Review orders and payments
Use this guide when a client says they paid but has no confirmation, when their screen showed an error after paying, when the desk is about to take money for a booking, or when you need to know what an order paid for. One rule runs through it: find out what go flow has recorded before you take money again — never collect twice.
go flow settles online payments itself. The dashboard has no button to capture, re-check or refund an online payment, and staff never close one by hand. The money you record yourself is a payment taken at the desk, with Take payment.
What you need
- The Payments module, which brings the Finance menu with Payments and Orders.
- View on Clients, or the Billing contact role, to open the Finance pages and a client's Journal.
- Manage on Clients or on Configuration & settings, or the Billing contact role, to take a payment at the desk and to save notes.
- Optionally the Audit log right, for the audit log check in step 4.
What the client's screen proves, and what it does not
After the payment page, the client's browser returns to your booking site at an address ending in /success, /fail or /abort. That word proves nothing: go flow ignores it and asks the payment provider for the real outcome. What the page then shows depends on the provider's answer:
| The client saw | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Booking confirmed (Order confirmed when only products were bought) | go flow has the provider's confirmation; the booking is active. | Nothing to collect. The confirmation email follows. |
| Confirming your payment | No outcome yet. The client was told not to pay again and that the confirmation will come by email. | Do not collect. go flow settles the payment itself; check again in a few minutes. |
| Payment declined | Usually the provider refused this attempt, and the client may try another payment method. The same screen also appears when the client retries an order that has been paid in the meantime. | Check the records before you say anything about money: the order may be paid after all. |
| Payment unavailable | Something failed on go flow's or the provider's side. Depending on when it happened, no payment was started or the payment is still open. | Check the records before collecting. |
| We couldn't confirm this booking here (or Sign in to see your bookings) | The page could not find out. The client was told the payment may have gone through and not to pay again. | Check the records before collecting. |
Whatever the screen said, the records decide. The confirmation email of a paid booking is only sent once the payment is captured.
Check a payment before collecting again
1. Find the client and the booking
Open Clients, open the client and choose the Journal tab: it lists their appointments, orders, payments, wallet movements and vouchers together (see Client details). Note the Order reference; the client also finds it on their confirmation email or receipt.
For a session booking, open the session's participant list (see Session participants) or the Agenda view of the Scheduler, and read the participant's status and Payment column:
| The participant shows | It means |
|---|---|
| Active, Paid · … | Paid, online or at the desk; the method follows the dot. |
| Active, Unpaid · at the desk | The client chose to pay at the desk; an unpaid order is waiting. |
| Active, Unpaid | Booked with no payment recorded, for example added by staff. |
| Active, Waived | Given free of charge at the desk. |
| Reserved, with a countdown under Expires | The place is held: the client is in checkout and may be on the payment page right now, or staff held the place with Hold places and the client has not completed the booking yet. When the client goes to the payment page, Expires moves on: the place stays held while the payment is open, for at most 40 minutes. |
| No longer listed | The hold ran out, the payment failed or was abandoned, or the booking was cancelled. |
2. Look at the payment
Open Finance > Payments and search for the order reference or the client's name; the search covers every month. Each attempt to pay is one row (see Payments for every status):
- Captured (green) — the client has paid online.
- Pending (grey) — the payment is open. go flow settles it on its own, usually within minutes; one for which the provider shows nothing taken or approved is written off after 30 minutes.
- Failed (red) only — none of these attempts brought money. go flow keeps checking failed attempts for 24 hours and turns one green if the provider shows a charge after all.
- Refunded (orange) — the payment was refunded to the card.
- No row — no online payment was started: the booking had nothing to pay, was covered by wallet credit or a voucher, was booked to pay at the desk or paid at the desk, or the payment page never opened.
Expand a row with its chevron to see Created, Captured at and Failed at.
