Home → Arctic Reservations → Getting Started: Configuring your Installation → Step 4: Payment Plans
1.5. Step 4: Payment Plans
During the setup process for your new Arctic Installation you should create payment plans. Payment plans are used for calculating invoice due dates. You can create different payment plans for different trips or for different customers (for example, more lax payment terms for well known guests).
To setup payment plans, go to the "Settings" page under "Invoicing" choose "Manage Payment Plans" by clicking the "Pencil" icon to access the "Browse Payment Plans" page. On the "Browse Payment Plans" page, click the green "+ Create Payment Plan" button.
On the "Create a New Payment Plan" page, choose a business group for your new payment plan. If you want to use this plan for any activity or invoice in your system, you will choose your top level, system-wide business group. If the plan is only for a specific segment of your business, you can assign it to say the "Rentals" business group and this payment plan will only be available for invoices in the "Rentals" business group or for rental items, trip types and trips in the "Rentals" business group.
Next enter a name for your payment plan. This name will only be seen on the backend. It will never be seen by your guests. The name is solely to help you differentiate between the various plans you might set up on your installation.
Arctic, by default, will load a "one payment" option that, should you decide to save it as is, would give you a payment plan that requires the balance in full 30 days after the guest makes their booking (date of invoice). You can alter the conditions of this payment and choose to enter a specific dollar amount due for the payment. If you choose this option, you will also be able to specify whether this is the total amount that should be collected for the payment per invoice or if this amount should be collected for each item or guest booked, in which case, Arctic will multiply the amount specified by the quantity of items or guests booked to determine the full amount of the payment due.
You can also choose to make the first payment a percentage of the balance due.
Once you have set the amount to be collected for the payment, you will next specify when this payment should be collected. You can choose "A certain number days before or after" or "Anchor to a Specific Date".
If you choose "A certain number days before or after", you will be able to specify not only the number of days but whether this is before or after either the "Date of Activity" or the "Date of Invoice". If you choose "Before Date of Invoice" the first payment will be due at the time of booking and the number of days should be 0 since the date of invoice is the day the guest booked their activity.
For the other date options you have a lot of latitude. If you create a payment due for say 80 days before the date of activity, and the guest books 60 days out from the Date of Activity, Arctic will know that this payment as well as any deposit payment that you have specified, is due on the date they book.
Once the payment has been completely set up, if you are not using the "Remaining Balance Due" option you will need to click the blue "+ Add Payments" shown here, to add additional payments to your payment plan.
This will add another gray payment box where you can enter the details for the next payment. You can create plans with any number of payments. The final payment in your payment plan should always be set to "Remaining Balance Due". This will ensure that the total balance will be collected and accounts for any odd cents here or there, especially when you are creating payment plans that use the "Percentage" option. If the payment at the bottom of the page is not set to "Remaining Balance" when you click "Submit", Arctic will give you an error, telling you need a payment set to the "Remaining Balance" option.
After all of your payments are entered and you are sure the last payment in your plan is set to "Remaining Balance" then click "Submit" to save your plan.
Once you create a payment plan, you will be able to edit or delete it; however any existing invoices using that payment plan will not be affected. These invoices will still be governed by the terms of the original payment plan unless you specifically change the payment plan to another payment option.
Now that you have payment plans, you will be able to add them directly to invoices or you can tell Arctic which plans to use for the various trip types, trips and rental Items you create in your system. When payment plans are set for your trip types, trips and rental Items, Arctic will automatically apply the plan selected to any activity booked for the trip type, trip or rental item.