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Deposit instead of full payment for Appointments?

I want to use Square Appointments to book my tours.  I have been using YouCanBook.me and then using Square Invoices to bill tour clients for their 50% deposit, which results in a lot of manual data entry.  I would prefer that clients use Square Appointments and be able to have them pay 50% instead of the full amount.

I suppose I could price everything at half price and say 50% DEPOSIT but that seems really kludgy.

 

And could we have some way to pass variables in from the calling web page or a web form?  Or a way to add custom fields to the booking form?  I need to collect info like the number of children and adults in a group.  Also some location besides mine, the client's, and a phone number, since we pick passengers up at a number of locations, and they may not know what the pickup point will be.

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Square

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Square Appointments will absolutely work for but there are a few things that you should know first! 

 

With Square Appointments, you can require a payment at the time of booking, which would cover your deposit. When using pre-payments, your customers will be required to pay the full price so you will need to set the price for each appointment as the deposit amount. When your customers arrive, you can then charge them the difference. 

 

To set up prepayments, visit Payments and Cancellations in your online Appointments dashboard, and select Require Prepayment.

 

When your customer books through your Online Booking site, they will be prompted to fill in their name and contact information. As for the additional information, you are able to write in the service description that you require the information and your customers will have a space at check out to enter that additional information. 

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Admin

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Hey @Xobrowsbymolly.

 

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

 

I am pretty sure you're referring to requiring prepayment for Square Appointments.

 

Please take a look at the best answer in this thread for insight into how to do this. If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know by replying back to me in this thread. 

️ Isabelle | she/her
Seller Community & Super Seller Program Manager | Square, Inc.
Learn about the Super Seller program!

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@puka Nothing has been addressed above. The system you have still does not allow us to use appointments and collect our state taxes!!!! Until that time, us in states that must collect and pay once a month it is not a tool to be used until Square makes that fix.,

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The title of this thread has been updated from: "PLEASE SQUARE HELP!" and this reply was created from merging an existing thread

 

Hello square! I am on the verge of going to a different app I love square appointment so much I really hate to leave But, I will eventually not have an option hoping someone can send this over to the tech team.

 

i currently offer appointments for my clients (I offer nail services) I do require a deposit to boook I wish there was a way my clients can select all the applicable services  and then get charged a fixed rate for a deposit rather than HIDING all the services so the clients only have the option of selecting the deposit fee. This is a nuisance and a deal breaker for me I will hang on just a little bit longer in hopes someone at Square helps me move this request 💜 thank you! 

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Admin

Hello again @Sparkld_NL! I've added it to this thread (I see you've already posted in this one) so we can track how many sellers would like to use a deposit feature and so you can be notified of any updates.

 

I'm know the workaround to collect deposits using the prepayment feature isn't ideal, and thank you for taking the time to let us know that it's currently a dealbreaker for you. I'll send your post to the Appointments team so they can better understand just how important this is to your business. 

️ Helen
Seller Community Manager

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@Helen Not only is not ideal, it may be seen by some as completley unethical. People get confused when you are charging this or that for this or that. So fixing prices a couple different ways is not the option, it may work but it is so unproffesional on the business end. So far to get any type of questions regarging this matter we are sent back into time to a message board unless we pay a $30 csr fee! 

 

Appointments is a good feature to have, maybe next time you should do a soft roll out and figure out the bugs initally. So far on collecting state taxes I have been given the bake it in answer 3 times from the staff on this board. That surprises us. You have everything in POS and Invoicing, why not appointments? If it is in the works cool but try not to sell this service until then. 

 

Once again we all need to be able to collect a deposit and our state sales tax for those of us in states with state sales tax. 

 

Key Thought: All we need to do is to be able to collect not an accounting program so do not over think this.

 

Hopefully these issues can be resolved, its a great function. The message board! Not so much.

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I’ve had potential clients who put their card in, then they don’t show up, and when I go to charge the no show fee, it says their card is invalid or not working. How can I save myself from this trouble? 

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Super Seller

what error do you get?  because as far as I understand the credit card is checked before proceeding (so it has to be a valid card and zip/cvv check to proceed).

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Admin

@Queenb26 I'm sorry for the trouble this has caused. When a customer enters their card information for no-show protection Square by verifyies that the card is valid — but we can't prevent a payment from being declined by their card-issuing bank.

