This guide is for a finance or operations user who knows the individual payment screens in the Lavanda property management system (PMS), but not the order they go in.
At the end you will have money taken, recorded against the right document, reconciled, and reversible. The setup steps are one-off. After that, a single payment takes a few minutes per booking.
Before you begin
A user role that allows you to view bookings, issue invoices, record payments, and process refunds.
Invoicing active in your workspace. Contact your implementation manager or client advisor if invoices are not available to you.
Confirmation of whether your workspace uses down payments or deposits. A workspace uses one model or the other, never both. Step 1 settles this.
Your payment setup already configured, before you create any instalment plan template.
A Stripe card setup or a valid Direct Debit mandate, if you intend the PMS to collect payment for you.
The steps at a glance
Understand the difference between a down payment and a deposit.
Create the instalment plan templates that set the payment schedule.
Generate a down payment invoice from the offer.
Pay the down payment invoice, or record a payment made by another method.
Record a deposit receipt by hand, where the money arrived outside the PMS.
Issue the accommodation invoice.
Check what the PMS issues and collects for you.
Record a payment against the issued invoice.
Reconcile the payments received.
Check the allocations of invoices, receipts, and credit notes.
Refund a payment receipt, where something has to be reversed.
Step 1: understand down payments and deposits
Everything after this behaves differently depending on which model your workspace uses. A down payment is part of the booking cost and generates an invoice. A deposit is security against damage and generates a receipt only.
Settle this first, because it decides whether steps 3 and 4 apply to you, or step 5 does.
Step 2: create instalment plan templates
An instalment plan template is a reusable payment schedule. It sets how and when the payments for a booking are collected, and it collects nothing on its own.
Do this before any invoice exists. A template becomes active once it is assigned to a product group and a booking is made against it.
Step 3: generate a down payment invoice
This is the first document in the journey for a workspace that uses down payments. Activate the down payment setting in the Application section of the offer, before the guest accepts it.
The invoice is created as a draft on the resulting booking. Where no down payment invoice exists, the accepted offer is the place to check.
Step 4: pay the down payment invoice
Issue the draft invoice, then let the guest pay through the Stripe checkout link. That route allocates the receipt for you and updates the Down payment status on the booking Checklist.
Where the guest paid by another method, record the payment on the invoice itself. The Down payment summary then still reads as unpaid, which is expected.
Step 5: record deposit receipts manually
This step applies only to a workspace that uses deposits, and to money that arrived outside the PMS. Record it from Payments & refunds on the booking, with Payment type set to Deposit.
A receipt recorded this way is not allocated for you. Plan to allocate it by hand, and to check it at step 10.
Step 6: issue the accommodation invoice
Issuing turns a draft into a locked, numbered document that no longer reflects later changes to the booking. Review the line items and the recipient details first, because an issued invoice cannot be edited.
Issue the accommodation invoice before any optional service is added to the booking. The services then produce a second draft invoice in the correct billing period.
Step 7: check what the PMS issues and collects for you
Steps 6 and 8 are often unnecessary. A nightly booking is invoiced automatically at 11.59pm on the check-out date. A monthly booking is invoiced at 1am UTC on the first day of the billing period.
Auto-collection applies to monthly recurring invoices only. Check the reference table before you issue or record anything by hand, so that you do not duplicate a document.
Step 8: record a payment against the issued invoice
Where the money arrived outside the PMS, record it on the issued invoice itself. That generates the receipt, creates the general ledger journals, and allocates the payment to the invoice.
The invoice must have the status Issued and a balance still to pay. Record a down payment invoice payment on the invoice, never through Payments & refunds.
Step 9: reconcile the payments received
Reconciliation traces each amount that reached your bank back to the bookings it covers. Airbnb and Booking.com each pay on their own timetable and deduct their own fees, so a payout rarely matches one booking.
This step covers channel payouts against the Lavanda monthly report and fee invoice. For payments taken inside the PMS, the equivalent check is step 10.
Step 10: check the allocations
An allocation is the link between a document and the money against it. Every issued document carries its own allocation summary, naming what it is allocated to and the balance remaining.
Use this step to prove the sequence worked. A receipt that reads Unallocated is the usual sign that a payment was recorded in the wrong place.
Step 11: refund a payment receipt
This is the exit path when a payment has to be reversed. A refund is always returned to the method originally charged, and it cannot be undone.
The receipt needs a free balance, so remove any allocation first. A down payment receipt cannot be refunded, so credit the down payment invoice instead.
Things to note
Order matters most at the start. Confirm the down payment or deposit model, and create the instalment plan templates, before any invoice exists.
An issued invoice cannot be edited. Corrections go through the credit and correction process.
Check step 7 before you issue or record anything by hand. Auto-issuing and auto-collection already cover several booking types.
A payment recorded in the wrong place still succeeds. The allocation is what shows the mistake, so step 10 is the check that catches it.
Where a step will not complete, the blocker is usually incomplete recipient details. An invoice cannot be issued without a contact name, an address, and an identification number.
A successful payment cannot be edited afterwards. Use the refund flow for a genuine refund, and the reversal flow for an error or a chargeback.
Down payment receipts, SEPA direct debit payments, and channel payouts cannot be refunded. Reverse them, or credit the invoice, instead.
Find out more
Topic | What it covers |
Which model your workspace uses, and how each one is documented and refunded | |
Reusable payment schedules, the three plan types, and how templates are assigned | |
The down payment setting on an offer, and the draft invoice it creates | |
The Stripe checkout route, and recording a payment made by another method | |
Recording a deposit taken outside the PMS, and the receipt it generates | |
Turning a draft into a locked, numbered invoice, and the details that block issuing | |
When the PMS issues an invoice and collects payment automatically, by booking type | |
Recording a payment straight onto an issued invoice, and the methods available | |
Matching Airbnb and Booking.com payouts against the Lavanda monthly report and fee invoice | |
Reading the allocation summary on an invoice, a receipt, or a credit note | |
Refunding in full or in part, and which receipt types must be reversed instead | |
Which report answers which question, following a lead from enquiry to signed booking | |
Connecting Stripe, then taking and refunding card and direct debit payments |