Prepaid Metering and a Prepaid Camp Store: The Campground Wallet That Replaces the Clipboard¶
"Every May I take in about $40,000 in cash from seasonal campers for their meter deposits. By October I'm chasing my own paperwork trying to figure out who has what left. It's the worst part of running this place." Park Owner, Ontario
Prepaid metering is not a new idea. Electric utilities like Mountain Parks Electric and Boone Electric have offered prepaid metering plans for decades: customers add money to an account and draw it down as they use power. Cruise lines and all-inclusive resorts apply the same model to everything a guest spends on board, from drinks to shore excursions. Every other guest-facing industry has had a prepaid wallet for a long time.
Campgrounds have been the holdout. There is a clipboard at almost every seasonal park in Canada. It holds a list of names, a column of dollar amounts collected on the first weekend in May, and a running tally that someone updates by hand every time a meter reading is taken. By Labour Day the clipboard is a mess. By Thanksgiving someone is on the phone with the same seasonal guest for the third time trying to reconcile a $90 difference.
This post is about how prepaid metering and a prepaid camp store finally land at the campground level, why we built the wallet into PitchCamp instead of bolting it on as a paid add-on, and the operator scenarios it unlocks the moment the clipboard goes in the recycling bin.
Key takeaways¶
- A campground wallet credit is a prepaid balance attached to a client, not a reservation. It funds from cash or Stripe online card, draws down as charges are applied, and refunds to its original payment source.
- PitchCamp is the first campground management platform to ship native, client-level prepaid metering and a prepaid camp store as core features at no extra subscription cost.
- Wallet credits are split into three pools: Meter Credits, POS Credits, and Any Credits. Each pool restricts what kind of charge the credit can be applied to.
- Wallet credits are held money on behalf of the client, not the campground's revenue. Funded deposits sit on the books as a liability and become revenue one charge at a time, on the day the credit is used.
- Sales tax (HST, GST, PST) is collected when the credit is applied to a taxable charge, not when the deposit is funded. Most Canadian campground accountants already handle prepayments this way.
- Refunds always return to the original payment source. Stripe deposits refund to the original card via Stripe's rails; cash deposits record a drawer refund. There is no manual ledger adjustment.
- The wallet replaces the seasonal meter deposit clipboard, the camp store paper tab, and the "I'll mail you a cheque in November" goodwill credit with one number on a client record.
Terms in this post¶
A short glossary so the rest of the post (and any AI summarizing it) uses these phrases the same way.
- Prepaid metering (at a campground): the practice of funding a guest's meter usage in advance, then drawing the balance down automatically as meter readings are taken over a stay or season.
- Prepaid camp store: a balance funded against a guest's account for use at the camp store, instead of cash or a postpaid tab.
- Client wallet credit: a balance attached to a client (not a reservation) that can be applied to specific charges or refunded back to the original payment source.
- Meter Credits: wallet balance restricted to meter charges (electricity, water, propane).
- POS Credits: wallet balance restricted to point-of-sale charges (camp store, firewood, kayak rentals).
- Any Credits: wallet balance that can be applied to either meter or POS charges.
- Two-step refund path: refunding a reservation payment moves the money to the wallet (step one); refunding the wallet entry returns the money to the original payment source (step two).
- Held money / deferred revenue: funds the campground has collected but not yet earned. Wallet credits are held money until they are applied to a charge.
How prepaid metering and a prepaid camp store work in PitchCamp¶
A prepaid wallet at a campground is a balance attached to a guest, not to a reservation. It funds from cash or an online card, draws down as meter readings and camp store purchases happen, and refunds back to its original source when the guest wants their money back. It is built into PitchCamp at no extra subscription cost. Learn more about how the client credit wallet works.
Every client has a single balance broken into three pools:
- Meter Credits for meter charges (electricity, water, propane). This is the prepaid metering pool.
- POS Credits for the camp store, firewood, ice, kayak rentals. This is the prepaid camp store pool.
