How the5ive Takes Bookings and Card Payments Online, with PowerTranz
If you have ever tried to take bookings and card payments online in Trinidad and Tobago, you already know the problem. The booking plugins that work everywhere else do not work here. They assume a payment processor we cannot use, they know nothing about our public holidays, and they treat a football pitch like a hotel room. When the5ive, a five-a-side football facility, came to us, that was exactly where they were stuck. The problem: two tools that would not talk to each other the5ive runs pitches by the hour, runs leagues that block out whole evenings, and needs players to pay when they book so a slot is never held for someone who does not show up. Off-the-shelf booking tools could handle a simple calendar, but none of them could take a card payment through a local gateway. That left the usual workaround: take the booking online, then chase the payment by bank transfer or at the gate. It costs staff time and it costs bookings. What we built We built two pieces that work as one. The first is a payment gateway for WooCommerce that connects directly to PowerTranz, the card processor used by banks across the Caribbean. Customers enter their card on the5ive's own checkout page, their bank confirms the payment with 3-D Secure, and the money settles in TT dollars. Nobody is sent away to another website to pay, and no card numbers are stored on the site. The second is the booking engine. It shows live pitch availability, so a slot that has just been taken disappears for the next person. It understands the things a sports facility actually deals with: sessions of different lengths, league nights that block the pitches, capacity limits, and days the facility is closed. It also holds a slot while the customer is in the middle of paying, so two people can never pay for the same hour. Payment and booking in one step The part that matters most is the join between the two. A booking is only confirmed once PowerTranz accepts the payment. If a customer closes the tab halfway through, the slot is released and goes back on sale. If the bank approves the card, the booking is locked in and the confirmation goes out by email straight away. Staff do not reconcile anything by hand. QR check-in at the gate Every confirmed booking comes with a QR ticket. When players arrive, staff scan it and the system checks it against the booking on the spot. There is no clipboard at the door and no argument about who booked which pitch. Reminders go out automatically before each session, which cuts down on no-shows. Run by the people who run the facility Prices, opening hours, pitches, league blocks and reports are all managed from the WordPress dashboard. the5ive's team changes a price or closes a pitch for maintenance themselves. They do not need to call a developer, and that was a requirement from the first conversation. What we learned Three things stood out. First, payments and bookings have to be built together. Bolting a payment step onto a calendar is where double bookings and unpaid slots come from. Second, local detail is not optional. TT dollars, local banks, local holidays and the way people here actually pay all shape the product. Third, the same problem exists well beyond football. Since the5ive went live, the request we hear most from other businesses is some version of "can you build that for us?" Salons, clinics, car washes, courts and classes all need the same thing: pick a time, pay by card, show a ticket. A licensed version is coming That demand is why we are turning this work into products any business can install. We are packaging the PowerTranz payment gateway and the booking engine as licensed WordPress plugins, built on what we learned at the5ive and rebuilt so that everything a business needs to change is a setting rather than custom code. We will share details, pricing and launch dates here soon. If you run a business in Trinidad and Tobago and want card payments or online bookings on your own website, get in touch. We are taking names for early access, and we are happy to talk through what your setup would look like.
Founder / CTO
