Setting up House Accounts

House Accounts Explained

A House Account is a payment type that enables specific customers to place orders at a restaurant without immediate payment during checkout. This deferred payment option can be offered as a courtesy to valued customers, allowing them to establish a "restaurant tab" that they will "settle" on a future date. 

Direct Ordering facilitates seamless online transactions by associating only authorized customers with each House Account, allowing these users to "pay" with their associated House Account during online checkout. In other words, if a customer's email address is not associated with a House Account in your backend, they cannot use that House Account as a payment method online. 

Once a House Account payment is assigned to an order, the order's Payment Status in Direct Ordering becomes AUTHORIZED. Actual payment collection occurs when the customer settles their House Account balance, triggering a Payment Status change to PAID. 

It is recommended to establish House Accounts only with trusted customers.  

Who needs a House Account?

A customer may request to establish a House Account with your restaurant for various reasons:

• They have team members who are authorized to order team meals but are not authorized to use a company credit card. 

• They only have one team member who is authorized to issue bill payments. 

• They have limited bandwidth in their accounting department and are not able to process time-consuming expense reports for employees who purchase team meals on their own dime. 

• They are a tax-exempt organization, which requires meticulous expense tracking. With a House Account, they can access all tax-exempt meal receipts in one convenient location. 

Enable the House Account Payment Option

In order to accept House Account payments at your restaurant, you must first enable the payment option at the Brand and Store Location levels. 

Please visit this article:  Enabling House Accounts at a Brand & Store Location Level

Create a House Account

Please visit this article:  Create a House Account

Associating Authorized Customers with a House Account

Once you've created a house account, you can add specific users that are authorized to use the account for payment.

Please visit this article:  Associating a Customer with a House Account

Limit a House Account to a specific Store location

Please visit this article: Limit a House Account to a Specific Store Location

How to Collect Payment for House Accounts 

Please visit this article:  How a Customer can "settle" their House Account Balance