Article by Jason Mace, founder of SOTpay and hotel owner.
A confirmed booking does not always mean a collected payment. Between taking a reservation, requesting a deposit and matching the money to the right booking, hotel teams can spend valuable time chasing payments.
Hotels can improve payment collection by making requests clear, giving guests a straightforward way to pay and connecting payment updates with their property management system. The aim is to reduce the work between requesting money and recording a completed payment.
PwC's Hotels Forecast 2025 to 2026 describes a sector facing persistent cost pressures. It recommends automation and smarter resource deployment to improve productivity while maintaining service quality.
Payment collection is one process worth examining.
A reservation may involve an initial deposit, a later balance and additional charges. Events bookings can involve several payment stages and different contacts. If staff manage each step through separate emails, telephone calls and spreadsheets, the work can multiply.
Consider an events coordinator who needs to:
Each task may be small. Repeated across bookings, they become a recurring operational cost.
PwC's Working Capital Study 25/26 recommends stronger collection discipline, supported by automation and better visibility.
Its analysis of more than 17,000 listed companies found that global days sales outstanding, the average time taken to collect receivables, rose from 47.3 days in 2015 to 50 days in 2024. That is a cross-sector figure. It is not a hotel-specific benchmark.
For hotels, the useful question is specific: where does avoidable delay occur between a payment becoming due and the money being received?
A payment tool has limits. It will not resolve a disputed invoice or a customer's inability to pay. It can help with the unnecessary steps in requesting, completing and recording a payment.
Guests should be able to identify the booking, amount and payment deadline without contacting the hotel. Include a recognisable hotel name, a booking or event reference and a clear explanation of what the payment covers. State the relevant deposit and cancellation terms before payment.
A clear request gives guests fewer reasons to pause and staff fewer questions to answer.
A telephone conversation can be an opportunity to complete a payment while help is available. With SOTpay's secure phone payment solution, an agent can initiate a payment request during the call. The guest enters their card information on their own device, rather than reading it to the agent.
This creates a supported payment journey for guests who want assistance with their booking.
Map the stages at which your hotel requests money: reservation deposits, events instalments and pre-arrival balances, for example. Then identify which requests can be triggered through a defined workflow and which need staff judgement.
SOTpay's payment automation tools support automated requests, scheduled payment workflows and system integrations. The appropriate setup depends on the hotel's systems and collection process. Start with one repetitive task and measure the result before expanding.
A payment is only part of the process. Reservations and finance teams also need to know which booking it belongs to and what happened.
SOTpay offers packaged integrations with Oracle OPERA Cloud and Cloudbeds. Its published integration information describes payment stages being recorded back into these systems as time-stamped notes. Before implementation, confirm which records, statuses and reconciliation steps your particular setup supports.
SOTpay supports Open Banking payments, allowing customers to authorise a bank payment through their banking app. For hotels, this is another option to assess alongside cards.
Compare the total provider fees, staff workload, payment completion rate and refund process. A lower transaction fee creates value only when the overall payment journey works for the hotel and its guests.
You can also read our guide to making direct booking payments easier to complete, and how hotels protect margins with smarter payment technology.
Choose one workflow, such as events deposits, and establish a baseline before making changes.
| Measure | What it helps you understand |
|---|---|
| Time from request to completed payment | How quickly customers pay |
| Percentage paid by the deadline | Whether follow-up is becoming more effective |
| Staff minutes per payment | How much administration is involved |
| Unmatched payments | Where finance needs to investigate |
| Payment completion rate | Whether guests can finish the process |
| Total cost per successful payment | Whether the overall economics improve |
Measure the whole journey. Moving work from reservations to finance does not necessarily reduce it.
Start with the payments your team spends the most time chasing. Identify the delays, check how payment information reaches your PMS and calculate the administration involved.
SOTpay can help you explore secure payment requests, automation and supported hotel system integrations. If reducing cost is the priority, start with a free payments review.
Book a SOTpay demonstration to discuss your hotel's payment workflow.
Jason Mace is the Founder of SOTpay and the entrepreneur behind Gala Tent, one of the UK's leading event shelter manufacturers. With more than 25 years of experience building businesses across events, hospitality, ecommerce and payments, Jason has developed a strong reputation for identifying operational inefficiencies and creating practical commercial solutions around them.
Alongside SOTpay, Jason also operates Empress Rooms, a modern self-service hotel designed around streamlined guest experiences, secure keycode access and operational efficiency. His experience across both hospitality and payments provides a clear perspective on the growing importance of frictionless customer journeys within modern business operations.
Need to ask a question: Request a callback from the team
Need merchant support? Visit Merchant Support
