What Event Payment Processing Covers
Money is where event operations get fragile. A booth is reserved but unpaid, a check arrives with no order number, a sponsor wants to pay half now, a refund was issued in the processor but never noted anywhere. Event payment processing is everything between a buyer choosing a booth and the books balancing after the show.
- Taking card and bank payments online without card data passing through your team
- Accepting offline payments and recording them against the right order
- Booth deposits, balance due dates and reminders
- Fees, discounts and early pricing applied consistently
- Event invoicing: confirmations, invoices and payment requests
- Refunds, returned payments and reconciliation with accounting
In Map D, payments are part of booth sales: the booth a buyer picks, the services they add and the money they pay all land on one order. Attendee ticket orders keep their own list with what was paid and what is still owed; see event ticketing software. The rest of this page covers booth, service and sponsorship payments, which is where most exhibitor-facing events carry their largest balances.
Connect Your Own Payment Provider
Card payments go straight to your own payment account. On the Checkout tab of Registration & Orders, turn on Online payments, choose a provider, enter its credentials and select Save & test connection. Card checkout appears for buyers only once the provider shows Connected.
| Method | How the buyer pays | What happens to the order |
|---|---|---|
| Credit card | Visa, Mastercard or American Express at checkout, or on the provider's own payment page | Paid when the provider confirms |
| Bank account (ACH) | A US checking or savings account, through Authorize.Net | Paid when approved; a later bank return reopens the balance |
| Wire transfer | Your bank details and payment memo, shown at checkout | Confirmed and awaiting payment until you record it |
| Check | Your mailing address and payment memo | Confirmed and awaiting payment until you record it |
| Invoice | Your receipt text; the invoice PDF arrives by email | Confirmed and awaiting payment until you record it |
Supported card providers are Stripe, Authorize.Net, Moolah / NMI Gateway, BluePay, PayPal, Payflow Pro and QuickBooks Payments. With Stripe you choose between Stripe's hosted checkout page and a card form on Map D's checkout. With NMI, buyers type their card into fields NMI hosts, so card numbers never reach Map D. Offline orders are confirmed right away under Direct purchase, or wait for you under Manager approval.
Booth Deposits and Balances Due
Many exhibitors, especially smaller ones and sponsors with approval cycles, prefer to commit with a deposit. Under Choose how buyers pay, pick Pay full amount, Flat deposit or Percent deposit, then set when the remaining balance is due: at checkout or a number of days before the event.
- 1
Automatic Balance Reminders
Balance reminder emails each deposit payer a link to pay the rest. It is on by default, 7 days before the due date, and you can move it anywhere from 3 to 30 days before or turn it off.
- 2
Partial Payments
Let exhibitors choose how much to pay at checkout, on the pay-your-balance page, or both, above a minimum amount you set.
- 3
Chase Open Balances
Send Payment Request emails a buyer a link to their open balance. Bulk Actions sends requests to every open balance at once, and Enter Payment Online lets you take a card payment for a buyer on the phone.
To see how deposits fit into booth pricing as a whole, read our trade show booth pricing guide.
Fees, Discounts and Holds at Checkout
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Processing fee | A percentage or flat fee, with your own name, shown as its own line before payment |
| Discount codes | Percentage or fixed amount off booths, services or both; you decide which codes can stack, up to 10 per order |
| Booth quantity discounts | Tiers by minimum booths, applied per booth or once to the booth subtotal |
| Cart duration | How long booths are held during checkout, from 10 to 60 minutes, with optional extensions |
| Booth codes | Hide the price of booths kept for a specific exhibitor until they enter the code |
When a code can't combine with a quantity discount, Map D compares both options and applies whichever saves the buyer more, then tells them which one it used. Dated booth prices handle early bird registration without manual repricing.
Event Invoicing and Accounting
Event invoicing in Map D is set on the Messages tab. Set the From name, reply-to address, confirmation and invoice email wording, and your company details on the invoice. Subjects and messages can use {buyer_name}, {company_name}, {event_name} and {order_number}. Send invoice with order attaches the invoice PDF to the buyer's confirmation email, and internal recipients get a copy of each order.
- Require agreement to your terms of service at checkout, and again on the pay-your-balance page if you choose
- Send Confirmation or Send Invoice again from any order
- Export orders, payments, services and booths purchased as spreadsheets
- Download a PDF invoice and order profile for every order in one ZIP file
- Connect QuickBooks, turn on Books sync and map booths, services and sponsor levels to QuickBooks items
Refunds, Returned Payments and What to Evaluate
Refund a payment from the order: send it back through Stripe, Authorize.Net, NMI, BluePay or QuickBooks Payments, or record a refund you already made elsewhere. A refund made in Stripe's own dashboard is recorded on the order automatically.
Sometimes a provider does not confirm what happened, or a bank returns an ACH payment days later. Map D never charges again on its own. The booth stays held, the order shows a payment check banner, and Map D checks every ACH payment from the last 60 days once a day. You look the payment up in your provider, record it, and mark the payment checked.
- Do card payments go to your own merchant account, with your existing provider?
- Can buyers pay offline and still get a confirmed booth and an invoice?
- Are deposits, balance reminders and partial payments built in?
- Can you refund from the order, and are refunds made in the provider picked up?
- Is there a clear process when a payment is unconfirmed or returned?
- Does it sync with your accounting system without entering anything twice?
