Taking payment

Choose whether guests pay in full at checkout or leave a deposit with a balance due before arrival. This page also covers overdue payments and cancellation refunds.

Full payment is the default. To take deposits, enable them for the store and set a deposit percentage on the property’s booking rule.

Rentals supplies the amounts and deadlines. KahunaCart’s payment collection tracks what has been paid and what remains due. See Deposits.

Before you begin

To collect deposits, enable KahunaCart → Settings → Commerce → Deposits and part payment (checkout.deposits.enabled). It is off by default. When disabled, all stays require full payment at checkout.
kahunacart.bookings.manage to set the deposit, the balance days and the cancellation policy on a property.
kahunacart.orders.view to open the order behind a stay, and kahunacart.orders.refund to give money back.
At least one payment provider set up. See Payment providers.
A scheduled worker running bin/plugin kahunacart work for balance reminders and overdue-payment alerts.

The stay cart line

A stay occupies one cart line at the quoted total. Its nights, extra guests and cleaning fee are itemised on the receipt.

Stays have no quantity control. To book another date range, select it on the calendar and add it as a separate cart line with its own price.

Price locked during the hold

The quoted price remains fixed while its hold is valid. Rate-card edits, revisiting the cart, coupon attempts and price lists do not recalculate the underlying quote.

If the hold expires, the cart refuses the line and asks the guest to select the dates again. It does not recalculate the agreed quote or substitute the single-night product price.

Deposits and balances

With deposits enabled, set the property’s deposit percentage and balance days before arrival. For a 30% deposit and fourteen-day deadline, the store:

marks the order Part paid, with the balance outstanding;
confirms the booking and reserves its dates;
emails the guest a pay link a few days before the balance falls due;
alerts you if the balance becomes overdue.

Leave the deposit percentage empty to collect the full amount at checkout.

When the balance falls due

The deadline is calculated from local midnight on the arrival date in the property’s timezone. A fourteen-day deadline for a Saturday arrival is midnight on the Saturday two weeks earlier.

With a deposit percentage set and balance days empty, the balance is due at local midnight on arrival day.

Bookings after the balance deadline

A guest booking on Mon 5 Oct for Fri 9 Oct is already past a balance deadline of fourteen days before arrival. Checkout therefore requests the full amount today. The same applies when the property has no deposit set.

The quote states whether full payment or a deposit is due now.

What the deposit covers

Other products and sales tax are payable in full at checkout. The checkout’s Due today amount may therefore exceed the rental deposit shown in the quote.

The quote says which it is talking about:

Of the $1,376.00 for this stay, $412.80 is due today and the rest — $963.20 — by Sat 3 Oct 2026.

This payment summary applies to the stay only and is saved with the hold.

Payment reminder jobs

When	What happens
Before the balance deadline	The guest receives the amount paid, outstanding balance and a payment link. Ask for the balance this many days early defaults to three days.
After an unpaid deadline	You receive the property, dates, outstanding balance, reminder lead time and overdue period.

The default three-day lead time gives guests time to arrange payment. Adjust it in Settings.

Overdue payment does not cancel the stay, release its dates or refund the deposit. Review the alert and decide what action to take.

An overdue unpaid balance blocks the arrival note. A balance whose deadline has not yet passed does not. See Messages.

Cancellation

The cancellation policy determines the refund estimate shown to guests and the amount requested for your review.

Enter steps in descending notice order. Each specifies a minimum number of days before arrival and the refundable percentage. The first matching step applies; cancellations beyond the final step receive no refund.

Days before arrival	Comes back
30	100%
14	50%
0	0%

Cancelling releases the nights, notifies you and creates a refund request. You review the request and issue any refund manually.

Refund request details

The requested amount is based on payments received for that stay, rather than the full stay price or the entire order.

If only a 30% deposit has been paid, a 50% refund step returns half of that deposit.
Cancelling one of two stays in an order calculates the request against that stay’s payments only.

The request shows the matching policy step and calculation.

Cancellation uses the property’s current policy. Policy terms are not saved with each booking. Changing them therefore affects existing bookings as well as new ones.

Refund effects

KahunaCart processes rental refunds through the linked order. The following rules affect the stay:

Refunds do not change the balance schedule. Refunding part of a deposit reduces the amount retained without reopening the balance or changing its due date. Cancel the booking separately if the stay will not proceed.

Refunding all collected payments releases the nights. This also applies to a part-paid order when the full deposit is returned. A partial refund retains the booking and records the refund in its history.

Sales, coupons and price lists


A sale	Discounts nights and extra guests while leaving cleaning unchanged. See Sales.
A coupon	Works as it does on any line, measured against what the line is worth after any sale. See Coupons
A price list	Does not apply to stay quotes. Configure rental prices on the rate card.

Free stays and payment on arrival

Free stays and payment-on-arrival stays skip the cart. The guest enters a name and email to confirm the booking, with no order created. See Taking payment for the payment-setting rules.

In more than one currency

A stay is bought in one currency and everything after it stays in that one, whatever the guest browses in later: the deposit is a share of the total in that currency, the balance and its reminder say the amount in it, and the damage deposit in the receipt and the pre-arrival email is the property's damage deposit in it. A property with no damage deposit set in that currency has none to mention there.

A cancellation works from what the shop is holding for the stay in the stay's own currency and says the refund in it. A fee with no amount in the currency does not apply. See Selling in more than one currency.

Taking payment - holds, approval, conflicts and everything a stay inherits from Bookings
Deposits - the collection, the sessions, the balance and the pay link, all of it core's
Rates and seasons - what the nights came to before any of this
Guests and fees - the cleaning fee a sale never touches, and the damage deposit
Orders and the admin - refunds, refund requests and the order's own timeline