Frequently Asked Questions
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What is Checkfront?
Checkfront is a cloud based booking management application and e-commerce platform. Our secure back-office application provides a secure central place to manage your business, process reservations and track customers. We offer several turn-key add-ons that allow you to offer self service bookings for your customers from your own website.
Who uses Checkfront?
Checkfront is for schedule based businesses that sell their services in daily, nightly or hourly allotments. Checkfront is be used to manage activity, tours, accommodation, events, rentals, and more. Checkfront is best suited for operations with a re-occurring inventory vs one-off events.
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Who is Checkfront NOT intended for?
We’re really good at what we do, but we aren’t a “one size fits all” solution. We are not a shopping cart system for static / shippable goods or a personal scheduling / appointment manager. If you are looking for a good cloud based shopping cart, go see our friends at Shopify.
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What makes Checkfront different?
We’re not the only shop in town, but we believe our team and technology set us apart. Checkfront offers a modern powerful booking application that is easy to use, requires little training and can scale with your business. We are fanatical about delivering the best possible user experience for both your staff, and your customers. If you are coming from a desktop booking system, Checkfront offers a whole new world of possibilities . If you are coming from a mish-mash of spreadsheets and calendars, we can simplify your business overnight. Have a look at what our customers have to say, or try us yourself.
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Is my business a good fit for Checkfront?
We sure hope so, but the quickest route is to try our free trial. You can be up in running in minutes, and even start accepting bookings on your website right away. If you have complex pricing, seasonality or inventory requirements, or support team is standing by to help get you configured.
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Can I download Checkfront?
Checkfront lives online. It’s available to you wherever you are. There is no software to install or maintain and no antiquated licensing programs. This means that we manage the hosting and software. You get automated updates, hourly backups and industry leading security on a high speed, high availability network. We provide several add-ons that allow you to offer self-service bookings on your own website.
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Do you take a commission?
No. Paying your booking system a commission doesn’t make sense in our opinion — you do the hard work. We know what our costs are, and they aren’t dictated by how much you charge your customers. If you are interested in how our plans break down, it works out to less than 50 cents per booking (USD).
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How much does Checkfront cost?
You pay a fixed price based on your volume, support and number of accounts. You can subscribe monthly, or take advantage of our annual discount. There are no long term contracts and you can cancel anytime. We also offer a 30 day money back guarantee on all new subscriptions. See our plans for more information.
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Do you have mobile apps?
Yes, we offer native mobile apps for iOS (iPhone & iPad) and Android. See Mobile Booking Apps for more information.
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What languages and currencies are supported?
Checkfront is offered in several languages including: Chinese, Dutch, English, ,French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish and Thia (see the language add-on for a full list). Please note that language add-ons are community supported, and we don’t currently offer documentation / support outside of English.
We support for 28 common currencies. Your payment processor must also support the currency if you plan to accept payments on-line.
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Do you offer payment processing?
We are not a payment gateway, but we do seamlessly integrate into several popular payment processors including Paypal and Authorize.net. Once setup your customers can pay at the time of booking in part or full. You may also process payments internally.
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I don’t need payment processing, can I still use Checkfront?
Yes. Without a payment processor configured, Checkfront will operate in Reservation only mode.
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How do I get support?
At Checkfront we know that good support is critical to your business. Every plan, including our free trial comes with a support package. We’ve tried to balance each of our plans with good support and affordability. Please select a subscription package that best matches the needs of your business.
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If I choose to leave, what happens to my data?
You own your data — our job is to keep it safe and secure, and while you are with us present it in the most useful ways possible. You can export all of your data anytime in XML format. If you choose to close your account, we do not retain your data in backup for any longer than 30 days. See our data retention policy for more information.
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What are your security practices?
Security is our first and foremost consideration. Each account is locked down with a 256 bit SSL certificate and includes advanced security scanning and firewall. Every account operates in a segregated database environment and utilizes military grade encryption. Our systems are PCI DSS compliant and US/EU Safe Harbor certified.
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How do my customers make a booking
Checkfront offers several different ways to accept bookings online. Our CMS plugins seamlessly integrate a self service booking portal into your own website, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. You can also use our ready to go hosted booking page (sample), and even offer bookings and special offers from your Facebook page. To see a full list of options
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What happens if I go over my booking quota?
Each plan includes a set number of bookings per month. This helps us allocate the appropriate resources to your system. If you continue to book over the allocated quota in your plan for several months, we’ll ask that you upgrade to the next level. At the end of 12 months if you have exceeded your overall allocated number of bookings, you’ll be invoiced at 0.49 cents (USD) per booking. If you do more than 12,000 bookings a year, please contact our sales team for a quote.
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Do you offer a reseller or referral program?
You bet – a generous one at that. See: our Referral / affiliate program
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What happens if my internet goes down?
An outage can be problematic. But if you have cellular access, or better yet a tablet, you can access all of your bookings via our mobile interface.
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Where is the service hosted?
Checkfront operates on a decentralized group of geographically diverse data centers around the world. We pick a server location that operates as close to your business as possible. This allows us to provide you with the most reliable service possible. Checkfront has servers in the US, UK, and Asia. See status.checkfront.net for a list of operating locations.
