Guide

Automate balance payments and reminders

Instead of clicking Request payment on every booking, Glovebox can send the money emails and, if you want, charge saved cards for you. This covers the three automation levels, the review queue, and the switches that are off until you turn them on.

6 min read

This guide answers

  • Can Glovebox chase the balance automatically?
  • Will it charge customers' cards on its own?
  • What is the payment review queue?
  • How do I stop it charging without me approving first?

Glovebox has a payment engine that can send balance requests, reminders and receipts, and optionally charge saved cards, so you are not requesting each payment by hand. How much it does on its own is set by an automation level.

Before you start

Set your deposit and balance rules first, since those decide the amounts and dates the engine works to. See Set your deposit and balance rules.

Automatic card charging needs Stripe and a saved card. Windcave and bookings without a saved card fall back to emailing the customer a payment link, so nothing is ever left uncollected silently.

Where to find it

In the left sidebar, open Settings, then Payments and bond automation (under the Payments heading).

Steps

  1. Choose an automation level:
    • Manual — Glovebox tracks what is due but sends nothing. You request payments yourself.
    • Review queue — Glovebox prepares the money emails and holds them for you to approve. This is the default, so nothing reaches a customer without you approving it.
    • Automatic — Glovebox sends the requests without asking.
  2. Set Balance due this many days before pickup if you want it to differ from your booking policy.
  3. Set the Reminder cadence (days after due), for example 3, 5 — one reminder per number, then the payment goes overdue.
  4. Leave Charge saved cards automatically off unless you want Glovebox to take the balance from a saved card with no email step. It is off by default and only available once Stripe is connected.
  5. To place bonds automatically before pickup, turn on Place bond holds automatically before pickup. This is also off by default.
  6. Click Save.

The review queue

If you use Review queue, prepared payments land in Payment review, reached from the Bookings area in the sidebar. There you can Preview email, Approve, Edit amount, or Skip each one, and approve several at once. A count on the menu item tells you how many are waiting.

What you should see when it worked

With Review queue, money emails start appearing in Payment review rather than going out immediately. With Automatic, customers begin receiving balance requests on schedule without a queue.

Things worth knowing

  • Card-authentication declines are never retried. If a card needs the customer to authenticate (an SCA step), Glovebox emails them a payment link instead of silently retrying.
  • You can wrap up a booking's whole schedule by freezing it from the Payment review screen if a customer is paying another way.

If it did not work

  • "Charge saved cards automatically" is greyed out. Connect Stripe first; automatic charging is a Stripe feature.
  • A customer was emailed a link instead of being charged. That is the fallback when there is no saved card, or the gateway is Windcave. It is working as intended.
  • Set your deposit and balance rules Your deposit and balance rules decide how much a customer pays at booking and when the rest is due. This covers the deposit type, the pay-in-full window for last-minute bookings, and whether Glovebox charges the balance for you.
  • Set up and release bonds A bond is the security amount you hold against a hire. This covers the default amount, the difference between an authorisation hold and a capture, and how long after return the hold is released.

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