Deposit instead of full payment for Appointments?

[TourOperator]

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.

[Kelly · Accepted solution]

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. 

[BHS1]

Adding the deposit option would be much better, so clients can know the remaining balance of their service.

[jbrandonb1]

Is there a way to accomplish this functionality ONLY if a certain staff member is selected for booking?  

For example: Staff Member "A" charges 50% upfront but Staff Member "B" does not. 

Is Widgets the only/best option to accomplish this?

[Valentina]

Widgets could work for this, @jbrandonb1!

If one staff member is assigned to one service, and the price is listed as $0 - your clients will not need to prepay.

You could have the actual price listed in the description or under Display price as well.

I hope this helps! ✨

[Helevelsmeup]

Hello,

  Is there an option, coming up in the pipeline, allowing us to preset deposit amounts for each service? Pending the type of service and or amount, the deposit may vary for each service. Also, there should be an option to require them to make the final payment, by a preset date. We can do this with invoices, as it pertains to setting a due date for the remaining balance.

  With my services, if a client desires to make a deposit instead of the full payment, the remaining balance comes due (3) days before their appointment. Allowing them to split the payment. But, also, allowing me to receive the full payment a few days before the appointment. I currently do this, manually, with the invoices. But, it would be great to create a template, or modify deposit amounts for each service, set a predetermined due date for the balance, i.e. 3 days prior to the appointment; and not have to create an invoice to do so. They should be able make a deposit through the website, under our preset terms and conditions. And, allow us to still require pre-payment and approval before booking. 

  Also, it would be great if our clients have the option to add on "items" while they book. They should be able to select a service, then there be an option for them to add on additional items. For example, I am a photographer. A person should be able to book a photoshoot session, then have the option to add on an item such as extra edited photos. I'm aware multiple services can be booked. But, items should be bookable online by customers, too. And, course, we can determine which items are available to them.

  Another matter is having the option to hide the "block extra time," from the customers. I have my photoshoots by the hour. And, I block off extra time allowing me to clean up, etc. before the next session. Currently, clients can see the blocked off time. Therefore, an appointment that is only meant to be (1)hr, and I block off an extra 30 mins for me to prepare for my next appointment, their appointment reflects (1.5)hr upon the client receiving their confirmation email. This is confusing to the clients when the appointment terms states (1). But, when they book it shows, to them, that their appointment is (1.5)

  Also, the processing time should be able to be added into the services. I using the processing time to reflect on my schedule that I travel to travel for an on-location. But, the processing time isn't blocked off on the schedule when we add that option. So, anyone else can come in and request that time slot, because it still reflects available on the schedule. But, of course, I wouldn't be available due to traveling for another appointment.

[vokoro]

That is kind of clunky...I use Squarespace for appts and it lets you set how much deposit people can put down and also gives them the option of paying in full - without me having to do extra stuff or manual stuff. Customers get an automatic reminder to pay their balance. My services are online. I guess I will stick with Squarespace for now.

[KCGT]

You might be right. Using Bookeo for now until they can fix this deposit issue. This seems basic for anyone who understands how appointments work. 

The funds are received up front to help service the appointment and the payment on the day of takes care of the costs related to the service provided for the staff. This method of taking all up front is discouraging because customers don't like that scenario either. 

[homesbyjonesllc]

Is there a better way to do this for services? If I change the price to the deposit amount, then service pricing will not reflect accurately for other customers. What if the service price is variable?

[Wichitawax]

I want to do the same. Tired of having to refund clients that prepaid when they cancel or reschedule. I just want to charge a deposit. Also tired of cc not working if using the no show protection selection. 9 times out of 10 the card they booked with doesn’t work if they No Show. There has to be a way to make sure the card will work or put a hold on the amount until the appointment is complete. 

