What to do when a customer doesn't show up (no-shows)

A no-show is a customer who has a booking but never comes to pick up. Renta does not have a "No-show" status, a "mark as no-show" button, or an automatic no-show fee. What it gives you is a way to spot the booking and the tools to settle it the way your own terms say.

Where to find it

• Spot it: Bookings. On the calendar a booking whose pickup time has passed without being started turns red, labeled Needs Attention. On a phone or narrow window it appears under the Active tab, which also lists confirmed and unpaid bookings past their pickup time.
• Settle it: Bookings → open the booking → Cancel, then the Payments & Documents tab → Payment Log → Resolve payment.

How it works

1. Open the booking and check for notes or messages first. A customer who is only late is better handled by waiting, or by changing the booking's dates. 2. Press Cancel. A Cancel booking window opens. In Note (optional) you can type "No-show" so your team can see why. Cancelling frees the items for other customers right away. It does not refund anything. 3. Choose what happens to a deposit hold. If a deposit hold is open, the window asks what to do with it: Release the hold now (the authorization is dropped, or a cash deposit is returned) or Keep it held, I'll resolve it later. Keeping it open lets you capture or release it afterward from the Payment Log. Capturing takes real money from the customer, so only do it if your own rental terms allow it. See Releasing vs. capturing a deposit hold. 4. Press Confirm cancellation. 5. Decide what to do with the money already paid. The paid amount stays on the cancelled booking as an overpayment until you settle it. Open Resolve payment and choose one:

• Keep the money keeps everything the customer paid with no refund.
• Refund sends back an amount you type, or all of it. See Refunding or cancelling a booking.

Does my cancellation policy apply to no-shows?

Your cancellation and refund policy works from how many hours before pickup a booking is cancelled. Once the pickup time has passed, no band of the policy matches, so the Cancel window does not propose a refund or fee. With no proposal, the Keep the money choice in Resolve payment keeps the whole payment, and you can still refund any amount you choose instead.

Cancelling a booking before the pickup time follows the policy as normal. The policy also has a reserved no-show tier type, but nothing uses it yet, so you cannot set an automatic no-show fee. See Common questions: Renta's fee, card fees, taxes and extra charges.

Example

A customer booked a kayak for 10:00 AM and paid $80 online. By noon there is no sign of them and your calls go unanswered. You open the booking, press Cancel, type "No-show" in the note, and confirm. Your terms say a same-day no-show forfeits the rental, so in Resolve payment you press Keep the money. The kayak is free for walk-ins again.

Good to know

• Who can settle the payment. Owners and managers can keep or refund. Staff cannot refund. They can keep a cancelled booking's payment only if an owner turned on Allow staff to keep a cancelled booking's balance at Settings → Team → Permissions tab → Override permissions card. See Fine-tuning what Managers and Staff can do.
• Reports. The Booking Outcomes report has no separate no-show line. A no-show you cancel is counted as Cancelled, so the note you type is how you tell them apart later.
• Cancelled by mistake? Use Reopen booking to put it back to pending. It does not bring back payments or a deposit hold. See Moving a booking through its lifecycle.
• Scheduled charges. If the booking had a payment or deposit hold scheduled for later, look at Bookings → Scheduled after you cancel. A scheduled saved-card charge is skipped when its booking is cancelled, but the list is where you confirm nothing is still waiting. See Upcoming and pending charge attempts.