In this paper I will examine the enactment of payment routines in service encounters involving receptionists and customers at a garage and a veterinary surgery. Using examples from a corpus of approximately 12,500 words, I will illustrate how participants orient simultaneously to both transactional and interactional goals. After describing the normal sequence of moves required for task completion in these routines, I will go on to show how interpersonal elements are also encoded in them, paying particular attention to face issues. Finally, I will outline briefly how I intend to develop and apply my work on service encounters in an investigation of interaction between medical receptionists and patients in general practice surgeries.