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. 

[MetroCabSF]

@ElisiaDannielle We have been expermenting with the appointments for our clients that are heavy volume so they can go in pick the service, put down a deposit ect... Here are the three main drawbacks in appointments and I hope these are updated soon because the feature is nice and works great outside of these three issues that need attention.

1) Be able to accept a request with an option of not charging the card the full amount, either let us accept to hold the customer and a deposit option instead of full payment. As it is now, you must charge a client full price just to accept the requested booking! Traveling customers sometimes book a month ahead, deposits are essential. 

2) Have an option to add our state sales tax, its there with invoicing or POS, why not appointments, thats defeating! 

3) Allow us to block off certain times of the day instead of the 25%, 40% options which is a start but we need to decide what times those are instead of a random 40% of the day. The 40% or 20% that gets auto blocked might be times we do not want blocked off. 

The state taxes are huge without that ability to collect state sales tax this is not an option for people in those states...HUGE FLAW!

Also actual customer service would be great, square you are big enough now and asking people for $30.00 a year to speak with someone is insane and unethical.. What is this 1999 AOL forums all over again?

[HRV_Bruce]

I used to be able to take prepayment for an appointment while setting up an appointment on the web. There was a slide button at the bottom to take payment on the create appointment screen. Now that slide button is gone, is there a setting for that or did they remove the feature?

[ashc]

Hi @HRV_Bruce and welcome to the Community.

I moved your post to a thread where the discussion for prepayment on Appointments is.

Check out the Best Answer above for details. 

If the settings listed above in the Best Answer are enabled and you're still not seeing it, please reach out to our direct Appointments team who can take a closer look.

In the future, don't hesitate to search your question first here or on the Support Center for your quickest answer too! 

[ACAcatering]

Is this through the online store?

[Sparkld_NL]

No it is not. The appointment app. Square appointments 🙂

[puka]

Hey @Sparkld_NL - It looks like another Seller had the same question as you so I've merged your post with their thread. Kelly's answer should help get you in the right direction. 🤙🏼

[homesbyjonesllc]

Kelly's answer didn't really solve the problem. Is there a way to require a deposit without having all of the prices reflected incorrectly in the Square Appointment system?

[Arie]

Hi @homesbyjonesllc,

Thanks for writing in, I noticed it's your first post, welcome to our community 👋 🙂

At this time, the workaround shared by Kelly would still be the best way to charge a deposit for an appointment. You could also consider setting up a no-show protection policy, which would allow you to charge customers a fee - either a flat fee, or a custom amount for each service. You can learn more here. 

[seriouslyselfie]

I have online booking enabled. Is there a way to take a payment at the time of booking? Such as a deposit? In my business, booked dates are not valid unless we receive a deposit.

[EJ_]

Hi @seriouslyselfie

I've moved your post over to this existing thread, as a few of your fellow sellers had the same question. 

You can require your customers to pay in full for fixed price services at the time of booking, but there's no way currently to have them pay a partial amount. 

[matronmedusa]

The prepayment option is great for people who have fixed rates. But I don't know what the final cost of my service is going to be until the day of the appointment. So, I set it up to where they can request an appointment but it has to be approved. Once I see the request, I send an invoice for the deposit amount to their email and a copy/paste text message to their phone explaining that the appointment request will not be accepted until the deposit is paid. Every site they go through to book with me also explains that, so they know the process every step of the way. If the invoice isn't paid, even after a friendly reminder, I cancel the invoice and decline their appointment. Hope this helps! 

-Medusa

[Wichitawax]

I also notice that if you do select prepay the appointment amount can not be edited or changed once transaction for the appointment is complete. That is not flexible at all. Quite often clients book the wrong service. 

[danielaanthony]

Hi. I set up my appointments to receive a $50 deposit upon booking. I have 6 appointments booked and never saw one deposit yet. Do I get the deposit the day of the appointment or should I get those the same day the customer books with me?

[puka]

Hey @danielaanthony! I've merged your post with another thread on the topic of your question. Check out Chad's answer for more information!

[MetroCabSF]

@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.,

[Sparkld_NL]

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! 

[Helen]

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. 

[MetroCabSF]

@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.

[Queenb26]

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? 

[VanKalkerFarms]

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).

[Helen]

@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!