Handle payment via bank transfer for Rails

Question

I am building a rails application for place booking. The app should be able to facilitate bank transfer (not VISA/Mastercard direct payment) for payment. Basically we let users know our bank account number. User can then pay via iBanking / go to ATM or Bank. Nah, when we received the payment, we should know whom this payment comes from and from which booking.

How are we supposed to know whom send it and for which booking it is, while there is no additional data in the transfer information other than amount of money. I heard we can apply a unique cents identifier, like when the payment is $8, we make it $8 2 cents to link it to the user who sends it and the booking data.

Is that the best practice in linking the actual payment data and the booking data? If it is, is there any ruby gem capable for generating the unique cents identifier? Or if not, is there any better approach?

Thank you for your assistance.

Answer 1

Bit vague, but a lot of companies that bill people, and allow the user to pay by bank transfer, require the user to put a specific reference number on the transaction, which ties the transaction back to that user's account.

It needs to be made obvious to the user (and it usually is) that if they fail to put in the right reference number then the payment won't be linked with them, and therefore won't show up as a credit on their account.

This doesn't feel like a particularly satisfactory system, as it puts the onus on the user to get it right or risk being charged extra for late payment, or have a hassle sorting it out. But, lots of successful companies seem to operate like this.