Prepaid cards and credits
With prepaid cards, you sell your customers credit in advance, for example a 10-session pass. The balance consists of Credits. When a customer books an offering, Bookicorn deducts the credits from the card instead of charging money. Prepaid cards are a payment method alongside payment on site, bank transfer, Stripe and PayPal. You can offer them on their own or together with the others.
What credits and prepaid cards are
- A Prepaid Card is what the customer buys or receives from you, for example "10-session pass" with 10 credits.
- A Credit is the unit on the card. An offering costs a certain number of credits per booking.
- A Package is the template a prepaid card is created from at purchase: name, number of credits, price, validity and payment methods.
A customer can have several cards at the same time. How Bookicorn decides which card to deduct from is explained under Which card is used first.
Rename credits and prepaid card
You can adapt the terms "Credit" and "Prepaid Card" to your studio:
- Open Manager → Settings → General and tap Terminology.
- Under Credit System, choose the Card name, for example Prepaid Card, Value Card, Stamp Card or Bonus Card, or enter your own.
- Choose the Unit, for example Credit, Point, Token, Unit, Stamp or Balance, or enter your own.
The terms then appear in the Manager, on your booking page and in emails. The menu item for the packages in the Manager also carries your card name.
Create packages
You create your packages under Manager → Prepaid Card. The menu item is named after what you called your cards: app.bookicorn.net/kreditpakete. How this works in detail is explained under Create prepaid cards.
Credits as a payment method in an offering
For an offering to be bookable with credits, switch on the row for credits under Payment types in the offering and enter how many credits a booking costs. You can also enter a price in money. The customer then chooses at booking whether to pay with credits or with money.
Guests without an account have no credits. If an offering only accepts credits, guests can't book it.
How customers buy prepaid cards
Customers buy prepaid cards:
- on your booking page, for example through the Credit packages block
- in the customer app
- directly when booking, if their credits aren't enough
At purchase, the customer chooses one of the payment methods you allowed in the package. With Stripe and PayPal, the credits are available immediately. With payment on site and bank transfer, the card is locked until you confirm that the payment has arrived. See Payment on site and bank transfer.
What customers see of their credits
In the customer app and in the customer area on your booking page, customers see their cards with the available credits and the expiry date, plus their subscriptions and their purchases with invoices. This is also where they redeem voucher codes for credits.
Subscriptions with credits
With the Credit Subscriptions addon, you offer packages that renew monthly or yearly and add new credits each time. See Credit Subscriptions.
Manage a customer's credits
You see and change the cards of an individual customer in the customer profile under Manager → Customers. There you grant credits manually, deduct credits, pause a card or extend it. See Manage a customer's credits.
Frequently asked questions
What do you mean by credits? Credits are the balance on a prepaid card. The customer buys, for example, 10 credits in advance and uses them to pay for bookings. Each offering sets how many credits a booking costs.
Where do I manage my 10-session pass? You create the "10-session pass" package under Manager → Prepaid Card and change it there. You find a customer's purchased cards in the customer profile under Customers.
Do I have to set up a 10-session pass as a block or as a course? Neither. A 10-session pass is a prepaid card with 10 credits that customers use to book any sessions individually. A block course, on the other hand, is a fixed package of several sessions that is booked as a whole.
Can I rename "Credits" to "Points"? Yes, under Settings → General → Terminology, at Unit.
Does the customer get their credits back if they cancel? Yes. The credits go back to the card they were deducted from.