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Payments for a bed and breakfast run by the people who make the breakfast
A small inn has the same payment problems as a hotel and none of the staff. Whatever is set up here has to be operable by the person who is also cooking, cleaning and answering the phone.
What a small inn actually has to get right
Six things, each of which costs a real night of revenue when it is wrong.
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The deposit is taken at booking, months ahead
A deposit collected for a stay next season is a promise the card networks treat as future delivery, and an account boarded without saying so can be reviewed at exactly the wrong moment.
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The cancellation window has to be the one the guest accepted
The policy text the guest agreed to is stored with the booking and travels with the payment, because a cancellation charge defended by a website screenshot from today is defended badly.
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Direct booking is worth building for
A booking taken on the property own page settles directly to the property, and making that page work well is usually the single highest-return payment decision a small inn makes.
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Gift certificates are a liability until they are redeemed
Certificates sold at the holidays are tracked as outstanding obligations with an expiry treatment that follows the law where the property operates, rather than as a card sale that is simply over. DRAFT — pending counsel
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One person runs the whole system
The setup has to be operable by one person at arrival with hands full, which usually means one simple card-present device and one booking page rather than a stack of separate tools.
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A two-night minimum is a payment rule, not a wish
Stay rules are enforced at the point of booking, before money is taken, because refunding a guest who booked the night you did not want to sell costs more than the night was worth.
What to ask before taking bookings on your own site
The questions a small operator can act on the same week.
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Ask how far in advance a deposit can be taken
Advance deposits are a legitimate lodging pattern, but they are also a risk signal on an account nobody warned. Say it at boarding.
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Ask where the accepted policy text is stored
You need the version the guest agreed to on the date they agreed to it, not the current one on your site.
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Ask what the guest sees on their statement
A descriptor that does not look like your property name is the leading cause of disputes at small inns, and it is a five-minute fix at setup.
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Ask how gift certificates are tracked
Sold as a plain card sale, they disappear from the books and reappear as an argument at redemption. DRAFT — pending counsel
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Ask what one person can do alone at arrival
If the answer involves a laptop, a phone app and a card reader, it will not survive a full house.
Questions innkeepers ask
Written for an operator with fifteen minutes between check-ins.
Can we take a deposit months before the stay?
Yes, and it should be declared at boarding as future delivery so an ordinary seasonal pattern is not treated as an anomaly later.
How do we make a cancellation charge stick?
By storing the policy text the guest actually accepted, with the date, alongside the booking and the payment.
Is a direct booking better than a channel booking?
It settles directly to the property and carries your own descriptor. That is usually the highest-return change a small inn can make.
What should appear on a guest bank statement?
Your property name as guests know it. A descriptor they do not recognise generates disputes for stays that went perfectly.
Do we need a full property management system?
Not necessarily. If a booking page and one card-present device cover it, that is what we set up. If you already run something that works, it stays.
Two tools to run between guests
Open to anybody with a statement and ten quiet minutes.
Check what fits your business
The questionnaire asks a small property the boarding questions — deposits taken months before arrival, a cancellation term that has to hold up when it is invoked, and direct bookings you would rather keep off a platform. Delayed delivery is the underwriting subject here and this walks it.
Statement audit
The statement audit reads your existing statement and separates the deposit taken in March from the balance taken in July. Card-not-present bookings and card-present arrivals are priced differently and most small properties have never seen the split.
Talk to somebody who has set up a small inn
Tell us about the property and how to reach you.
Thank you. We will book a short call at a time that fits between check-ins.
We will implement whatever is right for you — including keeping what you have.
Last updated: 2026-08-17