Payouts and bank details
When your money reaches your bank, how to change that, and the checks that keep it safe.
Money your customers pay through Booked Payments does not land in your bank straight away. It sits in a balance held for your business, clears, then goes on to your bank on the schedule you pick. Here is where that schedule lives, how to change it, and what the odder-looking states mean.
Where payouts live
Everything to do with money is on one screen: Payments, under System in the sidebar. Your balance, recent card payments, payout schedule, bank account and any disputes are all there.
Two things must be true before you see any of it. Your Booked licence key has to be activated; until it is, the screen shows only Needs a licence and a Go to Your plan button. And Booked Payments has to be switched on and verified: if you closed the Set up your payouts form part-way through, you land on a short screen with a Finish setting up button, because balances, the payout schedule and your payout history stay hidden until verification finishes. See Set up Booked Payments. Only logins allowed to change Booked’s settings can see this screen.
Card payments land in your Booked balance and pay out to your bank on their own.
Every payment, refund and payout in one place. Payouts land in your bank on their own; nothing else to log into.
Payments, with your balance and recent payouts.
- 1Payments — under System in the sidebar. The Payouts card, your balance and your payout history are all here.
- 2Available and On the way — Available has cleared and can be paid out; On the way is still clearing and moves across by itself.
- 3Payouts to your bank — on Your money: your six most recent payouts, with the date each arrives, its status and the amount. Before the first one it reads "No payouts yet. The first goes out once your balance clears."
The four payout schedules
Booked pays out Every working day unless you change it, which suits most pharmacies and clinics: takings leave in a steady trickle, so the bank balance tracks the diary.
| Schedule | What happens | Choose it if |
|---|---|---|
| Every working day | As soon as each day’s takings clear. | You want money moving fast and do not mind lots of statement lines. |
| Weekly | One payment a week, on the day you choose. | You reconcile weekly and want one figure to match. |
| Monthly | One payment a month, on the date you choose. | Your bookkeeping runs monthly and cash flow is comfortable. |
| Only when I ask | Money stays in your balance until you press Pay out now. | You want to decide each time. |
Two quirks. The weekly Which day list only offers Monday to Friday, so there is no weekend payout day. On Monthly, Which date runs 1 to 30 and then Last day of the month: pick that, not 30, for month end whatever the month.
With Only when I ask, your balance builds up until you press Pay out now. If you chose it while setting up and then wondered why no money arrived, that is why: payouts are not broken, they were never scheduled.
Changing your schedule
The Payouts card sits just below the Booked Payments card. Pick an option, set the day or date if there is one, then press Save schedule, which appears once you have changed something. Your first payout is the slow one: the card warns it can take a few days longer while a new account settles in. If you have a payment PIN, Booked asks for it before the change is saved; see When Booked asks for your payment PIN below.
How often your takings are sent to your bank. The first payout can take a few days longer while the account settles in.
Available to pay out: £1,284.60Pay out nowChange bank
The Payouts card, being changed to a weekly payout every Tuesday.
- 1Bank account — where payouts go, as the bank name and last four digits, or No bank account on file with an Add bank button. Underneath, Available to pay out is the same figure as the Available tile.
- 2Pay out now — sends the available balance straight away, after a "Send £1,284.60 to your bank now?" check. It only shows while there is money available and a bank account on file.
- 3How often — Every working day, Weekly, Monthly or Only when I ask. The pill in the corner shows what is saved. The card only exists once Booked Payments is live.
- 4Which day — appears only for Weekly, Monday to Friday. Monthly swaps it for Which date, with Last day of the month at the end of the list.
- 5Save schedule — appears once you change something, and nothing changes until you press it. "Payout schedule updated." confirms it.
Getting paid early with Pay out now
Pay out now ignores the schedule and sends your available balance straight away. It asks "Send £1,284.60 to your bank now?"; press Yes, send it (or Not now) and you will see "On its way. It usually lands in a couple of working days."
- It sends everything available. There is no way to pay out part of a balance from Booked.
- It only appears when there is something to send. If your money is all under On the way, or the balance is below zero, the button is not there.
- It needs a bank account. With none on file the row reads No bank account on file and offers Add bank instead.
- It does not change your schedule.
- It may ask for your payment PIN, if you have set one.
- It is not offered for 72 hours after a new bank account is approved. See below.
Changing the bank account payouts go to
Press Change bank on the bank row, fill in the details, then press Save bank details. Nothing changes yet. You should see “We have emailed the account owner to approve the new bank. It changes when they press Approve, and payouts pause for 72 hours after.” Leave the sort code or account number empty and you get "Enter your sort code and account number." instead.
