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How do I refund a guest through Perfect Venue?

Head to the event you would like to issue a refund for, and click into the payments tab

Select the “edit payment” button on the right hand side for the payment you would like to refund

Select either a full or partial, and input a reason for the refund

Once you hit the “refund” button, you will be all set! 

Please note: the refund can take 5-7 business days to hit a guests bank account.

Where does the refund take that money from?

The refund will pull money out of your stripe account if you have enough of a balance available. Otherwise, the refund will pull from your connected bank account.

A guests payment isn’t going through, how can I know why?

If a payment doesn’t go through, login to your Stripe account, and find the failed payment from the guest. Hover over the “failed” label and you will be able to see the reason the payment did not go through (insufficient funds, incorrect zip code, incorrect cvv, bank declined, etc).

We do not have a Stripe account connected, but a guest accidentally paid through the system, what do I do?

Head to the event where the payment was made, and click into the payments tab.

Select the “edit payment” button on the right hand side for the payment that was placed.

Since there is no bank account for the payment to go to, deleting the payment stops anything from being charged. The guest might see hold on their account for a couple of days, but the money will not go through. 

Refunds + Failed Payments

For our Premium customers, using ACH or "E-Check" payments can save you over $1,000 each month.

With events often being thousands of dollars, credit card processing fees can add up fast!

Even with good processing rates on your POS of around 2.2%, on a $5,000 event, you will be paying $110 to the credit card processor.

Here's how you can cut your credit card processing fees by 90% or more!

Skip to: How to Enable ACH Payments in Stripe

Skip to: How to Collect ACH Payments from Guests

ACH stands for "Automated Clearing House" and is essentially an electronic check that goes from a customer's bank to your bank. Similar to checks, they are very low cost because the money is going directly from one bank account to another and there is no money going towards Visa, Airlines, Rewards, etc.

In the past, ACH Payments were hard to implement.

Customers often had to enter their bank account and routing number to make the payment. Most customers either didn't have this information readily available or weren't comfortable sharing their banking information.

The other problem with this approach is that there was no way for the customer to visually see if they had enough funds in their bank account before making the payment, increasing the odds of running into an insufficient funds issues.

With Perfect Venue, we integrate with a company called Plaid that solves this problem. 

 is one of the largest companies you've probably never heard of - they are used by Venmo and American Express.

With Plaid, customers can simply log in directly to their bank account directly when making a payment (see below). Most customers have their bank login auto-fill on their computer which makes logging in trivial. 

Next, the customer selects the bank account and can view the balance before making the payment which nearly eliminates the possibility of an insufficient funds issue.

For most everyday payments, ACH payments don't make sense. A guest is looking to simply swipe their card and walk away. Since this is such a quick transaction, you need to instantly know if they have enough funds for the purchase. The credit card fees don't make as much of an impact for a smaller purchase. 

Events, on the other hand, are very different. The guest usually makes a deposit months before the date, it's a large sum of money, and they are not rushed like they are in-person. Below is a table to visualize the differences.

Like with any payment method, there are always drawbacks. The primary drawback of ACH payments is that you don't instantly know if they have the funds on hand to settle the transaction - very similar to a check. So, you wouldn't want to use it to charge the remaining balance the night of an event if you have no way to easily follow up if the charge doesn't clear.

The best way to mitigate this issue is to collect as close to the final amount as possible a few days before the event

 so that the funds have already been transferred by the time of the event. You can then charge a card for any remaining additions to their tab, but hopefully, the bulk of the event amount will have been paid over ACH.

Each venue is unique, so it really just depends on what is best for you!

There are two important steps to enable ACH payments in Stripe. Unfortunately, we do not have any visibility on whether you have completed these steps or not. Follow the steps below to ensure enabling ACH has been completed!

Look for a big "Enable ACH" button. This needs to be selected to enable. 

If you scroll down and do not see the "Enable ACH" button - you have already completed this step (or Stripe already did it for you)

Once you have enabled ACH, please email support@perfectvenue.com so we can enable ACH for your account on the backend as well!

Step 2: Increase your ACH limit if processing payments greater than $6,000

If there is any chance you'll be processing ACH payments greater than $6,000, contact Stripe Support and request that they increase your ACH processing limit. Again, there is a chance your limit has already been increased, but the only way to know is to ask.

In the Contact Us box, select "Other" from the dropdown

Then start a chat conversation by copy-pasting this into the conversation: "Hello, I plan to process ACH payments over $6,000 for my business and want to see what the ACH payment limit is for my account?". Ask them to increase it if necessary.

You will have to select whether you want your guests to pay with ACH within each event. 

Head to the event you need to take payment in, and toggle to the proposal tab

Click "edit" next to total, and scroll to the bottom of the side bar

You will see a "payment method" drop down, click on this and select "Bank (ACH)"

Be sure to scroll back to the top and hit "save!" Your guest will now be able to pay with ACH. 

If you have any other questions, shoot us an email support@perfectvenue.com!

ACH Payments (E-Check) FAQ

When a guest is paying outside of Perfect Venue, we always recommend logging the payment to ensure all your records match!

An offline payment allows you to log any payments not made through Perfect Venue to an event. This is especially helpful when a guest wants to pay with cash, a check, or they swipe their card in house. Any logged offline payments will also deduct from the total due in a proposal, and show up on your payment reports. 

3. Select "add payment" and toggle to "offline payment"

4. Fill in the amount, status, method, and when it was paid.

5. Once you hit "confirm," the payment will save under the payments tab, and deduct from the total due in the proposal!

How to Accept Payments

How to Accept Payments articles

Refunds + Failed Payments

ACH Payments (E-Check) FAQ

Logging Offline Payments