Booking Payments

Slotara supports online payment collection at the time of booking, as well as offline payment recording by staff. Payment is intentionally separated from Slotara's SaaS subscription billing — each tenant uses their own gateway credentials.

Pay-at-booking flow

Client confirms booking
    └─► Booking created (payment_status = pending)
    └─► Amount > 0 AND tenant requires payment?
            YES → redirect to gateway checkout
            NO  → instant confirmation (emails + SMS dispatched)

Payment gateway webhook
    └─► BookingPaymentService::markPaid()
            ├─► payment_status = paid, paid_at = now()
            ├─► BookingNotificationService::dispatchForNewBooking()
            └─► SyncBookingToGoogleCalendar (queued, if enabled)

Client redirected to success page

Supported gateways

{success.fa-money} When Require payment at booking is on and a gateway is configured, the booking wizard's confirmation button reads Pay now (with the order total) instead of Confirm booking, so customers know a payment step is coming.

Tenant setup

1. Go to Manage → Integrations → Payments
2. Enable Online payments
3. Optionally enable Require payment at booking — when on, the customer is sent to the gateway's checkout and confirmation emails/SMS are sent only after payment succeeds. If the gateway can't start a checkout (wrong keys, unsupported currency, gateway down), the booking is released and the customer sees "We could not start the payment" on the review step; the reason is in storage/logs/laravel.log
4. Click your preferred gateway card (Stripe, Razorpay, PayPal, Paddle, or Paystack) — only that gateway's API fields are shown
5. Enter the API credentials for the selected gateway
6. Register the webhook URL in your gateway dashboard. The Webhook section under each gateway card shows numbered steps, the full URL with a Copy button, the events to select and where to paste the signing secret:

{warning} Every booking webhook is verified with this business's signing secret (Stripe whsec_…, Razorpay webhook secret, Paddle notification secret; PayPal events are confirmed with the PayPal API). Events that are unsigned, forged or for another business's booking are rejected, so paste the secret or bookings won't be marked paid by webhook. The payment success page also asks the gateway whether the payment really completed. Gateways can't reach localhost, .test or private IP addresses — the Payments page warns you when your site runs on one.

{primary.fa-info-circle} Unpaid checkouts don't hold slots. A booking whose checkout was started but not paid is cancelled after 30 minutes (set BOOKING_PAYMENT_HOLD_MINUTES in .env), freeing the slot; leaving the gateway's page frees it immediately. This needs the usual cron job (bookings:release-unpaid runs every five minutes). If a payment still arrives later, the booking is put back when the slot is free; otherwise the payment is kept, the booking stays cancelled and the business is emailed to rebook or refund. Prices are charged exactly: a price below a gateway's minimum charge (e.g. Stripe 0.50) can't be paid online.

{primary.fa-info-circle} Paddle has no hosted checkout page: Slotara opens Paddle's checkout on its own page (/booking/payment/{token}/paddle) with Paddle.js. Enter the API key and the Client-side token (Paddle → Developer tools → Authentication), and add your domain under Paddle → Checkout → Website approval. Sandbox keys (pdl_sdbx_… / test_…) use Paddle's sandbox automatically.

{primary.fa-info-circle} Paystack signs webhooks with an HMAC-SHA512 signature derived from your Secret Key, so no separate webhook secret is needed — the same Secret Key used for API calls also verifies incoming events. On the customer's return from Paystack, the transaction is additionally verified server-side by reference before the booking is marked paid.

Offline payments

Staff with booking management access can record payments manually:

1. Open a booking in Manage → Bookings → View
2. Click the Payment action
3. Select method: Cash, Card (in person), or Bank transfer
4. Enter an optional reference number
5. Save — payment_status is set to paid and notifications are dispatched if the booking was previously pending

Offline methods (Cash, Card terminal, Bank transfer) can each be toggled on or off in the Offline Payment Methods section of the payment settings page.

Print receipts

Every booking has a public receipt URL — no login required:

GET /booking/{cancellation_token}/receipt

The page shows: business logo, name, and contact info; client name, email, and phone; appointment date/time and provider; service line items with total; payment status badge, gateway, reference number, and paid-at timestamp. A Print button is visible on screen but hidden when printing.

From the admin panel: Bookings → View → Print receipt opens the receipt in a new tab.

Important: separation from SaaS billing

These two flows never share credentials or webhook handlers.

Key files