Archived correct way to do split payments

[eleuthreophile]

I have a few questions regarding split payments. First, how are you supposed to ring them up? Usually a guest will say "I want to pay $20 with [first payment method] and put the rest on [second payment method]," so I always ring them up in that order, regardless of if it's cash or credit or whatever. I was recently informed that you're ALWAYS supposed to do cash first, but now I'm confused. Let's say their total is $73.59 and they want to do $20 on their card and the rest cash, and then they give me $60 in cash. I'm supposed to ring in $53.59 but actually take the $60, then mentally work out what their change is? Does it keep track of how many bills of each denomination of I'm supposed to have? This would throw that off. So this doesn't make sense to me but the ETL-GE and a GSTM insisted that cash is always done first. Can anyone provide some input on this please

Second (and the main reason I'm posting this) is an issue I had tonight. I had a guest try to put $40 on her card and pay the rest cash, so I typed in $40 then K3 for credit and she swiped her card. Then I entered the cash but mistyped the amount, so I voided all the payments to start over. I tried to swipe her card again but it started saying "not approved". She started flipping out that her card was going to get charged multiple times but eventually the guy she was with just paid cash and they left, after I told her I'd bet my job she will NOT be charged. A bit later, she stormed back in saying her card had been charged multiple times. Checking Inside POS determined that everything had been voided so her card was NOT charged. What happened? I told her it was just a hold and would be reversed in a few days, but she refused to believe me. The GSA told her the exact same thing after checking Inside POS, and then she was all smiles and left.

 

[mrknownothing]

I was recently informed that you're ALWAYS supposed to do cash first

I was never told such a thing in my cashier training. I always accept first what the guest wants to use first. Your GE and GSTM might've been considering situations similar to yours, but it's not a rule by any means. And as far as I know, the system doesn't care how many bills of each denomination are in the register, just the total. The quantity of each denomination only matters for the change fund, not the POS registers.

Sometimes, if you void a card payment, the card may get declined thereafter because of the hold. I've learned to just be very careful typing everything in because there's nothing we can do if that happens. If you mistype a cash payment, at least you can figure out the change mentally without having to void the transaction.

 

[eleuthreophile]

They both insisted you ALWAYS do cash first. I was taught no such thing. Granted it's been 5 years since I did my cashier training, but still. I always put through the known amounts, then put "the rest" last.

I was surprised that it had already put a hold on the card, since I hadn't finished the transaction, but I told the guest it was just a hold. She kept flipping out anyways.

 

[Retail Girl]

If they are using s REDCard, that payment needs to be done last because of the 5% off after the fact. If they are doing part cash and part regular card, I always do the card first, even if it throws off the guest a bit. Why? Because I am trying to avoid that stupid prompt that will come up if you put the cash in first.

Yep, there will always be that hold on there after the transaction goes through. My guess is that it drops off at the end of the day when the magic transaction gods finalize everything for the day. If it is an issue with the REDCard credit card, I have been able to call and get them to release the hold so I can rerun a transaction. But it took several phone calls, and someone who understood what I was talking about to make that happen.

 

[eleuthreophile]

It was a REDCard. I did it first, because she offered it first. IME the register will take the $40 she wants to put on the card, calculate how much to take actually take off so it takes off 5% but also charges her exactly $40.

The thing is that the transaction never went through. I voided all the payments, then voided the entire transaction, hoping that it might release the hold so she could still use the same card on a different transaction. The guest was getting very shouty though so I didn't think to call and have them release the hold or anything, I just apologized and said I wasn't sure why it wasn't working and that maybe it was a TEMPORARY hold. More anger. Ugh.

 

[Retail Girl]

No...it's weird...if you punch in $40, it will take off the 5% of the $40, so it won't be an even $40 going on to the card. And it's even more convoluted if they buy something (like a gift card) that doesn't even count towards the 5% off.

If she was that close on her credit card bill that the $40 makes that big of a difference, she has bigger issues. I see guests in all the time trying to make small payments so they can shove more on the card to get that 5%. They just need to forget sbout the 5% for a shopping trip or two and work to get their balance under control so they aren't doing that month after month (and eventually going over their limit due to interest charges).

 

[eleuthreophile]

No...it's weird...if you punch in $40, it will take off the 5% of the $40, so it won't be an even $40 going on to the card. And it's even more convoluted if they buy something (like a gift card) that doesn't even count towards the 5% off.

If she was that close on her credit card bill that the $40 makes that big of a difference, she has bigger issues. I see guests in all the time trying to make small payments so they can shove more on the card to get that 5%. They just need to forget sbout the 5% for a shopping trip or two and work to get their balance under control so they aren't doing that month after month (and eventually going over their limit due to interest charges).

