--- title: "Payments, payouts, and taxes | LakeBooking.com" description: "How money flows from angler to host (today's simple model, what's your fiscal responsibility vs ours) and what's coming with full online payments next year." canonical_url: "https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/payouts-and-taxes" locale: en meta: "og:description": "How money flows from angler to host (today's simple model, what's your fiscal responsibility vs ours) and what's coming with full online payments next year." "og:title": "Payments, payouts, and taxes" --- # **Payments, payouts, and taxes** How money flows from angler to host (today's simple model, what's your fiscal responsibility vs ours) and what's coming with full online payments next year. This page explains the financial pipe. The model is deliberately simple in our first season; we'll add full online payouts (Stripe Connect) later. Both paths are designed to coexist. ## How the angler sees it When an angler books, they see a single total and two clear lines: - **Pay today**, marked **Booking fee (10%)**: a flat 10% of the total, paid online by card to secure the booking. - **Due at the lake**: the other 90%, paid directly to you at the lake. The booking fee counts toward the total. The angler isn't paying anything extra. ## How it works on your side For every booking, the money moves in two paths simultaneously: **Path 1: the booking fee, online.** Angler card → Stripe → LakeBooking. This is the **10% portion** the angler sees as **Pay today**. Behind the scenes, LakeBooking **retains it as commission** per your Host Agreement (part of the Terms of Service you accept at signup). It compensates the platform for booking facilitation, payment processing, customer acquisition, and platform operations. We issue an invoice for this fee to the angler and report it to RO e-Factura; you don't see that invoice. **Path 2: the remaining balance, at the lake.** Angler → you, directly, in cash or on your POS. This is the **90% portion**. You issue the receipt or invoice for this in the usual way, exactly as you would for a walk-in angler. The whole reason hosts on LakeBooking keep more of the booking than they would on platforms taking 30%+ is that the platform's commission is collected up front, as the booking fee, while the bulk of the money is paid straight to you. There's no platform-to-host payout transfer needed, because you've already been paid. ## Why this terminology matters Internally, on this page and in your Host Agreement, we call the platform's slice the **commission** (or **retained booking fee** in legal text). On angler-facing screens (the lake page, the checkout, booking confirmations) we always call it the **booking fee**, a flat 10% that secures the booking and counts toward the total. The two views describe the same money; only the labels differ. If it comes up in a conversation with an angler, "booking fee" is the word to use, because it's what they saw at checkout. ## What you'll never have to deal with (today) - **No Stripe Connect onboarding.** No KYC questionnaire, no separate Stripe account to create, no platform-level documents to file with Stripe. - **No waiting for payouts.** The remaining balance is in your hand the day of the session; the booking fee is retained by us as commission, so no payout is owed to you. - **No "payout failed" emails.** The platform doesn't route your money, so there's nothing to fail. ## Coming in 2027: full online payments We'll roll out **Stripe Connect** in our next major release. When that's live, you'll have a choice per package: - **Keep the current split**: the angler pays the 10% booking fee online (retained as commission), the rest at the lake. - **Switch on full online payment**: the angler pays the whole booking by card up front; the remaining balance settles to your IBAN via Stripe Connect (by default, 7 days after the session ends), minus our commission. Both flows will coexist on the same platform. You'll pick what fits each package. A small private water might keep the simple flow forever; a high-traffic carp lake might prefer the all-online version to skip cash handling at the gate. When that rollout is ready, we'll walk you through the (light) Stripe Connect onboarding. Until then, there's nothing for you to do. ## Invoicing: who issues what Two invoicing obligations, completely separate: **LakeBooking issues:** an invoice for the booking fee (our retained commission), addressed to the angler, once the booking is confirmed. We report it to RO e-Factura. The angler can download it as a PDF from their booking; you don't see it and there's nothing for you to do. **You issue:** the receipt or invoice for the remaining balance you collect at the lake. If you operate as a SRL or PFA with VAT registration, you issue an e-Factura via your usual accounting software (Smart Bill, SAGA, Oblio, or equivalent). If you're under the VAT threshold and run cash-receipt only, a fiscal cash register receipt (*bon fiscal*) is usually sufficient. Check with your accountant for your specific category. The dashboard has no booking export yet. Your **Bookings** page lists every booking with its reference, angler, package, swims, start and end, and price, which is usually what your accountant needs. ## ANAF reporting We report **only** our own booking-fee invoices (our slice) to RO e-Factura. We don't report anything for the remaining balance, because that money never passes through us. That's your bookkeeping. If your accountant has questions about the platform's records, [**contact@lakebooking.com**](mailto:contact@lakebooking.com) is the right address. ## VAT treatment For Romanian hosts: - **Your remaining balance** (collected at the lake) is subject to your standard VAT treatment (consult your accountant for the rate applicable to your activity). - **The retained commission** LakeBooking earns is a separate transaction, invoiced to the angler; it's between us and the angler, you're not in this loop. For hosts elsewhere, your local VAT rules apply to the remaining balance. The commission invoice from LakeBooking S.R.L. goes to the angler, not to you. ## Refunds When a refund happens per the [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy): - **The booking fee (our commission)** reverses through Stripe. Your records are unaffected because nothing flowed to you in that path. - **The remaining balance** is between you and the angler. If you'd already collected it, you and the angler agree the refund directly; if not (most cases), nothing happens financially. ## Chargebacks In the current model, chargebacks would be on **our** Stripe account, not yours, because the angler's card payment (the booking fee) went to us, not you. Stripe alerts our team, not you, and we defend chargebacks with the platform records (booking confirmation, message thread, your declared rules). The remaining balance, since it never touched a card, can't be charged back. When Stripe Connect is live in 2027 and you opt into full online payments, chargebacks on the booking total will land on your connected account; we'll defend those on your behalf with the same records. ## What we ask of you To keep things clean for everyone: - **Keep your own record of each remaining balance you collect.** The platform doesn't track what's paid at the lake, so your receipt or invoice is the proof that the angler paid. - **Don't take payments off-platform.** If an angler suggests paying you by bank transfer to skip the platform, decline, both for their protection and ours. ## See also - [**Swims and pricing**](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/swims-and-pricing): how packages, billing units, discounts and promos work. - [**Calendar and bookings**](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/calendar-and-bookings): how bookings are confirmed, declined and cancelled. - [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy): the canonical rules for when money flows back. - [**Privacy Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/privacy-policy): what we report to ANAF and what we don't. [**Calendar and bookings** How the host calendar works (blocking dates, instant-book vs request-to-book, conflict handling, message inbox, and overrunning bookings).](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/calendar-and-bookings) ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.