Passing Processing Fees to Guests

Last Updated: October 15, 2024

Link to Feature: https://app.fireflyreservations.com/Settings#fees (or click here)

Tired of those pesky processing fees eating into your profit margins? Well worry no more, you can now pass those fees on to the guest!

Warning: Make sure passing processing fees to the guest is allowed in your state/region/territory!

Setting up processing fee rules

First, you need to set up your processing fee rules so Firefly knows how much of a fee to tack on to payments. Go to Settings > Property, and on the the Fees tab, click Add Processing Fee Rule.

Click Add processing fee rule to create a new rule

Next, set your desired processing fee. You can add a set dollar amount plus a percentage. For example, Stripe's processing fees are 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for manual entered card transactions, so you would enter 2.9 in the % field and 0.30 in the $ field. Then indicate what payment method this rule applies to and also the process method.

Create a new processing fee rule

In the above example, this rule will only apply to credit card payments that are manually entered. Click Save to save the rule.

NOTE: Payments processed when a reservation is made online will use the On File method. This is because Firefly first saves their card on file so it can be used later, then charges the card for the deposit amount.

You can create different rules for different combinations. So you may want to create a rule for manually entered credit card payments and a different rule for terminal card payments, since your processor may charge less for payments processed via the terminal.

Multiple processing fee rules

Use the 3 dots to drag the rules to re-order them. The first rule that applies to a payment will be used. For example, if your topmost rule is for Credit cards with Any set as the process method while your second rule is for manual entry card payments, when you create a new manual entry card payment, the topmost rule will be the one that is applied since it is on top even though they both fit the criteria for that payment.

Processing Payments

Now you are all set up to collect processing fees automatically. When a guest makes a reservation from the reservation portal, they will see a message indicating a processing fee is included in their total payment.

Processing fee message on reservation portal summary

When you create a new payment from a reservation, you will also see a message to let you know how much of a processing fee will be added.

Processing fee message when creating a new payment

When viewing a payment that has a processing fee included, you will see a little yellow bubble that indicates the entire payment amount including the processing fee.

Total payment amount including processing fee will be indicated on a yellow bubble

When you refund a payment that has a processing fee, you can choose if you want to refund the payment including the processing fee or excluding the processing fee.

Processing fees will also be applied to payments processed from the Point-of-Sale.

Payments listed on a POS transaction will also include a yellow bubble with the total payment amount if a processing fee is included.

Payment amount including a processing fee

That is all there is to it! Payments processed with a processing fee will look just like a normal payment from the perspective of the payment processor. For example, if you have a payment of $100 and you included a 3% processing fee, you would simply see a payment of $103 in your processors dashboard. In Firefly, it will show as a $100 payment, but will include the little yellow bubble to let you know the entire total including the processing fee is $103.

🙋‍♀️ Still need help? Email: support@fireflyreservations.com and one of our technicians can help answer your questions.

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