Payments and balance
What a guest pays at a controller, how balance gets onto a tag and what happens when the connection drops.
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A guest pays at a controller in two ways: with the balance on their tag, or with the QR code on the screen and their phone. Here you read what it costs, how balance gets onto a tag, who may go where and what the controller does without a connection. What the guest sees is in What does the guest see?.
What does it cost?
| Controller type | With a tag | With the QR code |
|---|---|---|
| Shower | € 5.00 from the balance on the tag | € 5.00 online |
| Access | Free: the tag gives access, no balance is deducted | € 5.00 online |
| Charge point | Free | € 5.00 online |
Today the price is € 5.00 for every controller, and that is also what the screen shows under Te betalen (amount due). Soon you will set the price per controller yourself.
You choose the type on the controller's page, see Managing a controller. In Tillor a washing machine is a controller of the Shower type: there too, € 5.00 is deducted from the tag. In the tag's transactions such a payment shows as Washing machine.
Putting balance on a tag
A controller only takes money off a tag, it never puts anything on it. Balance gets onto a tag in one of these ways:
Open the tag and choose Edit balance. You can add an amount, take one off or set the balance to a fixed amount. In the transactions it shows as Manually adjusted. See Managing tags.
Who may go where?
Each controller can be in a Group, such as Sanitary or Laundry. A tag only works at a controller in a group if that group is among the tag's Access groups. A controller without a group accepts every tag of your park.
For every tap, Tillor also checks:
- that the tag is not blocked,
- that the tag is linked to a customer,
- that the tag is valid at this moment,
- and for a Shower: that there is enough balance on it for the payment.
If one of those checks fails, the reason is shown on the screen, see Screen messages. You choose a controller's group on its page, and a tag's access groups in the tag's actions menu, see Managing tags.
Paying with the QR code
With the QR code the guest pays online on their phone, without a tag. The money comes in through your online payments. So you must have set up online payments (see Payment processing), otherwise the guest cannot pay.
Tillor first only holds the amount and only charges it when the controller confirms that the machine has started.
- With a card payment and Apple Pay, the amount is really held. If the machine does not start, it is released and the guest pays nothing.
- iDEAL and Bancontact charge straight away. If the machine does not start, Tillor refunds the full amount automatically.
- After every release or refund, your park receives an e-mail Auto-refund - machine did not start, at your organisation's support e-mail address (or the general address if there is none). You do not need to do anything for the payment. If it happens more often, check that the controller is online.
- If the controller is offline, the guest cannot pay online. The page then says Machine offline.
Without a connection
The balance is stored in Tillor and, secured, on the tag itself too. That is why paying with a tag keeps working when the controller cannot reach Tillor for a moment.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| Online | Tillor checks every tap: balance, blocking and access group are always up to date. The new balance is also written to the tag straight away. |
| Offline | The controller reads the balance from the tag. If it holds at least € 5.00, the controller writes the new balance to the tag, remembers the payment and shows Betaling gelukt! (payment successful). If it holds less, it shows Mogelijk onvoldoende saldo (possibly insufficient balance). The QR code is greyed out and crossed through. |
| Back online | The controller sends the remembered payments to Tillor. They go into the tag's transactions. |
| Offline for more than 24 hours | The controller refuses all payments until it has a connection again. The screen says Te lang offline (offline for too long). |
Offline, the controller knows nothing about blocking or access groups. So a tag you blocked in the meantime, or a balance that was already lower online, can still pay. If Tillor notices this when the payments are sent on, your park receives an e-mail Offline NFC payments with, per tag, the amount and the balance that is now negative, or the notice that the tag is blocked. Settle that with the guest if needed.
Offline payment only works at a controller of the Shower type.
Soon you will choose per controller whether it works fully online, fully offline or hybrid. The settings ACL enabled, ACL priority and API ACL timeout are meant for this, but the controller does not use them yet. See Controller settings.