Setting up payment

Which comes first, paying or connecting

If you leave Stripe's page and come back more than once, you never end up with two properties. When you connect, the property takes its name from your system.

The screen, field by field

The screen is headed Let's get you set up for a direct sign-up, or with your property's name followed by "is connected" for a Marketplace arrival.

The line under the heading depends on how you arrived. For a direct sign-up, it says that pricing is per room, per month, and that you will see the number before committing. For a Marketplace arrival, it reads "Try MAYA free for 7 days. Nothing is charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel any time." When no trial applies, it reads "Set up a payment method to start using MAYA."

1. 1

   How many rooms?

   A number box with the hint e.g. 24. Any whole number from 1 to 500. Anything else shows "A whole number between 1 and 500." The next section says what to count.

2. 2

   Billing

   Two buttons, Monthly and Yearly. Once the room count is valid, the yearly button adds save 10% for 21 rooms and up, or pay once a year for 1 to 20 rooms, because the smallest bracket has no yearly discount. What it costs has the brackets.

3. 3

   The price panel

   Appears once the room count is valid. A large price with "/ month" or "/ year" beside it, then a line such as "20 rooms at $5.50 per room." On a yearly plan the line goes on: "a month, billed as one year" and, from 21 rooms, "less 10%". The last line is either "Nothing today", followed by the date and amount of your first charge and "Cancel anytime." (a trial), or "Billed when you finish checkout. Cancel anytime." A restart always reads "Billed when you finish checkout.", even with a code that carries free days.

4. 4

   Which property management system do you use?

   Direct sign-ups only. Four buttons: Mews, Cloudbeds, Think Reservations, Something else. Your choice sets whether the next field is required. A Marketplace arrival does not see this question, because the system is already Cloudbeds.

5. 5

   Your code

   Labelled Your code when your system needs one, with the helper "MAYA is invite-only for now" and a note that you will have been given a code. Labelled Your code (optional) when it does not, with the helper "Got a discount or trial code? Enter it here" and a note to leave it blank otherwise. The field upper-cases as you type and checks the code a moment after you stop. Codes and the free trial has every message.

6. 6

   Continue to payment

   The button reads Continue to payment, or Set up payment when a trial applies. It reads "Taking you to checkout…" while Stripe's page loads. It stays greyed out until the room count is valid, a system is picked (when asked), and the code is either valid or, when optional, empty. Pressing Enter in any field does the same as the button. Under it: "Card details are handled by Stripe. They never touch MAYA."

How many rooms to enter

Count the rooms guests sleep in. Leave out meeting rooms, spa slots, courts, parking and anything else your system sells as a "room type" that is not a bedroom. The Harbour Inn types 20: 12 Standard, 6 Deluxe and 2 Suites, and not its Meeting Room.

The number you type is what you are billed for at the start. After you connect, MAYA counts the rooms in your property system on every sync, leaving out types you have unticked as rooms, and compares that with what you pay for. If it finds more rooms than you pay for, you get an email and 7 days to set the count yourself. It never lowers the count for you. Your room count and what you pay has the whole story, so an honest estimate now is fine.

The Terms line above the pay button

On Stripe's page, above the pay button, a line of text says "By subscribing you agree to the MAYA Terms of Service." and that your subscription renews automatically every month (or year) until you cancel. It goes on: "Your card is stored and may be charged for room-count changes (Terms 7.6)." With a trial it adds that the trial becomes a paid subscription unless you cancel before it ends. For a Marketplace property it adds "and offered for your other properties", because one card serves every property on that account. With a monthly code that discounts a set number of months, and four weeks or more free, it ends with when the page closes, for example "This page stays open until Mar 31, 6:00 AM CDT.", in your property's time zone, or UTC before your system is connected.

"Charged for room-count changes" means the room count check above: if your system shows more rooms than you pay for and you do not set the count within 7 days of being told, MAYA raises it and the difference is added to your next invoice, never taken on the day. The Terms checkbox covers the rest of the line.

What Stripe asks for

Stripe hosts the page and holds the card. MAYA never sees the card number. You pay by card: paying from a US bank account (ACH) is switched off, and every payment is taken automatically, so there is no bank transfer and no invoice by email. Stripe asks for the card, its expiry and security code, and the cardholder's name. Prices exclude tax. Whether Stripe also adds tax and asks for a full billing address and a business tax ID depends on how billing is set up at the time. Cards, payments and invoices has more on tax.

Stripe's own promotion code box is switched off. A code goes in MAYA's Your code field before you reach Stripe, never on Stripe's page.

Leaving checkout part way

Nothing is charged until you finish Stripe's page.

Press Continue to payment again while Stripe's page is still open and you get the same page back, unless it closes within half an hour. With a monthly code that discounts a set number of months and four weeks or more free, a new day (UTC) can change how long the discount runs, and then you get a new page too. Change the room count, the period or the code first and the old page is closed, so there is only ever one to pay. If Stripe's page says it has expired, go back to maya-rms.com and press Continue to payment again.

