How to set up a refundable booking fee?

[Jayv2251]

To avoid wasted trips to salons that don't honor a commitment to have their equipment sharpened can become costly over time, I've decided that I want to have the salon pay a "booking fee" temporarily. This will be refunded back to the salon owner on the day we've arranged and I've completed the work I was asked to do. 

Not sure how that would work since everyone wants a slice of that fee I'm charging, only for me to give it back. Not sure Square, my bank Visa, MC, Amex, etc will be happy having to refund their cuts either. when I do this on a regular basis... How can we accept the charge without processing it? 

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @Jayv2251.  Square has very recently been testing similar functionality in both the Restaurants and Standard POS.  While it is now live according to the beta test page, it only works in conjunction with bar tabs right now.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see that they roll it out soon in Retails for the deposit concept.  But they haven’t announced that yet at all.  So……

Would you be opposed to just changing your terms?  Instead of a refundable booking fee, tell them it a non-refundable deposit, since I assume it is less than your normal service fee.  When you complete the work, you can charge them only for the remaining balance, and if they cancel then they forfeit the deposit.

At this point I don’t know of any other options available to you until Square rolls this out for retail.

[Jayv2251]

While I haven't started taking salon bookings, I hope to be doing so by spring. I'm actually in the process of rebuilding my page with a more powerful booking manager. But this issue I mentioned in my initial post is a situation several other professional sharpeners I know have had happen. 

While there are always exceptions to any "rule", my wife who worked as a stylist for 20 years explained to me...The stylists will start talking among themselves about how their shears are getting dull. Eventually, the owner or the manager of the salon will get wind and start looking for someone to come in and sharpen ALL the stylist's shears and possible clippers. The clippers and shears the stylist owns are his or her property. The salon does NOT own them unless they are the property of the owner or the manager who also happens to be a stylist as well. Each stylist is responsible for maintaining their equipment. So when a salon calls it basically a courtesy for the owner-manager for their stylist. Unless of course, they want their done to. 

Bear in mind, that for each pair of shears, the sharpener usually charges between $30 and $40. Clippers blades are around $35. So even a small salon of say 6 stylists and if each has 3 shears and a set of clipper blades that would be $90 for shears and $35 for clippers for a total of $125 each for 6 stylists... That's $750! You can see why we're willing to drive an hour one way to do a small shop. But... that same drive will cost me $30 in gas one way and take an hour and a half while I'm not earning anything. So you arrive and there are issues and you don't do any work... I just lost $60 in gas and 3 hours of time I could have been doing other jobs that actually paid.