Most studios take money in more ways than one card processor can see. BookYourMat's answer is payment matching: detect what arrived, show you the ones it can't confidently assign, and let you decide.
Where detected payments come from
Once Gmail is connected, Venmo, Zelle, and PayPal notification emails are scanned and turn into payment records. Read-only access, your own inbox, nothing sent.
Payments that match a client cleanly are applied. The ones that don't — an unfamiliar payer name, an amount that doesn't line up, a payment that could belong to two people — become pending payment decisions.
Resolving a decision
Each pending decision comes with its own real options, which can include approving the match, rematching it to a different client, applying it, splitting it, marking it personal (not studio money), or another reconciliation choice specific to that payment.
You pick one of the options actually on offer. Read what the option says it will do before you confirm — some of them move money and some of them create or apply a package. Made-up or stale options are rejected rather than guessed at.
Dismissing a decision
If a decision genuinely isn't relevant — it's not studio money, or it's noise — you can dismiss it. Dismissal does not allocate the payment; it just takes the card out of your normal queue.
One limit: decisions generated live from your data have to be resolved through one of their own options. They can't be dismissed, because dismissing them wouldn't answer the question they're asking.
Recording a payment yourself
When money arrived but nothing appeared, you can record it manually. The accepted sources are:
- Cash
- Check — no risk of colliding with an emailed payment
- Manual
- Manual electronic — "they paid electronically, but not through BookYourMat"
- Waived — only when you're genuinely forgiving the charge
You can't record a payment as "venmo" or "zelle" directly — those are rails the system detects, not sources you enter. If someone paid you by Venmo outside BookYourMat, record it as manual electronic and put the rail name in the note.
Before you record anything manually, look for it first. Check that client's payment history for a matching amount and date. Then check the pending decisions queue without filtering by client — the payment is very often sitting there unassigned, under a payer name you didn't recognise. Recording it manually when it's already in the queue gives you the same money twice.
Common questions
A payment is under someone's partner's Venmo name. That's the classic case for a rematch option on the pending decision — reassign it to the right client rather than recording a second payment.
Recording a payment created a package I didn't expect. Payment recording can create or apply a package. If that wasn't what you wanted, see marking an appointment paid or removing a payment.
Still stuck? Contact support — we answer real emails from real people.