Electronic Check Processing

I am coming from Vacation Rental Desk platform, which is a less sophisticated platform than OR. But they are able to process electronic check with Yapstone. I would really like to continue offering this to my guests. It's easy, and relatively no fees associated. My whole purpose of going to OR was for MORE automation. I am dreading completing all of my bookings that already have electronic check on file manually. I assumed the bigger smarter platform would have this feature, if the little guys are doing it.

It doesn't need to be the guest running the electronic check payment... they could put their account info in and the amount, and submit it to OR. I could run it, once received if that is the problem. But it could be another form of payment on file. Vacation Rental desk requires a c.card for the damage protection. And the guest can choose a different primary payment method.

I would switch to any processor that OR would make this integration with!

Ascent also has great eCheck options.  I only use eChecks for all my direct bookings.  Not only huge savings on CC fees but greatly reduces chargeback risk.  Would love to be able to do through OR.

Thanks for the feedback on your ACH needs.  We've looked at ACH/eCheck before, but it's complicated with many of the flows that we support.

Some thoughts:

• What do you do about channel bookings such as from Vrbo where you are the merchant of record and the guest's card passes through to OwnerRez?  ACH wouldn't be possible in that case.  Just ignore the ACH option and require CC?
• What happens when an "insufficient funds" issue happens with ACH?  With credit cards, the funds are guaranteed instantly.  Even if the guest cancels their credit card, the bank will still honor the approval of what was approved.  ACH can be initially approved and then bounce a few days later.  How did Vacation Rental Desk handle this?  The payment would have to have some kind of "pending" status until you knew the approval was locked in for good.
• Chargebacks are actually still possible with ACH.  Many people don't realize this, but all USA banks that are part of NACHA have to return funds that are disputed if the dispute happens against the ACH within 60 days.  I could be off on the exact number of days, but it's something like that.

If's still possible to support of course, but we've punted on it before because of these issues and bigger priorities.

Your feedback is welcome!

1. ACH as method of payment not applicable to channel bookings rule. or even 1st payment (deposit)  by CC, balance by ACH if it is in advance booking.  

2.  every owner can set rule how many nights in advance they want to accept ACH (like I only accept check 37 or more nights out from arrival). In that case they can allow sufficient time for the renter to correct the bank situation and either resubmit or pay by other method. 

3. Understandable, but most guests do not know that they can do a c/b via ACH. Many do know they can do it via CC (and way too easily - no proof required). 

Thanks Paul - 

1.  Not having ACH by channel bridge is fine.

2.  A "PENDING" status is fine.  Most of my bookings are 4-6 months in advance, so pending a few days is no problem

3.  As my bookings are 4-6 months in advance, the chargeback on an ACH won't be possible by the time they check in, so this would be a preferred payment method for my properties.

I would like to a get an update on ACH processing again.  Would really like to see this feature added, as just today I had a guest who had to cancel their CC and wanted to pay by ACH.  I also have a house where we only take ACH (due to the large dollar amount of the booking).  I would like to get this property on OR, but I need to be able to make ACH the only payment option upon checkout, and would like to be able to do it through OR. 

(I understand this would not be available to channel bookings such as VRBO).

Thanks!

Before moving to OR, I used Yapstone on VRBO.  I dumped them because of their policy of when they would release funds to me.  Make sure you understand all the details.

It would be nice to have an update.  I do a separate invoice through Quickbooks right now in order to be able to accept eChecks ONLY for my direct bookings.  Quickbooks has this great feature that you can easily turn on/off CCs or eCheck.  I choose to only allow eCheck payments for all my direct bookings.  1% or max $10 vs. $210 for CC processing?  Saves me thousands and limits chargebacks.  Please provide where you might be with adding this feature.  Should we take another vote?

Paul W's points made earlier in this thread still apply, so, I wouldn't see this coming in the near term.

What about implementing the ability for an owner to link to an outside payment processor during checkout? I mean, it's not ideal but plenty of companies use 3rd party processors and you "leave the page" to process a payment via PayPal, etc. While OR wouldn't be able to track the payment, you could at least notify the owner that Guest A clicked to pay via Venmo or via eCheck. Plus the guest would actually be re-directed to the payment portal rather than just be given a list of instructions in a box they have to follow.

Stripe supports electronic checks

Mila, we don’t use stripe. Does that allow you to offer card and echeck payment options to your direct booking guests through OR?  

(We tell our guests that we pass along the 3% bank fee if they choose to pay with a card, and because our average invoice is around $20k many of them send us a physical check but we’d rather streamline their ability to pay with an echeck.)

Thanks

Stripe supports electronic checks

Not through OR.

I'd love to see this feature added, please!