3. Look at the order
Open Finance > Orders and search for the same reference. Expand the row: the line items show what was bought — a session place, a wallet top-up or a voucher. The list has no paid or open column; the order is paid when its PDF downloads or a green Captured payment carries its reference. The reference itself tells you where the order came from (DP- desk payment, MA- wallet adjustment, CR- credit note; see Orders). What the client paid online is the Gross total less the Discount total and the Credit applied.
4. Check what the payment bought
- A session place — the participant is Active with Paid · … (step 1).
- A wallet top-up — Finance > Wallets, search for the order reference: a Top-up entry (see Wallets).
- A voucher — Finance > Vouchers, search for the buyer's name: the Client column is the buyer. The status filter first shows only Redeemable vouchers; add other statuses if you do not find it (see Vouchers).
- The confirmation — on Emails, the confirmation sent to the client and its status.
- Who completed it — with the Audit log right, the Audit log shows Online booking completed with the client, or with System (payment reconciled) when go flow settled the payment in the background; Participant payment recorded for money taken at the desk; Participant cancelled for a cancellation, with the refund destination in its details.
5. Decide
| What you found | What you do |
|---|---|
| A Captured payment, or the place shows Paid | Do not collect. The booking stands. If the client has no confirmation email, check its status on Emails. |
| A Pending payment, or the place is still Reserved | Do not collect and do not book the client again. Ask them not to pay again, and look again after a few minutes. |
| Only Failed attempts and the place is gone | go flow took no money. The client books again online, or you add them to the session and take the payment at the desk. If the client shows a charge, record it (below) and escalate. |
| Unpaid · at the desk | Take the payment with Take payment, or Waive the place (next section). |
| A payment confirmed after the hold ran out, and the session now has more participants than its capacity | go flow keeps a paid client's place. Decide whether to move a client, raise the capacity or cancel with a refund. |
| The records disagree, or you cannot tell | Do not collect. Record what you know on the order or payment and hand the case over. Compare with the transaction in your payment provider's own back office, where it is described as <organisation name> - <order reference>. |
Take a payment at the desk
Take payment records money that the client hands over at the desk. It is on the participant's row in the Payment column, in the participant list's toolbar for the selected active participants, and on an active participant's row in the Agenda. The dialog pre-fills Amount received with the amount due (or places times the session price), offers Cash, Card at desk and Twint as Payment method, and has two buttons: Confirm payment (the check mark) and Waive. For money taken, the booking automation creates the receipt and emails it to the client. Details: Session participants.
What happens to the order:
- An unpaid desk order and the amount due — the order is settled and keeps its reference.
- An unpaid desk order and a different amount — the order is voided and a new
DP-order records what was taken. - Waive — an unpaid desk order is voided; no order and no receipt.
- No unpaid order — a new
DP-order.
Desk payments appear on Orders, never on Payments. See Unpaid desk orders.
Two cautions:
- Not on a reserved place. The row's Take payment button also appears on a Reserved participant, whose client may be paying online at that moment. Wait until the place is Active or the hold has run out and step 2 shows no open payment.
- Waive, not 0. To give a place free of charge, use Waive. Confirming an amount of 0 marks the place Paid without an order or receipt and leaves an unpaid desk order open.
Record what you found
On the payment or order row, expand it, add Tags and a note in Add note, and press Save (see Orders). Write what you checked, what you found, what remains to be done and who does it. Each note keeps its time and author and cannot be edited later. A note does not record money, refund anything or change a booking. For the end-of-shift routine, see Hand over the day.
Check the totals
The Journal lists the orders, payments, wallet movements and vouchers of all clients in time order; search it for the client's name or the order reference. Analytics counts an order as revenue only once it is paid, so an unpaid desk order adds nothing until the desk settles it.
What go flow does not do
- No button to capture, re-check or refund an online payment, and no way to mark an online order paid: go flow settles open payments itself. Refunds are made by cancelling the booking; see Cancel or refund.
- No status column on Orders: use the signs in step 3.
- Setting up payments does not prove that they work: a booking with nothing to pay does not test the payment provider.