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Jordan Hollander
CEO @ HotelTechReport
Jordan is the co-founder of Hotel Tech Report, the hotel industry's app store where millions of professionals discover tech tools to transform their businesses. He was previously on the Global Partnerships team at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Prior to his work with SPG, Jordan was Director of Business Development at MWT Hospitality and an equity analyst at Wells Capital Management. Jordan received his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management where he was a Zell Global Entrepreneurship Scholar and a Pritzker Group Venture Fellow.
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Choosing the right Payments Processing Software for your hotel depends on several variables some of which come down to personal preference but most of which come down to the characteristics of your property. Is your hotel a small property with limited budget? Or is your property a luxury resort with lots of outlets and high ADR? Below are HTR’s defined key personas based on common property characteristics that typically indicate similar product choices.
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Accepts payments: Payments software allows you to authorize and charge a guest’s method of payment, like a credit or debit card, in person or online.
Issues payouts: After collecting the funds, your payments software issues a payout to your bank account based on rules and workflows you can create.
Keeps sensitive information safe and compliant: Payments software offers the highest level of encryption and compliance to keep guests’ personal details safe and prevent a security breach.
Decreases payment processing overhead: Payments software should serve as a one-stop shop and streamline the payment collection process. While payments software does come with a fee, the software can contribute a huge amount of value in terms of efficiency, speed, and organization for your finance team.
Boosts website conversion: Allowing guests to pay in their preferred currency and with their preferred payment method can directly impact your website conversion rate and volume of direct bookings.
Increases guest and employee satisfaction: Not only will guests be more likely to book if your hotel can handle their payment preferences, but they’ll have a positive first impression of your hotel. In addition, you can prevent hiccups later with a system that can seamlessly process on-property charges, refunds, and authorizations.
Payment methods: A top-of-the-line payment processor will enable guests to pay via their payment method of choice, from credit and debit cards to mobile payments (like Apple Pay) and buy now, pay later programs.
Foreign currency acceptance: Better serve your international guests by allowing them to pay in their own currency, which can help you boost direct bookings and help your guest avoid costly foreign transaction fees.
Authorizations and holds: Payments software can give you the capability to place a hold on a guest’s payment method, like for a security deposit for incidentals, without actually collecting the funds.
Reconciliation and payouts: Reconcile charges, compile financial reporting, and manage payout accounts and preferences in your payments software’s dashboard.
Anti-fraud measures: Limit the potential for fraudulent payments with payments software that actively works to identify and stop fraud.
Data security: Guests’ payment details and personal information is sensitive data and must be kept secure, so you’ll want to choose payments software that offers cutting-edge encryption technology.
Compliance: It’s important that your payments software meets the standard for PCI, SOC2, or other compliance or licensing regulations.
Automation: Turn tasks typically handled by night audit into automated processes by setting schedules for tasks like authorizing a card after a booking is made or releasing an incidental hold after checkout.
User accounts: Protect your sensitive financial data by limiting user access to only those who need it; set up view-only or limited accounts for users who don’t need full access.
Reporting: Review reports within your payments system or export it to your BI tool to better understand your cash flow and payment processing fees.
Integrations: Get the most out of your payments software by connecting it to other hotel software, such as your point-of-sale system or property management system.
Hotel payments systems generally have a two-pronged pricing structure. There’s usually a flat fee per transaction plus a percentage of the revenue collected in each transaction. Stripe, for instance, changes 30 cents per transaction plus 2.9% of the amount collected per transaction under their basic plan. Large businesses may be able to get slightly lower fees with a custom plan that accounts for higher transaction volume. Adyen, another popular payment processing system, charges 12 cents per transaction plus a percentage that varies by payment method, with some fees as high as 3.95% for certain payment methods.
Besides the transaction fees, payments software offers a slew of add-ons that come with more per-transaction fees. For example, if you want additional fraud protection or identify verification on transactions, you’ll pay 5 to 10 cents more per transaction. While these fees seem small, they do add up when you account for thousands or even millions of transactions per year.
Getting up and running with your new hotel payments software should be relatively quick and easy. Setting up your account involves making connections to your bank and any other software that will interact with the payments system, like your PMS or POS. Before you start using the payments software, you’ll want to conduct thorough training among finance, front desk, and reservations team members so everyone knows how to charge, refund, troubleshoot, and reconcile transactions. You can also configure each user account to have the appropriate permissions; for example, a front desk agent should have more limited permissions than a night auditor.
In addition to accepting payments in person and over the phone, you’ll want to connect your payments software to your website so you can realize benefits like better conversion and more direct bookings. Depending on the software you choose and the infrastructure on your website, you might be able to hook up your payments software yourself, or you may need help from your digital marketing agency or website developer.
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