- Any Credits that work on either.
The pools matter because they let an operator collect a meter deposit and a separate spending allowance without the two getting mixed up. A $400 meter deposit goes in as Meter Credits. A $50 camp store float for the kids goes in as POS Credits. The wallet keeps them straight, the same way a cruise line keeps your bar tab separate from your spa appointment.
Prepaid metering, finally for campgrounds¶
Prepaid metering at a campground is the practice of funding a meter deposit up front and drawing it down automatically with each meter reading. It is the same model an electric co-op uses for residential prepaid power. The guest funds a balance once, every reading draws from it without staff intervention, and at the end of the season the operator can see exactly what was used and what is left. At a campground it is also the win that eliminates the clipboard.
How prepaid metering works in four steps¶
- Fund the deposit. The campground adds Meter Credits to the guest's wallet from cash or a Stripe online card. The amount is a liability on the campground's books at this point, not revenue.
- Take meter readings the regular way. Each meter reading generates a charge against the reservation. If the guest has eligible credits (Meter or Any), the system automatically offers to apply them. Staff confirms in one click. The credit usage becomes revenue on the date of the reading.
- Issue the Meter Invoice any time. A dedicated invoice document shows every reading, every charge, the original deposit, every drawdown, and the balance remaining. Email it to the guest mid-season or hand it over in October.
- Settle the remaining balance. Any wallet balance left at the end of the season can be left on file for next year (still a liability), or refunded back to the original payment source through the two-step refund path.
What it looks like in practice¶
A seasonal guest arrives on the Victoria Day long weekend and hands over $400 cash for the season's meter usage. Staff opens the client record, clicks Add Credits, chooses the Meter category and Cash as the source, and enters the amount. The wallet now shows a $400 Meter balance on file.
Every time staff takes a meter reading over the season, the system checks the wallet. If the guest has a balance in Meter or Any credits, the dialog automatically offers to apply them to the new charge. Staff confirms, and the charge is paid before the dialog closes. No envelope, no math, no sticky note. Learn more about applying credits to a meter reading.
At end of season the operator hands the guest the Meter Invoice. If $73 is still on the wallet, the guest gets a choice: leave it on file for next season or refund it back to their card. Either way the conversation takes a minute, not a phone call in November.
The prepaid camp store: a wallet your guests can spend¶
A prepaid camp store is a wallet balance that guests can spend at the point of sale without cash or a card on hand. It works the same way a cruise-ship cabin number works at the on-board bar: the guest's account is the payment method. At a campground the most common use case is parents funding a balance their kids can spend at the camp store.
Friday at five, a nine-year-old walks up to the camp store counter with a slush puppy, a bag of chips, and zero dollars. Today, most camp stores either say "go get your mom" or run a tab on a piece of paper that gets reconciled three days later when the parents stop in. Both options waste staff time, and the paper tab is a recipe for the $4 ice-cream argument at checkout.
With a prepaid camp store wallet, the parent walks into the front desk on day one and puts $50 into the kids' point of sale balance. The kids buy what they want for the rest of the week. Staff process a POS sale the regular way, the wallet draws down automatically, and the parent can pull up the credit history on the way out to see exactly where the $50 went, line by line.
Charge to site is also available
Not every guest wants to prepay. PitchCamp also supports a charge to site payment method on POS sales, so guests can run a tab against their reservation and settle the balance at checkout against the card on file. Use prepaid for guests who want to lock in a spending limit (kids, group fund, gift), and charge to site for guests who want the convenience of one bill at the end of the stay.
This is not just convenient. It is a measurable increase in store revenue. Kids who don't have to find a parent before they can buy something buy more. Parents who can pre-fund and see a clean statement are more comfortable letting the kids roam. The wallet quietly removes friction at the point of the most impulsive purchases on the property.
The same model works for adults. A long-weekend group of four families pools $300 onto the lead booking's wallet for shared firewood and ice runs. Whoever happens to be at the store that morning charges against the pool. Nobody owes anybody a Venmo at the end of the weekend.
