Not every customer books online. When someone rings up or walks in, you can build what they are buying for them (sessions, the joining fee, a branded top) and hand them a secure payment link to pay themselves. This is an assisted checkout. You never take card details, and their places are held while they pay.
Where to Find This
There is no separate screen for assisted checkouts. You make the link from the customer's own screen, and you follow it up on the Money screen.
- Make it. Open Customers in your console, press the customer's row, and press Payment link at the top of their screen. If they are new to you, add them first with Add a customer. See Giving a Customer a Payment Link for every step.
- Follow it up. Open the Money screen and choose the Payment links tab, or press the Payment link button at the right of the heading. See Following Up Your Payment Links.
Taking money is its own permission. Payment link is shown only to roles with Change on Payments taken for customers, so a colleague who can add a walk-in to a session does not get to make payment links unless you have also allowed it. A role with only View can see the links on the Payment links tab of the Money screen but not make, resend or cancel them. See Managing Your Team.
Places Are Held Before Payment
This is the one part of Bizzly where places are reserved before any money changes hands. When you make a payment link, the seats in every session on it are held for that customer for 24 hours, or until the link is paid or cancelled.
That matters two ways: the customer can't lose their place while they find their card, and a link left unpaid is holding capacity you could be selling. Each link on the Payment links tab shows when it runs out, and Cancel this link frees its places at once.
This is the opposite of the ordinary website basket, where nothing is reserved until the customer presses Checkout. Make links for people who intend to pay, and cancel the ones that go quiet.
What You Do
- 1
Choose what they are buying
On the customer's screen, press Payment link. Bizzly asks one question at a time (what they are buying, who it is for, which venue, which day) and works out each price itself. You can add something from your shop, and the once-only joining fee is added for you when they owe it.
- 2
Choose how they will pay
Under How will they pay?, choose Email them the link, WhatsApp them the link or I'll share it myself.
- 3
Make the link
Press Make the link. The sheet shows the link, with Copy link, Show QR and, if it was sent by a message, Send again.
You never type a price. Every amount comes from your catalogue, and the same checks a customer would face online run against their account: eligibility for the session, the once-per-account rule, capacity, and the one-subscription-per-basket rule. If something can't be sold to them, you're told before the link exists.
What the Customer Receives
- By email: a payment request listing every line, the total and when the link expires, sent to the address on their account.
- By WhatsApp: a short message from your business with the amount and the link. If the customer chose text messages, WhatsApp reaches them only if they messaged you in the last 24 hours, and the sheet tells you so.
- Shared by you: nothing is sent. You read the link out, copy it to them, or let them scan the QR code.
The link goes only to the details already on the customer's account, never to an address typed into a form, so a payment link can't be misdirected.
Paying opens the same secure checkout the website uses. From that moment everything behaves like an ordinary basket: sessions are booked, credits granted, the receipt emailed. See How the Basket and Checkout Work.
Chasing and Cancelling Links
The Payment links tab on the Money screen lists every link with where it stands (Awaiting payment, Paid, Expired, Cancelled, Refunded or Unpaid), and while any link is waiting, the figure Waiting to be paid at the head of the screen counts them. Press a link that is still waiting to copy it again, show its QR code, send it again (if it went by email or WhatsApp) or cancel it. The same links are listed on each customer's own screen. See Following Up Your Payment Links.
Tips
- Cancel dead links early on a session that's filling up. The places come back on sale immediately.
- Start from the customer. Payment link is on their screen, so you are already looking at the right person and the link is made for them.
- Read the link out only when you must. Email and WhatsApp both leave a record you can send again. I'll share it myself doesn't send anything.
- One basket, one payment. Add the season pack, the joining fee and the kit to the same link rather than making three.
Related Articles
- Giving a Customer a Payment Link - Making the link, step by step
- Following Up Your Payment Links - Resending and cancelling
- How the Basket and Checkout Work - What happens after they pay, and the basket receipt
- Purchase Rules: Who Can Buy a Plan - The once-per-account and per-member rules applied here too
- Account Fees: Joining and Registration Charges - The fee that Payment link adds for you, and how to keep it off tasters