What is Tipping with Deferred Payments?

Tipping with the deferred payment method involves reserving, or 'pre-authorising', an amount on the customer's payment method at the time of booking. The payment is held in the passenger's account to ensure the funds are available to cover the full fare. Once the journey is complete, the system captures the final amount from the passenger's card and returns the remaining difference, if applicable. With tipping enabled, passengers can use this difference to tip their driver.

The other tipping option on the Passenger App uses the PayAtEnd3DS payment method. For more information, refer to our Tipping (PayAtEnd3DS) article.

How Does Deferred Tipping Work?

Tipping with Deferred allows the passenger to tip using the remaining balance after the final fare from the pre-authorised amount taken when the taxi is booked. This amount is held for tipping for up to 12 hours or until the user tips (whichever occurs first).

Passengers can tip if they have at least 49p remaining from the pre-authorised amount. Below this amount, the tipping option is not presented to the passenger.

If you are using Stripe, you can also use incremental authorisation with tipping:

How Do I Configure Tipping on My App?

To configure tipping with deferred payments on your platform, please contact platform.delivery@autocab.com for more information.

Prerequisites

There are also several prerequisites you must meet before we can set up tipping on your system, including:

• Payment method must be set to Deferred on AppSettings (this is an Engineer-only setting, please contact Platform Delivery for help setting up tipping).
• Your payment provider must be one of the following:
  • Stripe
  • JudoPay
  • SagePay
• Your Passenger App must be on version 36.0 or higher.

AppSettings Configuration

Two sections in AppSettings require configuration to enable Tipping:

Payment Tab

In AppSettings, go to Passenger App > Payments > Tipping Configuration and configure the following settings:

• Enable Tipping?: Toggle on to allow passengers to tip drivers at the end of their journey.
• Tipping Option Presets: Choose the type of tip option to present to passengers: a percentage of the final fare or predefined fixed amounts.
• Tipping Values: Enter three values of suggested tipping options, for example, 1% / 3% / 5%. We recommend avoiding setting excessively high values and arranging them in increasing order to prevent confusing passengers or discouraging them from tipping

Engineer Tab

The following section can only be configured by an Autocab Engineer. Please contact Platform Delivery to have these settings configured for you:

• Push notification reminder after booking ends: Enter a time when the second push notification is sent to the passenger, provided they did not engage with the first one.
• Collect payment after: Enter a time here for when the final payment is collected if the user does not leave a tip.

How Does the Passenger Tip?

At the end of a passenger's journey, a push notification is sent to invite them to tip their driver. If they do not interact with the first notification, a second notification is sent based on the time configured in AppSettings under the setting 'Push Notification after booking ends'. Furthermore, if the passenger opens the app without responding to the notification, a pop-up appears on the home screen, inviting them to tip and/or rate the driver.

Note: The passenger is only invited to rate the driver if the ratings option is enabled in AppSettings.

Passengers also have the option to go to the 'Completed Rides' section, where they can rate and tip their driver.

When tipping, suggested amounts are provided, and the percentage for these suggestions is configurable in the app settings. The suggested tips are based on the pre-authorised amount remaining after the final fare is captured.

Passengers can also enter a custom tip amount. When entering a custom amount, the maximum tip they can leave is indicated on the screen, which is determined by the pre-authorised payment.

If a user attempts to tip more than the allowed maximum, an error message appears stating the maximum amount they can tip.

Where Can I Find the Tipping Transaction Information?

You can access the tipping transactions in the Transactions section of a Driver's Account.

To view this information:

1. Process any recent dockets for jobs where gratuity was given.
2. Navigate to the Driver Accounts section and view the transactions for a driver.
3. Look for a transaction 'Driver gratuity received' which will display the credited amount.