How to accept a rent-to-own contract payment
A contract has no separate payment window. Money is accepted as a regular booking payment — to the contract booking — and the section allocates it across the schedule rows.
The payment summary offers three quick amounts: “Advance and fee” — the initial payment and setup fee; “Pay what is due” — all amounts that are due now; “Due plus payment” with the date of the next payment — the due amounts plus the next upcoming payment.
How to accept a payment
- Open the contract and click “Accept payment”. The button is available only for an active contract. The same button is on the contract panel in the booking card.
- The booking card opens with the payment window. Choose the “Rental” item — only it goes to the schedule.
- Enter the amount and payment method and save the payment.
- Check the contract panel: it allocates the payment automatically and updates the next payment, the overdue amount and the progress.
- Go back to the contract with the “To contract” link on the panel.
Deposit and extra charges don't go to the schedule
Only payments with the “Rental” item are allocated to the schedule. The deposit and extra charges — delivery, insurance, washing, fines and others — stay what they were and don't close schedule rows.
On saving, the “Rental” item automatically turns into the “Rent-to-own” category: under it, this money is shown in reports separately from regular revenue.
How a payment is allocated across the schedule
A payment closes rows one by one, from earliest to latest — including future ones if there is more money than has come due. The early payoff row is always last.
Within a row, money goes in this order:
| Order | Row part |
|---|---|
| 1 | Rent |
| 2 | Interest |
| 3 | Fees and late fees |
| 4 | Buyout |
That's why the buyout part suffers first when the client underpays: the client pays off rent and interest first, and buyout progress grows more slowly than the total of payments.
If there is more money than what remains on the whole schedule, the surplus shows in the contract header as “Unallocated”.
If allocation failed
After the payment is saved, the contract panel immediately starts the allocation. If it fails, the panel shows “Payment saved, allocation failed”.
- Click “Retry allocation” on the panel.
- Don't record the payment a second time — it's already in the cash desk.
Even without a retry, every five minutes the system allocates payments that remain unallocated.
Payment by an employee without access to the section
An employee without access to the section — because of their role or because the service is not in the plan — sees a “Rent-to-own booking” banner in the contract booking card without contract data, but with the “Accept payment” button.
- Click “Accept payment” on the banner.
- Record the payment with the “Rental” item as usual.
The reconciliation will allocate it within five minutes. The same happens to a payment recorded as a cash desk operation linked to the contract booking.
Auto-debit from the client balance
If “Auto-debit” is checked in the contract, once a day the system checks the rows that have come due and debits them from the client balance.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| The balance covers the rest of the row | A payment from the balance is created, and the row is paid |
| Not enough | Nothing is debited. The client gets a notification, and employees get a message in the bell |
The balance never goes negative
Unlike recurring bookings, contract auto-debit never takes the client balance below zero and never debits a row in parts: either the whole row or nothing.
Payments in another currency
All contract amounts — schedule, late fees, buyout price — are kept in the company's base currency, that is, the currency of the default cash desk.
- A payment in another currency is allocated across the schedule at the exchange rate at the time of payment.
- Auto-debit from the client balance goes through the default cash desk, without conversion.
- Don't switch the default cash desk to one in another currency while contracts are in progress: the currency is not stored in the contract, and amounts won't be converted — the same numbers will be treated as amounts in the new currency.
Payment by the client from their own page
The client can top up their balance in the client portal. Such a payment tops up the balance rather than paying the contract directly. The money gets into the schedule in one of two ways:
- Wait for the nightly auto-debit, if it is turned on in the contract.
- Or record the payment yourself: the “Rental” item, the “Client balance” method.