Taking a card payment

The cut is finished, the cart is right, and the client is holding out a card. From here it's two taps, and the only real decision is which of the two card tiles you want.

Card reader is a card presented in person — tapped, dipped or swiped on the reader. Card is the number typed in, for a phone order or a reader that's gone flat. Both charge through Stripe into your own account and both land on the sale identically.

Charging it

The Amount starts at the full balance due and you can lower it. That's how a split bill works: take $50 on the card, and the sale keeps a $100 Balance due for the cash or gift card that follows. The amount re-fills itself whenever the balance moves, so you're never charging a stale number.

When the balance reaches zero the sale closes itself, the card's brand and last four digits are recorded against it, and the appointment moves to Completed without anyone going back to the calendar.

When it doesn't go through

A decline is not an error in RewireBox — it's an answer from the client's bank, and the reason it gave is shown as-is. Read it before deciding what to do next: "insufficient funds" is a different conversation from "card not permitted". Nothing has been charged, so you can try another card, take the reader instead, or take part of it another way.

One case is worth knowing before it happens at the desk. Some cards demand an extra bank verification step before a typed-in number can be charged. The typed card form can't run that step, so it tells you plainly that the card was not charged rather than leaving you guessing.

Afterwards

The sale becomes a record: what was sold, and a Transactions list showing each payment with its card and its time. That's what to look at when someone asks "did that go through?" — it's the same answer the money is based on, not a second opinion.