Available to pay out: £1,284.60Cancel
Change bank open, with the account payouts will move to.
- 1The account on file now — still shown while you type the new one, so you can check what you are replacing. Change bank has become Cancel.
- 2The new account — Sort code and Account number are needed; the account holder is optional. Dashes and spaces in the numbers are ignored.
- 3Save bank details — works on its own, separately from the rest of the screen. It asks for your payment PIN first if you have one, then sends the new account to the account owner to approve by email.
Approving adds the new account and makes it the one payouts go to; it does not delete the old one. A payout already in transit still lands in the old account, so if you are closing that account, wait until the last payout has cleared.
Approving a new bank account, and the 72-hour pause
A new payout account never takes effect just because somebody typed it in on your website. Booked emails the account owner, the person whose email address is on your Booked account, who may not be whoever asked. This happens for every business on Booked Payments, whether or not you use the other parts of payment protection.
- The owner gets an emailHeaded Approve a change to payments, it names the last four digits of the new account and the account holder (if you gave one), says payouts will pause for 72 hours once it is approved, names the website and the server address it was asked from, and has a link that lasts 24 hours. Until it is approved, the Payment protection card lists the change under “Waiting for the account owner to approve:”.
- They open the link and press ApproveOpening the link changes nothing on its own: it shows a page headed Approve this change? with an Approve button. Only pressing it switches the account.
- Payouts pause for 72 hoursThe page confirms “Payouts now go to the account ending 6819. They are paused until…” with the date, and a second email, Your payout bank account changed, gives the same date and adds: “If you did not approve this, contact Booked straight away.”
If nobody approves it, nothing changes and payouts carry on to the old account. A link used after 24 hours, or a second time, opens That link has expired: ask again from Payments. If nobody on your team asked for the change, ignore the email and nothing changes. The email also says to sign in at trybooked.co/account and rotate your licence key, because somebody may have it.
How often your takings are sent to your bank. The first payout can take a few days longer while the account settles in.
Available to pay out: £1,284.60Change bank
The Payouts card during the 72-hour pause after a new bank account was approved.
- 1The new account — payouts now go here. Pay out now is not offered until the pause ends.
- 2The pause — the note says when it ends, so anyone who opens the card knows the bank has just changed. The Payment protection card shows it too.
- 3How often — set to Only when I ask for the pause, so nothing is sent automatically, and the pill reads When you ask. Booked puts your own schedule back when the pause ends. Saving a different one before then is refused with the same words as the note.
The pause is there so that a change nobody meant to make can be caught before any money follows it. Your takings keep coming in and are paid out on your usual schedule once it ends.
When Booked asks for your payment PIN
If you have set a payment PIN under Payment protection, Booked asks for it before any of these goes through: Pay out now, Save schedule and Save bank details. A window headed Enter your payment PIN says “Charges, refunds and payouts on this site need your six-digit payment PIN.” Type it and press Confirm. The PIN goes with that one request and is not kept.
- Cancel changes nothing, and no error is shown.
- A wrong PIN gets “That PIN is not right. 4 tries left before payments lock.” and you can try again in the same window.
- Five wrong PINs lock charges, refunds and payouts for 30 minutes, and the account owner is emailed.
- Locked to your server? If you have locked payments to your website’s server address and the request comes from somewhere else, it is refused with “Payments on this site only run from the addresses you approved, and this request came from somewhere else.” If your website has moved, approve its new address on the Payment protection card.
Without a PIN, Booked asks for nothing and these buttons work straight away, unless you have locked payments to your server. A new bank account is the exception: it always waits for the emailed approval. See Payment protection to set a PIN or lock payments to your server.
When your balance goes below zero
Refunds and chargebacks come off your balance. If they add up to more than you have taken since, the card changes: Available to pay out becomes Balance to recover, the figure gains a minus sign in red, Pay out now disappears, and a note explains that "Your next takings clear this first, and payouts start again on their own once you are back in the black."
It looks alarming and it is not. There is no invoice to pay and no button to press. See Refund a customer and Chargebacks and disputes.
Checking past payouts
Payouts to your bank, on the Your money card above the Payments list, shows your six most recent payouts with the arrival date, a status word and the amount. The status comes straight from the banking system and is not rewritten, so expect lower-case words with underscores: pending (created, not sent yet), in_transit (on its way) and paid (should be on your statement). A payout that did not go through reads failed in red.
Payouts come out of a balance that is already net of your rate for each payment, so there is no separate bill to match up. For anything older than the six shown, use your bank statement.
If a payout has not arrived, check the Payments screen for an alert reading Payouts are on hold. Please contact support. That hold is set by our support team and cannot be cleared from your site, so get in touch.