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Recording a venue payment — billing without a card processor

When a restaurant signs up, they rarely pay by card on day one. They pay by bank transfer, or you agree to comp the first month, or you put them on a trial while the contract is finalised. The billing tab in the Venue Control Room is built for exactly that: you record how the venue paid — by any means — and the system switches their plan on. A card processor is one option among several, never a requirement.

What it does

Open a venue from the super-admin portal and choose the 💳 Billing tab. You’ll see the venue’s current plan (or “no plan applied”), a Record payment button, a compact Start trial control, and the venue’s payment history.

Recording a payment does two things at once. First, it writes a permanent line in the venue’s payment history — the amount, the method, the date, who recorded it, and a reference you can tie back to a bank statement. Second, when the payment is for a subscription, it switches that plan’s features on for the venue and sets the date they’re paid until. So “they wired me the Pro plan fee, paid through the end of December” is a single action: the money is booked and the venue is live.

Marking a venue as paid for zero is how you comp an account — same flow, amount 0, method “marked paid”. Starting a trial is separate: it turns the plan’s features on for a set number of days with no money recorded, so you can let a venue try before the contract is signed.

The rule

You don’t need a card processor to get paid. Record how the money actually arrived — bank transfer, cash, or a goodwill comp — and the venue goes live the same way it would for a card charge. The card processor, when it arrives, just records the same kind of payment automatically.

How to use it

To record a real payment, click Record payment. Pick the kind (usually Subscription), the method (Bank transfer or Mark as paid for a comp or cash), and the plan. The amount pre-fills from the plan’s monthly price — change it to whatever actually arrived, or set it to 0 for a comp. Set Paid until to the date the period ends; that becomes the venue’s plan expiry. Add a reference — the bank transfer number or a short note — and confirm. The venue’s features switch on immediately and the payment appears at the top of the history.

To start a trial, use the Apply as trial row: pick a plan, set the number of days, and click Start trial. The plan’s features turn on for that window with no payment recorded. When the trial lapses, access stops on its own — record a real payment to convert them.

To see what a venue has paid, read the payment history table: each row shows the date, what it was for, how they paid, the amount, the status, and your reference.

Worked example

Sukhumvit Trattoria signs the Pro contract and wires you ฿18,000 for the first quarter. You open their venue in the portal, go to 💳 Billing, and click Record payment. Kind: Subscription. Method: Bank transfer. Plan: Pro. The amount pre-fills at the plan’s price; you set it to the agreed figure and currency, set Paid until to the end of the quarter, and paste the bank reference into the note. You confirm.

Instantly, the Pro plan’s features — POS, public menu, online ordering, the AI tools — switch on for the trattoria, each marked active until the end of the quarter. A line appears at the top of their payment history: today · Subscription · Pro · Bank transfer · ฿18,000 · recorded. Three months later, when you see the next transfer land, you record it again and the “paid until” date rolls forward. No card on file, no processor, no waiting.

  • The plan catalogue (super-admin Plans) defines which features each plan grants.
  • The Services tab lets you turn individual features on or off by hand, on top of whatever a plan granted.