How to Manage Bookings With 0 Deposit Fee

This article explains how bookings work in WPRentals when no deposit fee and no service fee are required.

The deposit and service fee settings are managed from:

Theme Options > Add Listing Page & Payment Settings > Booking Payment Settings

Key Payment Settings

Deposit Fee

• The admin can set a global deposit value used to confirm bookings.
• The deposit can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the booking total.
• If a deposit is set, the guest must pay it before the booking is confirmed.
• If the deposit is different than 0, it must cover any service or administrative fees used on the site.

Admin Service Fee

• The admin can set a service fee that is paid by the guest.
• The service fee is deducted from the owner’s earnings, but it is paid by the guest as part of the booking payment flow.
• The service fee can be set as a fixed amount or as a percentage.

Expenses

• The admin can decide whether city fees and cleaning fees are included in the deposit calculation.
• If the deposit is set to 100%, including city fees and cleaning fees is mandatory.

How to Set Bookings With No Deposit Fee

1. Go to Theme Options > Add Listing Page & Payment Settings > Booking Payment Settings.
2. Set the Deposit Fee to 0.
3. Do not leave the Deposit Fee field blank.
4. Set the Service Fee to 0 as well.

Manual Booking Approval With 0 Deposit

In manual booking approval, the owner must approve the booking request before the booking can be confirmed.

More on the booking process

1. Guest Sends Booking Request

After registration or login, the guest sends a booking request for a property.

2. Owner Receives Booking Request Notification

The property owner receives an email notification about the new booking request.

Learn more about email notifications

3. Owner Issues the Invoice

• The owner logs in to their account.
• The owner goes to My Bookings.
• The owner finds the booking request.
• The owner clicks Issue Invoice.
• The owner can optionally add manual extra expenses or manual discounts to the invoice.

4. Owner Confirms the Booking

When the deposit is set to 0, the owner can confirm the booking by clicking the Confirm Booking button with No Reservation Fee Required.

Instant Booking With 0 Deposit

With Instant Booking, owner approval is not required.

How to set up Instant Booking

The owner can enable Instant Booking from:

My Listings > Edit Listing > Description

The option is:

Allow instant booking? If checked, you will not have the option to reject a booking request.

Placing a Booking as a Renter

When Instant Booking is enabled and the deposit is set to 0, the renter follows these steps:

1. Select the Check-in and Check-out dates.
2. Choose the number of guests.
3. Log in or register.
4. Click Book Now.
5. Click Confirm Booking – No Deposit Needed in the modal.

Managing Confirmed Bookings

In both booking scenarios, the booking will show as:

Confirmed, Not Fully Paid

From Dashboard > My Bookings, the owner can:

• Cancel the booking.
• Send reminder emails for the full payment.

An automatic reminder email is sent 3 days before the booking starts.

Completing the Full Payment

This step is optional.

The Pay Invoice in Full button is still shown by default. If the guest uses this option, the payment is sent to the site admin through the payment methods enabled on the website.

To fully pay for the booking, the guest must:

1. Log in as a renter.
2. Go to My Reservations.
3. Click Pay Invoice in Full.
4. Complete the payment using one of the enabled payment methods.

When the payment is completed through the website, the booking status updates to:

Confirmed and Paid

Final Booking Status

Guest Dashboard

The guest will see the booking status as Confirmed and Paid after full payment is completed.

The renter can:

• See invoice details.
• Check trip details.
• Add a review after the trip.
• Contact the owner.

Owner Dashboard

The owner will see the same booking status.

The owner can:

• View booking details.
• Cancel the booking if needed.
• Contact the renter.

Multiple Booking Requests for the Same Dates

If two or more booking requests are sent for the same property and the same dates, the system allows only the first valid confirmation or payment flow to proceed.

Only the first confirmed booking will reserve those dates.

The remaining requests cannot confirm the same dates through the system after the dates are no longer available.

How to Hide the “Pay Invoice in Full” Button

If you want to remove the Pay Invoice in Full button from the My Reservations page, add the following CSS:

.info-container_booking .proceed-payment_full {
    display: none !important;
}

You can add this CSS in your child theme style.css file or in:

Theme Options > Design > Custom Colors > Custom CSS

Summary

• Set Deposit Fee to 0, not blank.
• Set Service Fee to 0 as well.
• Manual bookings can be confirmed by the owner with No Reservation Fee Required.
• Instant bookings can be confirmed by the renter with No Deposit Needed.
• Bookings will show as Confirmed, Not Fully Paid until full payment is completed via the merchant used. Merchant must be set correctly..
• The Pay Invoice in Full button remains available by default.
• If full payment is not handled through the website, hide the full payment button with CSS.