GuestPay Hub: A Centralised Interface to Streamline Hotel Payments
How Streamlined is Your Hotel’s Current Payment Process?
Managing payments in the hospitality industry has long presented challenges for many hoteliers, often involving manual processes and disconnected systems that contribute to operational inefficiencies.
Fragmented systems frustrate staff and negatively affect the guest experience, as delays in accessing payment and customer data make it difficult to verify whether transactions have been completed or are still pending. Without real-time alerts for issues such as payment failures or declined cards, front desk staff are unable to respond promptly. This slows down check-ins and check-outs, complicates issue resolution, and ultimately results in dissatisfied guests. These inefficiencies also mean missed opportunities to offer personalised services.
Most commonly, the absence of a centralised view of transactions makes tracking payments, reconciliation, and identifying financial trends more challenging for finance teams, reservations teams but also for the front desk staff. This leads to inefficient processes, inaccurate reporting, and limits the hotel’s ability to make informed financial decisions.
GuestPay has just made things a lot easier.
Introducing the new GuestPay Hub, a centralised dashboard that simplifies every aspect of the hotel's payment processes and eliminates the pain points that have long plagued hotel operations.
From reconciliation to notifications about potential issues with transactions, at its core, the new GuestPay Hub consolidates all payment-related tasks. Hoteliers no longer need to jump between systems or deal with cumbersome workflows.
The enhanced interface is packed with functionalities that are housed in one central hub, providing hotels with the tools needed to manage payments efficiently, with minimal friction and maximum visibility. This includes:
- Configuration: Easy set-up and management of the hotel's payment settings.
- PayLinks: Automated handling of PayLinks, ensuring no payments slip through the cracks.
- Pre-Authorisation Management: Seamless management of pre-authorisations, ensuring timely.
- Payments Reconciliation: Central access to essential reports, including Financial Reconciliation (FRR), chargeback, and adjustments reports.
- Payment Issues: Proactively resolve potential payment issues before they impact the hotel's revenue.
- Transaction Search: Quick and efficient access to locate and review transactions, saving valuable time for the hotel.
- Notifications for Actions Required: Real-time alerts for suspended payments, overdue PayLinks, unreleased pre-authorisations.
Why It Matters to Hoteliers
In the hospitality industry, reducing friction in payment processes is critical, as payments can often be a major pain point for the hotel's internal operations and the guests’ experience.
A streamlined payment process not only enhances day-to-day operations but also has a direct impact on revenue. By resolving payment issues, the hotels can reclaim lost revenue, reduce chargebacks, and ultimately boost guest satisfaction. In an industry where the guest experience is everything, a seamless and reliable payment system plays a vital role in encouraging return visits and securing positive reviews.
Effortless Monitoring of Time-Sensitive Payment Tasks
One of the standout features of the GuestPay Hub is the Action Required section. This feature displays essential data points that need immediate attention, keeping the hotel on top of its payment processes and making sure nothing slips through the net. This level of visibility is invaluable and allows the hotels to navigate core payment challenges with ease.
- Chargeback and Fraud Notifications : Chargebacks are a common concern for any hotelier, and having the right alerts is essential. The GuestPay Hub prompts users to provide an email address specifically for chargeback and fraud notifications, helping hotels stay ahead of any issues before they become costly.
- Suspended Payments: Sometimes, an authorisation can end up in a suspended state rather than pending. This usually happens due to specific rules—such as a postcode mismatch or a high fraud score. Suspended payments must be addressed to ensure funds are properly captured and the booking is confirmed.
- Overdue PayLinks: Missing a payment deadline can result in revenue loss. Any PayLink that remains unpaid after its due date is flagged in the dashboard, allowing for timely follow-up to prevent missed payments and protect cash flow.
- Unreleased Pre-Auths: Pre-authorisations on checked-out bookings that haven’t been released can block guest funds, leading to negative guest experiences due to the reduced access to their own money post-departure. Identifying and managing these unreleased pre-auths is essential, as blocked funds may be perceived as additional charges by guests and lead to chargebacks.
- Payment Failures: Payment failures are automatically flagged, allowing quick identification and resolution of the issue before it disrupts the booking process. Handling these errors promptly helps avoid payment delays, reduces guest frustration, and ensures the transaction is completed smoothly and securely.
GuestPay Hub: Continuously Evolving to Meet Modern Hotelier Needs
Recognising the fast-paced nature of the hospitality industry, we understand that every minute spent resolving payment issues detracts from delivering exceptional guest service. For this reason, GuestPay is committed to continuing to develop a platform that ensures payments are seamless, transparent, and efficient.
In the coming months, exciting new features, such as a "What's Happening Today" section, will provide real-time insights into payment processes, enhancing operational oversight for hotels.
At the heart of our approach, we listen to the needs of hotels to continuously optimise the tools we develop. We are excited to see hotels take advantage of our enhanced interface and remain committed to shaping the future of the GuestPay Hub in partnership with hotels, ensuring it evolves with the changing demands of the hospitality sector.
About Guestline
Guestline (an Access Company) provides the hospitality industry with innovative property management, guest engagement, payment and distribution software.
Since 2003, Guestline's cloud-based solutions equip any sized hotel or group with everything to successfully run the business and generate more revenue - from intuitive PMS and booking software to fully unified channel management and payment solutions.
Guestline's feature-rich portfolio includes PMS, CRS, Conference & Banqueting, Channel Manager, EPoS, Internet Booking Engine, GuestPay Payments and GuestStay Guest Experience. With over 500 integrations, Guestline offers its 3,000 clients a flexible, cost-effective, multi-functional system that allows them to stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Discover more at guestline.com
