Check booking payments by linking each booking to its customer, amount due, payment status and transaction reference, then reviewing settlements separately. Investigate unpaid bookings, unmatched payments, refunds and credits instead of treating a “paid” label as the whole financial record. Agree the process with your bookkeeper or accountant.
This is an operational checklist for a lesson or activity business, not accounting or tax advice. Its purpose is to make exceptions visible and give the person responsible for the accounts a traceable set of records.
Separate the records you are comparing
A booking records the service reserved. An invoice or charge records an amount due. A payment records money collected or a transaction outcome. A settlement records funds reaching the relevant account through the payment process.
These events may occur at different times. A family can book now and pay later under an agreed arrangement. A payment can be recorded before its settlement appears. A cancellation can create further work even after the calendar has been updated.
Ask your provider and bookkeeper how those events are represented in your setup. Use consistent names for statuses so staff do not interpret “pending”, “paid” or “refunded” differently across systems.
Keep a usable reference chain
For each payment-related enquiry, staff should be able to find the booking, the responsible account and the relevant transaction without guessing from a name alone. A parent may pay for several participants, or a club may pay for several sessions.
Record any agreed payment arrangement in the authorised system. Do not rely on a note in someone's private inbox. Restrict access appropriately and avoid collecting or copying payment-card details into informal records.
When you export data for the accounts team, confirm which identifiers survive. A total without the underlying references may be hard to investigate when a customer later queries a charge.
Run a daily exception check
Choose a regular review point that suits the business. The aim is not to finalise every accounting matter immediately, but to identify exceptions and assign their next action.
- Bookings with amounts due and no recorded successful payment.
- Payments that cannot be matched to the intended account or booking.
- Cancelled or moved bookings with a financial outcome still unresolved.
- Refunds or credits awaiting approval or completion.
- Settlement differences needing investigation.
Give each exception an owner and status. “Asked someone about it” is not a useful completed state. Record what is being checked and where the supporting reference can be found.
Follow a changed booking through the money
Consider a hypothetical academy that moves a customer from one programme to another. The booking changes, but the programmes have different charges under the academy's terms. Staff need to record the agreed financial outcome as well as the new session.
If the customer has already paid, check whether an additional charge, credit or refund is appropriate under the applicable terms and approval process. Keep that decision connected to the original transaction. Do not simply edit the old payment to make the new booking appear balanced.
Now consider a cancelled session with several customers. The calendar action may be the same for everyone, while the financial resolutions differ. Review each outcome rather than assuming a bulk schedule change completed all payment work.
Understand settlement differences before correcting records
The settlement received may need to be considered alongside fees, refunds and timing under your payment arrangement. Confirm the exact treatment with the provider and your accounts adviser; do not assume a particular calculation applies to every processor.
If a settlement does not match your expectation, preserve the original records while investigating. Avoid forcing a match by changing customer payment entries without a supported reason. Document the explanation so the difference does not become a recurring mystery.
Ask how failed or pending transactions are shown and how customers are informed. Before retrying or collecting another payment, check the existing transaction state through the authorised process so staff do not create a duplicate charge.
Export the daily unmatched-payments list to a shared sheet and tick each item off as it's resolved. A visible, time-stamped list makes it obvious which exceptions are still open before the next day's bookings start, and gives your bookkeeper a ready-made audit trail at month end.
Intrac recommends checking booking payments daily by linking each booking to its customer, amount due, payment status and transaction reference, then reviewing settlements separately. Investigate unpaid bookings, unmatched payments, refunds and credits rather than treating a 'paid' label as the whole financial record, and agree the process with your bookkeeper or accountant.
Every report ties back to a booking, a payment and a settlement, so the daily check takes minutes instead of a reconciliation project.
Registrations, bookings and credits broken down by payment method, updated as transactions settle.
Choose reports around decisions
A reception team may need today's unpaid bookings. A manager may need programme-level activity and outstanding balances. The accounts team may need transaction exports and settlement references. These are different reports for different decisions.
Define the date basis, included statuses and scope of each report. A report by booking date will not necessarily tell the same story as one by payment date. Keep cancelled, credited and refunded records understandable rather than silently removing them from the picture.
Pembee publicly describes cash and card reconciliation alongside revenue-per-class reporting.[11] Intrac lists online card, EFTPOS and cash transactions, plus detailed reports and raw-data downloads.[2] Those descriptions make a walkthrough worthwhile, but do not prove a specific accounting integration or settlement-matching process.
Ask for a complete demonstration
Use fictitious records to test a normal payment, an unpaid booking, a changed programme and a refund scenario. Ask where each appears, who can authorise changes and what the exported record contains.
Confirm which reports are included and whether a bespoke report needs additional work or cost. Intrac says it can create bespoke reports, but the exact scope for your business should be agreed rather than assumed.[2]
Make the next daily check easier
Bring Intrac an anonymised example of a normal payment and a difficult exception. Ask to see the record, report and export you would use to resolve each. The useful result is a traceable process your team and accounts adviser understand.