 

I'm adding your post to this thread where you can read about Requiring PrePayment for Appointments. With this setting customers pay for their Appoitment in full at the time of booking. I hope this helps!

️ Helen
Seller Community Manager

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For people needing to require a deposit to book an appointment: I charge a $50 deposit to book a spot. I simply have my appointment setting on "Business must accept or decline all appointment requests." That way, once I get the request, I then create an invoice that states a $50 deposit is required for me to accept it in the calander. Once the invoice shows paid, I accept the appointment. I hope this helps! It was the only thing I could think to do to get the deposit in advance! It's tedious, but it's working so far...

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This reply created from merging an existing thread: "Hair Stylist Appointment Setup" The author has been notified via email.

 

How do I setup a way to require a deposit prior to booking?

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This reply created from merging an existing thread: "How to set up deposit before appointment" The author has been notified via email.

 

How can I add a deposit amount for clients to deposit before appointment?

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Can you set up a deposit for only certain services?

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Square Community Moderator

Hi @Waxlashrepeat and welcome to the Community.

 

I moved your post to one of the existing threads that goes over how to set up prepayment for an appointment.

 

Deposits/prepayments are set up by appointment not service.

Ashley C
Community Moderator, Square
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How can I change my required deposit amount due at time of booking to $25? I would like to take a $25 deposit at time of booking from clients and then the remainder of the bill at time of service, I hope this makes sense. 

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Admin

@Sfulmore85 Great question! We don't currently offer a way for sellers to accept deposits towards appointments. However there is a workaround: Prepayments. The only thing to note with prepayments is that your services do have to have a fixed price in order to require the payment up front.

 

I brought up appointment deposits with our Appointments team and this is a very popular feature request. Hopefully this can be implemented for the benefit of your business and others!

Bea_
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Thank you @nika I really appreciate you taking time to respond. However I do have 1 more question, how do I change my availability business hours on my booking site?

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Admin

Appreciate your patience and understanding, @Sfulmore85. You can adjust your business hours on your online booking site from Locations > select location >  Business Hours > Save. Hope this gets you where you need to be. 🙂

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
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Hello! It's becoming a recurring issue in my business that either 1. customers are using a prepaid debit card that have $0 on it when booking their appointment in the case that they do not want to show up to the appointment or 2. customers are unlinking their debit/credit cards prior to their appt because they plan on canceling or not showing up. Both of these issues cause me to not be able to charge someone my no call-no show/cancellation fee.

I would LOVE to know how to set up a deposit amount for $25 that the customer would pay upon booking to hold their appt. This will also ensure that if they decide not to show up or cancel same day, I will still get paid for my time. 

Also, could Square PLEASE start doing a hold on cards when people book to ensure there is money on the card? 

Thank you and I look forward to your response.

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Alumni

Hey @Koldestnails - I totally get where you're coming from.

 

Addressing your question about pre-authorizing cards, I just learned that Square Appointments doesn't have this ability due to regulatory limitations. For this we cannot screen the cards to ensure there's enough on it. 

 

As a workaround, You can require prepayment which essentially works like a security deposit - it requires your clients to pay $25 upon booking in case they miss their appointment or cancel last minute. Just set this up under the Payments and Cancellations tab of the Dashboard or the App. 

 

I hope this helps!  

 

 

Justin
Community Moderator, Square
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??

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Admin

Best Answer

Hey @Xobrowsbymolly.

 

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

 

I am pretty sure you're referring to requiring prepayment for Square Appointments.

 

Please take a look at the best answer in this thread for insight into how to do this. If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know by replying back to me in this thread. 

️ Isabelle | she/her
Seller Community & Super Seller Program Manager | Square, Inc.
Learn about the Super Seller program!
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Hello

I checked all threads from 2016 and everyone wants to know 

WHEN SQUARE WILL ALLOW businesses  that are working with appointments 

TO CHARGE SMALL DEPOSITS BEFORE ACCEPTING appointments?

 

full prepaiment

card on file for no show

 

https://acuityscheduling.com/

and

WIX.com already have it

 

BUT I LIKE SQUARE

 

Please tell me when you big IT command will understand how important it is for square users?

 

today is 2020 but first question I found in 2016  

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