If you use the back link on Stripe's page, you return to the payment screen with the line "No charge was made", followed by a note that you left checkout before finishing. The screen starts afresh, so type the room count again, pick Monthly or Yearly (it starts on Monthly), type your code again, and pick your property system again if the screen asks. If you use your browser's back button instead, the screen may come back with your entries still in it, but without the "No charge was made" line.

If you were restarting a cancelled subscription, leaving Stripe's page takes you to the dashboard, not back to the restart screen. Open Billing and click Restart your subscription again.

The "Payment received" screen

Most people never see this screen. After Stripe confirms your payment, MAYA moves you straight on. If confirmation has not reached MAYA yet, a screen headed "Payment received" holds you for a moment: "Setting up your account" with a moving bar, and it moves on by itself the moment the payment is recorded.

If that takes longer than about 25 seconds, the screen says your payment went through but our side is taking longer than usual, and adds "Nothing is lost and you have not been charged twice." A Check again button asks straight away. After 5 minutes it stops checking on its own and says so. Check again still works and starts it checking again, and so does closing the page and signing in again later, which takes you to the right next step. Your card is saved either way, and there is never a second charge. Account and billing problems has what to do if it stays stuck.

The slow version of this screen says we will email you when it is ready, and we do. Once the payment is recorded, an email headed "Your account is ready" goes to the address you sign in with, and its button, Pick up where you left off, takes you to the next step. It comes once for each property, whether or not you waited on the screen. Emails MAYA sends describes it.

After you pay

• A Marketplace property is switched on and you go to the path choice, Hold My Hand or Let Me Drive. If several properties came over together, the payment screen comes back for the next one, headed Property 2 of 3, with the same card offered. Paying for a group of properties explains.
• A direct sign-up goes to the connect screen, headed Connect your property system. If you picked Mews, it shows there as Not yet available. That is expected: we connect Mews with you, so email us and close the screen.

Every property starts in simulation, whichever way you arrived: MAYA runs your rules and sends nothing to your system until a General Manager or Hotel Admin goes live. For Mews, MAYA sends no prices yet, even once the property is live. You set prices in Mews yourself. Read Mews: what works today.

Messages you might see

• "This property already has a subscription. Manage it at /account/billing." The property is already paid for. Open the Billing page instead. If you paid moments ago and MAYA hasn't caught up yet, you go to the "Payment received" screen instead of seeing this.
• "Your subscription is on hold. Email us at info@modern-hospitality-solutions.com and we'll get it running again." The property's subscription is paused in Stripe, and a new one is not started beside it. Email us and we get it running again.
• "Your subscription is waiting on a card update. Update your card from billing and the subscription restarts where it left off. If it has been unpaid for more than 30 days, update your card, then email us at info@modern-hospitality-solutions.com and we'll restart it." The property's subscription is unpaid: the bank's retries ran out, but it is still alive in Stripe, so a new one is not started beside it. Press Update card, receipts & cancellation on the Billing page (or Manage billing or cancel on this screen, if the property is not connected yet) and save a new card as your default. MAYA moves the subscription onto it and pays the open invoice with it, and the subscription restarts where it left off. If the first payment failed more than 30 days ago, MAYA moves it onto the new card but pays nothing by itself: email us and we restart it. A subscription on a different card of its own stays on that card and is not paid: Moving to another card explains.
• "Too many checkout attempts. Wait a few minutes and try again." You started checkout more than 10 times in 10 minutes. Wait, then try once more.
• "This needs General Manager access or higher on this property." You are paying for a property that already exists, and your role there is below General Manager. Ask its General Manager or Hotel Admin.
• "Tell us how many rooms you have" followed by the range 1 to 500: the room count did not reach us as a whole number in range. Type it again.
• "We couldn't start checkout just now. Please try again in a moment." Stripe could not be reached. Try again in a minute. If it keeps happening, email us.
• "Your code's terms changed since it was checked. Check them, then continue." The screen was open more than 50 minutes, so MAYA checked your code again, and what it grants changed, usually how many months. Read the new green line and price panel, then press the button again.
• "Couldn't check your code again. Try again in a moment." That second check could not be reached. Your code still stands. Press the button again.

If your acceptance of the Terms is not on file when you start checkout, the "Before you continue" screen appears. Tick the box, click Continue, and checkout carries on by itself.

Who can set up payment

A first-time payer has no property yet, so anyone with an account can pay, and the payer becomes the property's Hotel Admin. Paying for a property that already exists, restarting a cancelled one, or paying for the next property in a group needs General Manager or Hotel Admin.

"Manage billing or cancel" on this screen

If a subscription already sits on a property that is not connected yet, the payment or connect screen shows a small link, Manage billing or cancel (with the property's name when there is one). The Billing page cannot show a property until its system is connected, so this link is the door in the meantime: it opens Stripe straight onto cancelling that one subscription. Once set to cancel, the link becomes the words "Cancels at the end of the period". Cancelling, restarting and leaving has the details.