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. 

[Alex_]

Hello @KMBeautyBar,

Thank you for posting in the Seller Community. Welcome.

Are you managing your appointments via a computer or through a mobile device? Also, can you provide your booking site. I'd be happy to escalate this up to our Appointments Team. 

Please let me know by replying in this thread. I'll keep an eye out for your response.

[KMBeautyBar]

Hey Alex,

I think this is my booking site,

kmbeautybar.square.site

I am pretty sure I have it set up to accept appointments via computer and mobile device. 

I have tried finding the client deposit option on both and I’m lost haha 

[Alex_]

HI @KMBeautyBar,

Thank you for your patience.

I've checked in with our Appointments Team, and currently the ability to adjust or allow deposits through our Appointments system is a feature request.

We definitely see how it could benefit your business model. Our teams are constantly looking through our seller's feedback to make necessary improvements, and we will be sure to let you know if anything ever changes or if new updates are released. 

[dyniecia_]

I submitted a Feature Request for this ability in the seller community. Search

"Feature Request: Request a deposit at booking for Square Appointments". I would imagine the more people cosign this request we may actually get it. 

[Leequa]

I know I'm going to get some generic response, but the no-show protection isn't working for MANY Square users, and I for one, I am fed up with it! I am a small business with limited hours during Covid, so I am making half what I normally do. To add insult to injury, I have no real protections from a-hole clients. I've had two this week!

I know, there is an option for clients to prepay the full amount. But, that doesn't work for my type of business, and some people want to pay with cash upon the visit. Clients schedule for a treatment but that treatment can change during the appointment for less or more time. I don't think it's fair for honest clients to have to fully pay upfront.

So, why is there not an option to collect the no-show amount/percentage upfront instead of the full amount? That way, crappy rude clients have no way of screwing us over and there is no further recourse to take to collect the fee. Square users have been begging for more protection for YEARS on these community boards. When is Square really ACTUALLY going to address these issues? I'm not holding my breathe but I am losing my patience.

[isabelle]

Hey @Leequa!

Really sorry about your experience thus far. I want to make sure I understand the feature you're looking for. Would it function as a deposit type feature? They pay a portion of the total cost of the services? Let me know! ✨

[Leequa]

Yes, it would be a deposit type feature, either a percentage or set amount, in order for clients to book an appointment. Would also be cool to have the choice to set feature for either just new clients or all clients.

[ApoatilleApply]

We want customers to be able to book our service and pay an upfront $49 for example, and then when we finish the service, they could be billed for the actual signatures we provide as notaries. Sometimes it’s as little as an additional two dollars and sometimes it could be 30 or $40. But this is similar to a customer signing a guest check at a restaurant but then getting their credit card statement to reflect the tip has been added on.

[AdrianaSpett]

I decided to go ahead and switch over to Square appointments as the ad seem to imply that there were methods to keep appointments from canceling which does hurt business when I set aside quite a bit of time for appointments and turn away other clients.  

My concern is 1) it doesn't give you a deposit option but does have a cancelation feature.  2) When implanting it my first appointment that was made the person did not enter any credit card information and was able to book the appointment which means if she did cancel the cancellation fee couldn't be charged since it had no credit card information. 

I like the idea of keeping all my appointments in one place as currently using multiple different systems but Square appointments seems to be lacking some basic things that are necessary and already in my other programs I use. 

[Valentina]

Hi there @AdrianaSpett and welcome to the Seller Community 👋

While you can request deposits with Square Invoices, the closest thing we offer with Square Appointments is requiring prepayment for your services - have you looked into this yet?
 

Keep in mind that when using the Card on File feature to charge clients for No Shows, clients always have the option to remove their card from being on file. Learn more about that here, and about enforcing your cancellation policy here.

[isasbeautyroom]

Is there a way that I can put a deposit fee on each service? Like lets say the service is $100, I don't want clients to book without putting a deposit for their appointment first. Where is the option to do that?

[JustinC]

Right now, there's only an option to repay the full amount, not a deposit. @isasbeautyroom

[Preddie]

Hi you can go to the payment page and select payment method and under that you will see an option to accept payment choose which option you want them to pay with and hit when a client schedules hit require a deposit and selected the amount you would like to charge Either a percentage like 50% or the dollar amount hope this helps everyone 

[megs83]

Years later and this is still not a thing. WHY??? Can someone from Square give and honest answer on why they have not started this service? Is the coding too difficult? Do the techs not feel this is a needed feature? If so can you show them this thread. We are BEGGING for this feature. Prepayment of services do not work for most businesses. I am now paying another service for something I should be able to do with Square. I want to exclusively use Square but without this feature I was losing money and time having to manually track down deposits I would send via invoice (not convenient for all businesses). 

[Helevelsmeup]

I second this! No reason why we shouldn’t be able to set a dollar amount or percentage for each service we offer and require that as a deposit. And, then have the clients to be notified of the predetermined timeframe or dates for the remaining balance. All the capabilities are there. If we can accept prepayments, deposits through invoices and auto notifications for remaining balances, then the same can be setup for appointments. WITH the option to customize the parameters for each services. Also, clients should be able to add on “items” when booking services. . 

[Ninamosaedi]

Guys I figured it out! Change the service price to the deposit you’d like to receive as a pre-payment. Then click “display price” and type out the actual price of the service. When people go to book, they are prompted to pay the deposit (not the entire cost of service) but are able to clearly see what the remaining total will be once they complete the service. 

[dmonroes]

Thank you so much.

[AmourSade33]

I require a deposit to book a service but I don't want to include my deposit in the remaining balance how can I fix this ?

[Ellie_]

Hi there @AmourSade33,

Welcome to the Seller Community! That is a great question. I have moved your post to our board that discusses booking and deposits. We recommend reading through and seeing the advice other Square users have provided!