Goodwill credits and the no-drama refund¶
Things go wrong at campgrounds. An ant problem on lot 23, a noisy neighbour on the Canada Day weekend, a hot water issue on the bath house. The traditional fix is a paper voucher or a "next time you're here, your firewood is on us" handshake. Both work, and both are easy to forget.
A wallet turns the goodwill credit into a one-click action. Refund the affected night on the reservation the regular way, and the refunded amount lands in the client's wallet as a new Funded entry. The guest can use it next visit, or you can refund the wallet entry back to their card and the money actually leaves the books. Learn more about the two-step refund path.
The same two-step path solves a problem owners have quietly complained about for years: the seasonal guest's card-on-file from May has expired by October, and the system can't run the refund. With wallet-routed refunds, the money parks safely on the wallet first, and the Stripe refund (if and when the guest wants the cash back) handles the expired-card issuer reroute automatically. No phone calls to chase a new card number.
A wallet credit is held money, not revenue (and that matters at tax time)¶
This one is worth stopping on, because it changes the way a Canadian campground books $40,000 of seasonal meter deposits collected in May.
A wallet credit is held money. When a guest hands over $400 for the season's electricity and the operator funds it as a credit, the campground is acting as a custodian of those funds. It is not a sale yet. The $400 is a liability on the campground's books, sitting under the guest's name, not income.
Revenue is recognized one charge at a time, on the day the credit is used. The $42 reading on July 14 becomes $42 of July revenue. The $58 reading on August 12 becomes $58 of August revenue. The $73 still on the wallet at the end of October is still a liability until either it gets refunded to the guest or it carries over to next year. The wallet is doing the same job a bank does on a chequing account: holding money on behalf of someone else, releasing it as services are rendered.
There are two practical consequences operators should care about:
- HST, GST, and PST are collected when the credit is used, not when it is funded. A May 1 deposit does not trigger sales tax. The July 14 meter reading does, on the meter charge it pays for. Most Canadian campground accountants already handle prepayments this way; the wallet just makes the trail clean enough that the books match the reality.
- The $40,000 collected in May is not May revenue. It is spread across the season as it gets consumed. A park with a strong June, July, and August will show that revenue arrive in June, July, and August, instead of one giant spike in May that has to be deferred manually in the books.
Refunds also flow cleanly out of this model. Refunding a wallet entry back to the original card or to the cash drawer is a balance-sheet move (custodial funds going back to their owner), not a revenue reversal. The campground never claimed those dollars as revenue, so giving them back does not undo a sale.
Talk to your bookkeeper or accountant about how to map wallet funding, credit usage, and refunds into your specific chart of accounts. But the structural point holds: the wallet treats deposits the way deposits should be treated. Held first. Earned later. Refundable always.
Why we built this in, not as a paid add-on¶
Every guest at your campground already has a record in PitchCamp. Adding a wallet to that record didn't need a third-party integration, a separate subscription, or a per-card transaction fee. It needed a database column, three pools, and a refund path that respects the original payment source.
How a prepaid wallet compares to the alternatives¶
| Approach | How it's funded | When it's taxed | Spending limit | Refund returns to | Available in PitchCamp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prepaid client wallet (this feature) | Cash drawer or Stripe online card | When the credit is applied to a charge | Yes, the balance is finite by design | Original payment source (Stripe to card, cash to drawer) | Built in, no add-on, no per-transaction fee |
| Gift card add-on | Online gift card purchase | When the gift card is sold (varies) | Yes, the card amount | Usually not refundable to a payment source | Third-party integrations only on most platforms |
| Charge to site (postpaid) | Card on file, settled at checkout | When each charge is incurred | No, it is an open tab | Original card | Built in, no add-on |
| Paper clipboard / envelope | Cash deposit, paper receipt | Inconsistent, easy to mis-book | Yes, but manual | Manual cash refund only | Not applicable |
The prepaid wallet is the only option on this list that is prepaid, refundable to the original source, and built into the platform at no extra cost. No other campground management platform ships a client-level prepaid wallet as a core feature today. Gift card integrations are usually a paid add-on, and charge-to-site is postpaid against a card on file rather than a true balance the guest funded up front. The wallet is something the campground industry has been quietly asking for. The cruise and resort industries figured it out in the 1980s.
