pre-authorization of credit cards

Created by Doug Stoddart, Modified on Wed, 24 Jul at 4:48 PM by Yani at Bike Rental Manager

Running a 'pre-auth' on a card, for a defined Amount, guarantees you have access to those funds

This feature can be used to guard against theft or breakages by having a 'hold' on a certain Amount of funds in the event of such eventualities.


Please note that currently, pre-authorization is not compatible with cards that necessitate 3D Secure authentication.


This feature is currently in BETA - meaning we're still testing and improving it.



This requires that you are using Stripe and have enabled the 'pre-auth' Feature



image above shows how 'pre-auths' appear in the list of transactions.  Pre-auths can be captured or released.



In order to enable this feature, first go to Features and Customization and enable 'Stripe Pre-Authorization'.

(clearly you will already need to have Stripe setup for your store).



image above ⬆ shows the feature to enable in Features and Customization


Using the feature


To capture a pre-auth for a Reservation you will need to do the following:

  1. Open your reservation.
  2. press on Add Transaction.
  3. Ensure you have a credit card saved (for this customer)
  4. Type in the Amount you want to pre-auth
  5. Choose Stripe as the payment method
  6. Select 'pre-auth' as the payment type





⬆here you can see the user has chosen the amount, the method and the type.



When you add a pre-auth 'transaction' 2 things will happen

  • the payments slider shows that there is a pre-auth
  • a 'pending' transaction is added to your list of transactions.


The pre-auth only lasts for a defined period of time before it is automatically released ( 7 days)


What happens next?

You have 3 options from this point.


  1. Do nothing and the pre-auth will be auto-released after 7 days
  2. If you 'capture funds' then the pre-auth will be converted into a real payment and the funds will be moved to your Stripe account.
  3. If you 'release' then the pre-auth will be lifted and you will no longer have access to the funds


Frequently Asked Questions?

  • Can you change the automatic duration after which the pre-Auth is released? Not yet.
  • Can you auto-populate the Amount to be pre-Authed? Not yet. (see below)
  • Can you capture multiple pre-Auths for the same reservation?  Yes.
  • Can you use pre-Auth for online bookings? Not yet.


Coming soon for this feature

  • You will be able to set 'pre-auth' amounts for your inventory (via Price Groups) which will automatically populate the amount of pre-Auth to be captured.
  • We will be making some usability changes based on the feedback from this Beta.
  • We will enable it for online bookings.



See Also 

Setting up Stripe as your payment processor 

Features and Customization section 





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