I will investigate this further.

I see this all the time at GS. $3000 bill? Let's pay $50 this month! Or the ever-popular, "Can you put $20? Hmm what about $10? $5? $4?" Jesus Christ lady.

 

[Barcode]

You can do split payments in any order you want.

If they want to just put $50.00 on one card, type in 50.00 in the payment area, hit ENTER and then pick credit. The card reader will ask the guest to sign for $50, and then it will take $50 off the total and ask what else for payment.

 

[eleuthreophile]

You can do split payments in any order you want.

If they want to just put $50.00 on one card, type in 50.00 in the payment area, hit ENTER and then pick credit. The card reader will ask the guest to sign for $50, and then it will take $50 off the total and ask what else for payment.

That's what I always do and I've never had a problem, until tonight.

 

[Barcode]

You can do split payments in any order you want.

If they want to just put $50.00 on one card, type in 50.00 in the payment area, hit ENTER and then pick credit. The card reader will ask the guest to sign for $50, and then it will take $50 off the total and ask what else for payment.

That's what I always do and I've never had a problem, until tonight.

I think you just over complicated it

You run the credit card for 20, they sign and it takes 20 off. Total goes from 73 to 53. Then you take the 60 in cash and enter 60.00 and hit k1 cash, and give the guest their change.

If you mistype the amount of cash, it doesn't matter. Just do the math in your head.

 

[eleuthreophile]

The problem is that I accidentally hit back twice and then hit void all payments out of habit, which caused a hold on her card which is why she couldn't use it when I tried to run it again. I suppose the other problem is that the guest insisted on spending more than half her available credit on something that was not necessary nor on sale (Xbox cards), but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Barcode]

Yeah you're putting temporary authorizations on their card, that's bad.

I could enter k1 for exact cash on every transaction and nothing would get screwed up as long as I could do the math in my head. No need to redo it. Entering a diff amount of cash doesn't change what they owe.

 

[eleuthreophile]

Yeah you're putting temporary authorizations on their card, that's bad.

Well TIL. They should include that in our training.

 

[Barcode]

No one ever trained me on it, I figured it out when I looked at my online banking.

@Retail Girl you can do a Redcard first, won't hurt anything. It will just take 5% off the amount you charge.


I think people are making this more complicated than it is. You can do split payments in any order. I could do cash them a check, and then a card. Or Redcard then check and then cash with rest. Doesn't matter. Just watch your screen carefully so you enter everything properly.

 

[Retail Girl]

No, it doesn't hurt anything, but if people are expecting to do an exact amount and have it come off in an exact amount for them to enter somewhere, it won't work that way. Most people I get, though, want to do $40 in cash and the rest on the card. So if you do the card first, it may not come up with the exact $40 if it's a REDcard transaction...so for those I do the cash first and bite the bullet on the prompt.

And a lot of our new cashiers cannot even count change when they have the screen tell them how much to give back. Asking them to do the math in their head would cause all sorts of problems.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

If the guest is paying with the red card credit card, just suggest pay the transaction in full to get 5% savings. Then, make the cash payment on the card at GS, on your way out.

 

[buliSBI]

Back in the day, you used to have to take split payments in the cash/check then card order.

If the guest prompts you they are doing a split payment, I would suggest to them not to mess with the card reader and take all payments and ring it by hand. I know you can split payment with Debit fairly easily on the card reader. Not sure if Credit does or not.

 

[Nauzhror]

I know you can split payment with Debit fairly easily on the card reader. Not sure if Credit does or not.

Credit used to have a Yes/No prompt for putting the entire payment on the card, but they removed that when they changed to the new card readers earlier this year.

 

[Barcode]

Back in the day, you used to have to take split payments in the cash/check then card order.

If the guest prompts you they are doing a split payment, I would suggest to them not to mess with the card reader and take all payments and ring it by hand. I know you can split payment with Debit fairly easily on the card reader. Not sure if Credit does or not.

It works fairly easy with any type of payment.

@Retail Girl Yes, you are correct, if the guest wants to charge an "exact" amount to their REDCard it can be tricky with the 5% off nature. But if you do some math in your head you can compensate and get close.

 

[looseseal]

I always do cash first just because guests are too impatient/never understand that they need to wait 1.3 seconds for me to type in the amount they want on the card or else the whole purchase goes on it.

 

[Jill of All Trades]

"$5 on the X and the rest on the Y."

Process the X first, then the Y.

 

[Barcode]

I always do cash first just because guests are too impatient/never understand that they need to wait 1.3 seconds for me to type in the amount they want on the card or else the whole purchase goes on it.

I always took the card from the guest to avoid this kind of situation.