Transaction Categories are the types of payments you want to collect.

Examples include ... 

Reservation Deposit
Check-Out Settlement
Group Deposit
Gift Card
Lost & Found Fee

These can be anything you wish to call them.

If TransForm is interfaced to your PMS, you can configure any or all of your Transaction Categories to post to a reservation, to the master account for a group, or to any other specified account in the PMS.

To create or edit Transaction Categories, log into the b4 Admin Site and select TRANSFORM in the banner menu. Transaction Categories are in the first button under TRANSFORM.

Once you select the Transaction Categories button, you will see a table similar to the example below.

There is a button in the blue bar that enables you to add a new Transaction Category. Each existing Transaction Category includes a pencil icon that enables you to edit its details.

After you select either the button to Add a New Transaction Category or the edit pencil for an existing Transaction Category, the settings page opens.

The first section of the setup page for Transaction Categories includes the following settings:

This feature is seen by Opera users only and works only with in-house reservations.

Please use caution when collecting online 3rd party payments within 3 days of arrival as those carry a higher fraud risk. If you have a Lead Time Restriction set on the transaction category, in-house payments will not work. Refer to our best practices guide for more fraud prevention suggestions.

In the transaction category set up, OPERA users only will see the folio/window selection within the POST TO field as shown below. This gives you the option to select a default folio/window to which this transaction category will post for in-house reservations.

In addition to setting the default folio/window, you will also be able to override this default on each individual payment request email you create in TRANSFORM → TRANSFORM MAILER

This feature does not work for future dated (not checked in) reservations, as multiple folios/windows are not available until after check-in. If you chose the payment to move to window 2 before arrival, the payment will continue to post initially in the deposit area of the reservation. You can, however, use the routing rules in OPERA to have the TransForm payment move onto your desired folio/window upon the guests arrival.

Best practice for this feature is to set up a transaction category specifically for in-house payments with the desired folio selected. Some examples of use cases are accounting teams settling post masters or front office teams using this to collect lost and found payments or extending an existing stay.

Each Transaction Category is assigned a type. The Transaction Type determines what type of details are asked for during the payment.

You can require payments which are processed immediately and/or authorizations for specified charges to be incurred during the stay and which the cardholder is confirming they will cover on the card they are providing.

You must assign one of four types to each Transaction Category:

1. PAYMENT/DEPOSIT only

This type presents an immediately processed payment as the only option.

2. AUTHORIZATION only

This type only asks what will be covered, for manual processing at a later time.

USAGE NOTE: This type is recommended for use ONLY where interfaced to the OPERA PMS, as a method to collect card details and confirm card validity. This transaction type authorizes the amount, which verifies the validity of the card, and then automatically voids the authorization so that the amount is not held longer than necessary to simply check the card validity. If your OPERA PMS uses tokenization, a token for the card is created. If you are not using tokenization, the masked card appears OPERA's normal card field.

Note: If you select the option to 'send credit card to OPERA', you would normally also include 'auto void'.

3. CHOICE of PAYMENT/DEPOSIT or AUTHORIZATION

This type lets the payer choose to either pay now or to specify what charge types you many process manually at a later time.

Note: If you select the option to 'send credit card to OPERA', you would normally also include 'auto void'.

4. PAYMENT/DEPOSIT with AUTHORIZATION

This type asks the payer both for an amount to be charged now as well as authorizations to be processed manually at a later time.

You can specify if the authorizations are optional or must be included, using the "require both" check-box.

You can specify if an amount limit field is to be included, and whether it is to be mandatory.

You can also specify if the option 'unlimited' is to be presented with the amount limit or not.

This is where you create what check-boxes are to appear for specifying the types of charges your payer can authorize you to process on the card manually at a later time.

Once you have added a Charge Type, it cannot currently be deleted - only de-activated.

These check-boxes are presented in two alternating columns. You can control the relative position of the Charge Types by manipulating the Sort Order. You can use the Active column to disable selected Charge Types.

Introductory Text

The payment page has two possible introductory paragraphs.

The Opening Paragraph is the same for all Transaction Categories and can be customized under PROPERTY SETTINGS → MANAGE MESSAGES - > Add a Message → select OPENING PARAGRAPH as the MESSAGE TYPE

Since all transaction categories will display this Opening Paragraph, it normally contains this type of generic security reassurance:

We value your privacy and understand the responsibility you give us when providing your personal payment information. Rest assured that our on-line payment process is fully compliant with PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards and the security guidelines set forth by credit card companies. The card details you submit are not held on this website. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at [telephone number].

You can also create a second message unique to each Transaction Category, which will display below the Opening Paragraph.

Transaction Category Messages can be created under PROPERTY SETTINGS → MANAGE MESSAGES - > Add a Message → select TRANSACTION CATEGORY MESSAGE as the MESSAGE TYPE