Payment approvals on Houstel.pk

Step by step

Where to go: Payments → Approvals

Who can use it: The hostel owner, or staff with access to this feature. Some actions need additional permission.

Screens show the real interface with fictional demonstration data. Options may differ with your role, plan and enabled features.

1. Open the correct queue

   Open Approvals and select the pending or historical status you need. Check the resident, booking, month, amount, payment method and submitting staff member. Read whether this hostel uses “wait before counting” or “count now, approve later”.

   

2. Check the whole payment, then decide

   Press Approve or Reject on a row. A window opens with the whole payment: what it is for line by line, how and when it was paid, which account it went into, who recorded it and the receipt photo, with one line at the top saying what the button will do to your books. Match it to the cash in hand or the bank transaction, then press Approve, or Cancel to leave it waiting. Reject asks for a reason, which the person who recorded it sees. Where a payment already counts, the button says Reject and delete because it takes the money out of your books. To approve several, tick them and press Approve: the window lists each one with its lines, and the × beside one leaves it out.

   

3. Undo an approval made by mistake

   Open the Approved tab and press Undo on the row, or Undo approval in its window. The window shows the payment again and says what will happen. Where payments wait for approval, the money comes back out of your books (payments, dues and reports) and the payment returns to Waiting. Where payments count straight away, it stays in your books and returns to Waiting marked Not approved. Approve or reject it again from Waiting. The person who recorded it gets a notification, and so does the owner when a staff member undid it.

   

4. Check the final record

   After a decision, open the payment and resident ledger to verify its effect. A rejected proposal and a rejected payment that was already counted can have different accounting consequences; read the confirmation. If a bulk action partly fails, handle only the failed rows.

Before you finish, and when something goes wrong

• In hold mode, new payments wait outside the books until approved. In count mode, new payments count immediately and carry a Not approved mark. Changes and deletes wait in both modes. Check the mode and each item’s status before interpreting totals.
• Who needs approval and who can approve depends on the account’s permissions. Having access to the list does not mean every action is available.
• A submitter can take back a pending submission where that option is offered. Only money coming in can be undone from the Approved tab. An approved change, delete or check-out is not undone here: correct the payment from the resident’s payments, or undo the check-out from the resident’s page.
• The owner can undo any approval; a staff member who approves payments can undo only the ones they approved. Undo is refused when the payment has since been deleted, or when its money can no longer come out of the books (for example an advance that has already paid for a month). The window says why.
• After a timeout or double click, refresh the status before trying again. Verify a bank transfer independently of an uploaded image.

If a save times out, check the record before repeating it. If access is denied, ask the owner to review your hostel assignment and permissions. Never share your login to work around an access restriction.

Related help

• Rent and payments
• Staff and access
• Room changes, checkout and resident requests