Member is adding a payment to the system via credit card, they are not required to enter the CVC number when processing the transaction. Included in the Accepted POS Payment Types section is an option to make this number required by Staff Members when processing credit card transactions.

If this option is checked, a Staff member is prompted to enter the CVC number should they attempt to process a transaction without it.

If the option is unchecked, the CVC field is still displayed in the transaction window. However, it is not a required field.

 

What is a CVC Number? The Card Verification Code, or CVC, is an extra code printed on your debit or credit card. With most cards (Visa, MasterCard, bank cards, etc.) it is the final three digits of the number printed on the signature strip on the reverse of your card. For American Express cards, it's the 4 small digits printed on the front of the card.

 

---

In addition to your online credit card processing facility, you may also accept credit cards and other offline payment forms via POS (Point of Sale). If this is the case, then check the options provided that you offer as a business. Anything left unchecked is not included in the dropdown payment menu for your Staff Members.

 

Suggest applying a POS transaction when manually marking a Booking as Paid

By default, a POS payment is recorded in your system when you manually mark a booking as paid. There may be times when you wish to mark a booking as paid and not generate a POS payment.

An example of such a time may be when you are first setting up your account. You may wish to enter bookings that have already been made before creating your Checkfront account. They may have already been paid for, so another POS payment does not need to be recorded. You can mark the invoice for these as paid. Check this box to use the system in this way.

 

Although Checkfront provides several POS payment types by default, you may need to create your own too. To do this, click on the Add POS Payment Type icon (+).

This reveals a new field into which you can enter a label for the custom POS payment type.

After entering your label, click the blue Save button at the bottom of the screen. Refresh your page, and you now see the new POS payment type included in your list of options.

 

Warning! Custom POS payment types are deleted from the system if they are unchecked and saved.

 

---

Customers are sent to a receipt page when their booking has successfully been created. This includes a short thank you message and a copy of their booking receipt/invoice. The Customer also has the option to download it as a PDF file. If you have email notifications configured, then this can also be sent to them via email.

The Custom Receipt URL field allows you to supply an optional Custom Receipt URL to your website. Customers are redirected there once the booking has been completed.

You can pass information to the URL via variables that can help build an external tracking link or customized thank you page. Please note for security reasons, we do not pass personally identifiable information in the URL.

Variable	Description
{$BOOKING_ID}	Booking ID (example: UHXE-492058)
{$BOOKING_TOTAL}	Total value of the booking
{$BOOKING_SKU}	A comma-separated list of item or product SKUs and order quantities in the booking (example: item1:3,item2:1).
{$BOOKING_DATE}	Start date of the booking.
{$BOOKING_TOKEN}	The token needed to load a booking as a customer. This is the 'CFX' parameter that is visible in a booking URL: https://example.checkfront.com/reserve/booking/XMLP-110119?CFX=7528896b34510f89d66a31203570f496a9c2eba3ed94766903a2441a5093941a&
{$BOOKING_PAID}	The amount that is paid on the booking. Could be equal to the booking total, the amount of the deposit, or '0' if no payment was required.
{$BOOKING_STATUS}	The status of the booking. This is often PAID or PART, but could be other statuses if payments aren't required.

 

Important! Any conversion tracking integrations, such as Google Analytics & Google Ads plugins, DO NOT WORK when using a Custom Receipt URL. You need to build in your tracking on your Customer receipt page. If you wish to notify a remote server of a new booking or update its status, consider using API notifications instead.

 

---

reCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect your bookings from fraudulent payment attempts and transactions. 

 

To configure reCAPTCHA follow these steps.

1. Ensure the Enable reCaptcha for the payment page is turned on.
2. Get reCAPTCHA V3 (API) keys via the link provided, as this integration works with reCAPTCHA version 3. This process registers your site with Google reCAPTCHA, including your Checkfront domain (For example, yourcompanyname.checkfront.com).
3. Enter the Site Key and Secret Key within the fields provided under your reCAPTCHA Settings.
4. Note that the Threshold is set to Google's recommended value of 0.5. This value is not adjustable.
5. SAVE your settings!

These steps are described in detail below.

 

Turning this setting on is the first step to adding an extra level of protection to your payment page. Turn this setting off to disable the feature.

 

Click on the Get reCAPTCHA keys link to Register a new site with Google reCAPTCHA. 

The registration process generates your reCAPTCHA keys and includes the following steps...

1. Choose reCAPTCHA v3 as the reCAPTCHA type for your site.
2. Specify your Checkfront Domain. (For example, yourcompanyname.checkfront.com)
3. Enter the email addresses of the Owners of the site. 
4. Accept the reCAPTCHA Terms of Service.
5. Opt to Send alerts to owners of the site if Google detects a problem.

Only reCAPTCHA v3 is supported with Checkfront.

 

Enter the Site Key generated by Google for your registered site.

 

Enter the Secret Key generated by Google for your registered site.

 

Set your tolerance level for suspicious interactions. Scores range from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 indicating abusive traffic and 1.0 indicating good traffic. By default, the Threshold is set to a Score of 0.5.

 

Learn about our reCAPTCHA v3 integration here, including how reCAPTCHA subtly works on the payment pages. Ecommerce Setup: reCAPTCHA

 

For more information on creating a reCAPTCHA v3 site and your options, please consult the Google reCAPTCHA guide: About Google reCAPTCHA

 

reCAPTCHA v3 only works with LIVE payment Gateways, not Sandbox Mode.

 

---

• Can we authorize, but not charge, a deposit, so that we can collect a security deposit only if needed?

  We cannot hold credit card details and charge later. Rebilling only occurs on Checkfront's side if a transaction exists on the invoice, such as from a deposit.
  
  

 

 

---

< Configuring ecommerce settings for payment providers    |     Configuring ecommerce settings for taxes >

---