Operator settings

Settings on the operator-wide main menu holds everything that applies to your whole operator account rather than a single venue. Open Settings in the client portal ↗ and you’ll find a side-nav with six sections:

• General - operator information, regional defaults, billing and contacts.
• Marketing - the sender identity your campaigns send from.
• Payments - Stripe payout accounts and per-venue routing.
• Plan & Add-ons - the plan your venues are billed on and your allowances.
• Billing - your invoices, sales and payouts.
• Payment method - how you pay Sidedoor’s monthly invoice.

Each section is covered below. For a record of who changed what and when across your business, see Analytics → Logs.

General

Operator information

Keep your business details up to date:

• Operator name (required) - a nickname, trading name or your registered group name.
• Registered company name (optional)
• Company address (optional)
• Company registration no. (optional)
• VAT number (optional)

Regional defaults

Set a default timezone and currency for your operator. Each venue can override these, so reservation times and money always show in that venue’s own locale.

Billing & contacts

Record the people or email addresses Sidedoor should use for billing and operator correspondence. These are contact details only: a contact never grants any access to the platform or operator membership.

+ Add contact opens a panel where you can search your team by name or email to autofill the details, or just type them in. Each contact has:

• Name
• Email (required)
• Type (required) - what the contact is for.

Available types:

Type	Typical use
Billing	Invoices and billing queries.
Primary contact	Your main point of contact.
Technical	Technical or integration matters.
General	Anything else.

“Primary contact” is one of the type choices, not a separate flag, so you set it by giving a contact the Primary contact type.

Marketing

Sender identity

Set the default From name, sender prefix and optional reply-to address your marketing campaigns send from. Campaigns send from an address built from your prefix with a unique suffix added, so the sending address always stays yours. Leave the prefix blank to use your account name.

This reply-to address is the account-wide fallback for marketing emails (campaigns and automations). Each venue can set its own reply-to under Marketing reply-to, which takes priority for that venue’s marketing sends when it’s set; a reply-to chosen on an individual campaign wins over both. Booking confirmations and other transactional emails never use either - they always reply from a no-reply address instead.

SMS sender & compliance

If you send marketing texts, a dedicated sender number is included in your SMS package and is provisioned for you automatically, so there’s nothing to register here. Once you choose a paid SMS package the number appears and turns Active, after which SMS campaigns send from it. Turn SMS on by choosing a package under Plan & Add-ons.

Payments - payout accounts and routing

To take payments and receive payouts, connect a Stripe account. Sidedoor uses Stripe Connect (Express), so onboarding happens on Stripe’s own hosted pages: you enter your business and bank details directly with Stripe.

You can connect more than one payout account and route each venue, or a group of venues, to the account you want. This is useful when you run several venues and want cleaner, separate books. If you only have one account, that account is the default and every venue pays out to it, so there’s nothing extra to set up.

Payout accounts

The Payments page lists your payout accounts. Each account has a name, a status, and a set of actions.

Add account names a new account and then launches Stripe’s hosted onboarding for it in a new tab. You can add as many accounts as you need.

Each account shows its status:

Status	Meaning
Setup needed	The account exists but onboarding isn’t finished yet.
Verifying	Stripe is reviewing or verifying the details you submitted.
Active	Fully connected - this account can take payments and receive payouts.
Error	Something needs attention; open the account in Stripe to review.

One account is marked Default. The default is the fallback: any venue that isn’t routed to a specific account is paid out to the default.

Per-account actions:

• Start setup / Finish setup - begins or resumes Stripe’s hosted onboarding for that account.
• Manage - once an account is Active, jumps to it in Stripe to update details.
• Make default - makes that account the fallback for unrouted venues.
• Rename - changes the account’s display name.
• Remove - deletes the account. You can’t remove an account while it’s the default, or while it’s still assigned to a venue group. Set a different default, or reassign the group, first.

Venue routing

Routing decides which payout account each venue pays out to. You manage it with groups:

1. Add group and give it a name.
2. Choose which payout account the group pays out to.
3. Tick the venues that belong to the group.

A venue can be in one group at a time. Ticking it for a group moves it there cleanly. Any venue that isn’t in a group is paid out to your default account.

You can rename or delete a group at any time. Deleting a group leaves its venues without a group, so they revert to the default account.

Note

Sidedoor applies a small platform fee to transactions, taken automatically at the point of payment via Stripe Connect. Payout accounts and routing only affect payouts (the money Sidedoor pays you for voucher sales, deposits and so on). They don’t change how you’re invoiced for Sidedoor’s own services, and bank details are always entered on Stripe’s side, not in the portal.

Caution

A venue can only take live payments, capture deposits or card holds, or sell event tickets once the payout account it uses is Active. Make sure each venue’s account (its group’s account, or the default) is Active before that venue goes live.

Plan & Add-ons

Your plan

Choose the plan your venues are billed on. Starter covers core bookings; higher tiers add marketing, analytics, Aimy AI and business intelligence with monthly allowances included. Upgrades apply immediately; a downgrade keeps your current plan until the next billing cycle. See Compare plans ↗ for what each tier includes.

Add-ons

Add-ons are your marketing and support allowances. Usage resets at the start of each billing period. Changing a level takes effect immediately and is reflected on your next invoice. Any allowance already included with your plan is marked, so you only pay for capacity above the included amount. An add-on Sidedoor has given you free of charge is marked Complimentary instead.

Billing

The Billing group collects the three financial views for your operator.

Invoices

Your invoices are the platform base fee per live venue plus your active add-ons, billed monthly, with VAT added at the prevailing rate where applicable. The top of the page shows summary tiles (account balance, next-invoice estimate, live venues, active add-ons and VAT) and a full preview of your upcoming invoice, followed by your searchable invoice history.

Caution

If an invoice goes unpaid your account can be suspended, and new venues can’t go live until it’s settled. Update your details under Payment method and Sidedoor will retry the payment.

Sales

Opens on the current week by default. Filter by date, with quick picks for Today, This week, This month and This year, and by venue using a searchable multi-select; leave the venue filter empty to see every venue.

Every card payment Sidedoor processed for you is a row, tagged with a Type (Voucher, Deposit, Deposit top-up, No-show, Pre-order, Guest list, Event ticket, Card hold charged, Queue skip, Our commission or Stripe fee) and a separate Movement showing whether it’s a charge, refund, dispute, commission or fee. Reference opens the voucher, reservation or guest-list booking the row belongs to. The amount columns show the gross amount, Sidedoor’s fee and your net. Use Export CSV to download the view you’ve filtered to: the export carries full reconciliation detail, and for vouchers it includes both the sale venue and date and the redemption venue and date.

Payouts

Opens on the current week by default, with the same date quick picks and venue filter as Sales; the venue filter shows payouts to whichever payout account(s) those venues pay into.

Each row shows when a payout landed, how much, the payout fee, your net, its status and arrival date, and which Account and bank it hit. This is your settlement record and reconciles against the Sales list. Export CSV downloads the view you’ve filtered to, with your company name, company number and VAT number, the payout account and which venues sit on it, the payment method, the Stripe balance transaction and any failure details.

Payment method

How Sidedoor collects your monthly invoice: a card on file or a Direct Debit mandate. This is separate from Payments above, which is how your guests pay you. A card on file or Direct Debit lets Sidedoor collect the invoice automatically (Direct Debit settles in about three working days).