[Ashleynickole01]

This is a complete junk of an answer and junk of an app. I wasted an entire day setting up my appointments just to find out I can’t even take a deposit with this thing. Who makes an appointment without a deposit?? Deposits are a necessity in the service industry. Taking a payment in full is not an option. No small business wants to refund a large sum of money if a customer cancels. What was stated about making your service in the amount of the deposit doesn’t fly either. That’s just adds more work for the merchant and cause for confusion to the client. Also, there’s are no customer intake options. So, I guess you need to know who your client is and what their preferences are before they come in. Just who is this app designed for exactly? It seems square understands restaurants and retail, but not a clue about the service industry. It’s shows with this app. I’m keeping Acuity. No question about it. 

[Sparkld_NL]

hello, i need to charge a deposit fee for appointments when clients book. however , i do not want to charge them a full fee of the services just a fixed deposit rate how can i do this and still alllow my clients to see the actual cost of the services? i cannot set the fixed rate on my services to the deposit fee  i need a way to have clients pay for a deposit. is this doable without adding a separate Fixed rate code because if clients dont select that code, it will not require a prepayment. thanks 

[Vanessaocano]

???

[Chad]

@Vanessaocano Welcome to the Seller Community and Kudos on your first post! 😀 🎉

This is a great questions and I'm  sure other sellers would like to know the answer as well. We do offer Client Prepayment for Square Appointments. With this feature you can require customers to put down a deposit for an appointment.

This can protect you from no-show clients. You can also create a detailed cancelation policy so the customer understands the terms of the appointment deposit. 

If you have any other questions, feel free to reply back! 

[MetroCabSF]

We take thousands of reservations a year so appointments is a test however once you confirm an appointment I can not tell if the payment was valid or not!!! 

If thier card is not charged for the service at the time of booking, like an airline ticket for example then its totally worthless in our opinion unless there is a way to check on this without having to look in our biz bank acct everytime we schedule to verify ourselves. Feel free to enlighten me.

[MetroCabSF]

That answer is rated negative zero stars. You can do better than that! 

[Chad]

Hello @MetroCabSF, I'm sorry you didn't find my original answer helpful. 

If you select Require Prepayment for your Online Booking Site you will see the payment in your Square Balance, as soon as your customer books an appointment. The link in my previous reply outlines this. You can select Require Prepayment option on your Square Dashboard under the Appointments tab. Then select Settings > Payments & Cancellations. 

The customer will not be able to book an appointment if the prepayment declines. If you still need help setting this up please feel free to reach out to me. 

[MetroCabSF]

That is all taken care of but where do we insert our state taxes? We so no section in settings for this with the online booking?

[Chad]

I'm glad you were able to get that figured out @MetroCabSF! Currently adding taxes on a service is a feature request that we're tracking. Although if you're using Prepayment you could just bake the tax into the price of your service. 

If you need help with anything else please feel free to reach out! 😀

[MetroCabSF]

@Chad Thank you for letting us know that this is being worked on..   FYI - you can not up your pricing because then you just pay more into the state every month because the gross earnings are higher!!!!  This is not the way you do accounting not to mention the business ethics involved in this answer. Wow 

[Chad]

@MetroCabSF well that really depends on how you report your sales tax to the state. If you just export your transaction data directly from Square and send it, then yes you'll end up paying more.  When it comes tax's and accounting I recommend consulting a CPA. 

If you're concerned about how including the tax in the sale price looks to your customers, you can add "tax included" in parenthesis in the service name. That way the pricing is transparent. 

I know that this isn't ideal, but its something we're working on and these are just suggestions for possible workarounds. 

[MetroCabSF]

@Chad Yeah the idea is never to pay more taxes than needed. On invoicing and POS it configured and works great but whats the point of being able to fix price and streamline for purchase which is awesome if that feature is not optional the whole thing is not useful to any business that is required to pay monthly state taxes... So to make this complete it should be added, you have it on all the other forms of payment. 

[MetroCabSF]

@Chad Chad we have an account and are familar with business. We just need to be able to collect it using appointments on prepayments nothing other until then its not useful.