Feature Overview

House accounts are a great tool for simplifying the payment/ordering process for catering orders. House accounts allow guests to have an account with a restaurant that functions like a credit card, where a limit and balance is established. This allows restaurant partners to extend credit to loyal customers right in our dashboard.

Table of Contents

Introduction

House Accounts are needed by certain businesses, hospitals, and/or non-profit organizations in order to simplify their finances on large orders. Since these organizations are ordering food for an abundance of people with a higher price tag, it is easier financially to be able to to pay with a line of credit.

Admins are able to assign a guest’s account as a House Account. When orders are placed under this guest they will always see the option to use “House Account” as payment.

Guest Experience

In order for a guest to access their House Account the first must be registered in the system. Once they are registered they must be registered as a House Account account in the “Customer” tab of the Admin Dashboard.

Once this is done, the guest can place an order as they normally would. When they go to check out “House Account” will be an option listed under their payment types alongside “Cash” and “Credit,”

Best Practices

Under the “Customers” section of the Admin Dashboard admins can search a guest’s information or slect the specific House Account by name in order to see the information associated with the house account.

Benefits

Guests (businesses, hospitals, etc.) are incentivized to order more, more often, because House Accounts simplify accounting management. 

• Restaurant locations are able to specify which payment types for House Accounts are available

  • Check 

  • Credit card

  • ACH (?)

• Reports are easily exported for account statements 

• House Accounts can have specific discounts

• Sending guests an invoice is quick and easy

• Adjustments are able to made for accounts

• Tax exempt certain accounts

Limitations

Only employees registered in the Admin Dashboard as House Account Administrators and House Account Managers have access to House Account features. 

This includes:

• Create new customer accounts 

• Modify a guest’s spending limits

• Accept payments

• Obtain reports for customers

• View all transactions

• View open transactions

• Filter transactions

• Apply adjustments

• Declare “bad debt” and write offs

• Associate House Accounts with specific restaurant locations

Feature Limitations

A guest must already be registered as a user in order to be associated with a house account

FAQs

• Q: How do House Accounts connect to the POS?
  A: Accepting and recording a payment from a customer on a House Account is managed outside of the POS. Yet, the order is sent to POS with whatever tender ID the chain/brand has set up in 2.0 for ‘House Account’ payment type. Each payment type in NovaDine has to be assigned a POS tender ID (when POS integrated). This applies to ‘House Account’ payment type as well.

• Q: How do we mark an individual invoice as paid, when a house account pays any amount on their amount owing?
  A: When applying a payment, you select which invoice(s) the payment applies to. Just like you do in Quickbooks or other accounting software.

• Q: How do you apply payments?

  A: Go to the "Apply Payment" screen under the "Customers" tab

  • Choose which invoice(s) to apply payment to by enabling the checkbox next to the appropriate order

  • Enter the amount of payment to be applied to said specific invoice
    Click "Apply Payment"

  • If payment is greater than the open balances enter "reason for Overage"

  • Click "Ok" on the confirmation box to proceed

  • The payment will be shown under "recent House Account Transactions"

  Q: How do I write off payment shortages?

  A: You have the ability for underpayments to "Write Off" bad dept or any payment shortage with an adjustment or show an outstanding balance on the transaction screen:

  • Go to "Recent House Account Transactions"

  • Select "Write Off" next to the invoice you want to be removed

  • Enter the reasoning the transaction will be removed from the "Recent House Account Transactions" as an invoice

  • To view select "All Transactions"

• Q: How do I view a House Account's History?

A: This can be done with both House Account Admin and Manager access

Search for guest in the "Customers" tab and click on their email

Click on "Recent House Transactions" for said customer's account and select "Account History"

The House Account's Transactions will all be displayed in a report

• Q: Can we grant flexibility in how much of the bill/invoice needs to be paid off?

  A: Yes

Related Articles

• House Accounts Management