We think every guest should have a wallet on file, every operator should be able to fund it from cash or online card, and every refund should know where it came from.
FAQ¶
What is prepaid metering at a campground?
Prepaid metering at a campground is the practice of funding a guest's meter usage in advance and drawing the balance down automatically with each meter reading. A guest hands over (for example) $400 at the start of the season, that amount sits in their wallet as Meter Credits, and every reading over the season automatically consumes from the balance. The model is the same one residential electric co-ops use for prepaid power plans.
How does a prepaid camp store work for kids?
A parent funds a balance against the guest's account at the front desk, usually in the \(20-\)100 range, and the kids buy what they want at the camp store without cash. Each POS sale draws from the wallet automatically. Parents can pull up the credit history at any time to see exactly what was purchased, and the balance is finite, so it doubles as a spending limit.
Is a funded wallet credit considered campground revenue?
No, not until the credit is applied to a charge. A funded wallet credit is held money on the campground's books, a liability under the guest's name. Revenue is recognized one charge at a time, on the date the credit is used. This is the same accounting treatment most jurisdictions apply to customer deposits and prepayments.
How is a prepaid wallet different from a gift card?
A prepaid wallet is funded into a specific guest's account on the platform itself; a gift card is usually a separate stored-value product, often sold through a third-party integration. The wallet is refundable back to the original payment source, can be split across credit pools (Meter, POS, Any), and is included with the campground's core software. Gift cards are typically not refundable to the original payment source and are sold as a paid add-on on most campground platforms.
Do credits expire?
No. Credits stay on a client's wallet indefinitely until they are used, refunded back to the original payment source, or both. A seasonal guest who finishes the year with $73 left on their meter wallet can leave it on file and apply it to next May's first reading without any action from staff.
What happens to a refund if the original card has expired or been replaced?
Stripe handles it automatically. The refund goes through Stripe's normal rails, and the cardholder's issuer reroutes the funds to the new account associated with the original card. Staff don't need to track down a new card number from the guest.
Can credits cover taxes and fees?
Yes. When credits are applied to a charge, they cover the full charge total including taxes, not just the base amount.
Can credits be transferred between clients?
Not directly. If a credit needs to move from one client to another (for example, from a parent's account to an adult child's account), refund the wallet entry on the original client and fund a new entry on the destination client.
Why are reservation refunds routed through the wallet first?
Routing reservation refunds through the wallet lets staff decide whether the guest gets their money back or keeps the balance on file. Refunding a reservation payment moves the money to the wallet without leaving the books. From there, staff can refund the wallet entry to the original card, hand it back as cash, or leave it for the next visit. The audit trail stays clean either way.
A quieter front desk, a cleaner October¶
The seasonal meter deposit problem is not really a meter problem. It is a record-keeping problem dressed up as a meter problem, and it is one the rest of the hospitality industry solved a long time ago. A built-in client wallet replaces a clipboard, a stack of envelopes, and three phone calls in November with a single number on a client record.
The same wallet quietly does five other useful things at the same time. The kids buy slush puppies without finding a parent. The reunion group stops arguing about who owes whom for the firewood. The goodwill credit lands somewhere the guest can actually use it. The seasonal refund happens in a minute instead of a week. And the front desk stops being the place where small problems pile up.
If you run a Canadian campground with seasonal meter readings, a busy camp store, or a guest base that comes back year after year, the wallet pays for itself the first weekend you stop running the clipboard. Learn more about how client credits work in PitchCamp, or start a free PitchCamp account and try it on your own data.