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. 

[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. 

[wlingram]

Question: 

If I have it set to "Require Card to book appointment",  does the card get charged for the appointment when it occurs?  

I want to require the card to book but not take payment upfront.  Is that not what happens? Do I still need to invoice the customer to get paid for an appointment?? 

Is my only solution switching to "Require Prepayment"?? I am scared that will drive my customers away. 

Thanks in advance!
- Lee

[PrimpPolish]

Lee, 

Selecting the option "require card to book appointment" does not collect payment at the time of booking. It simply provides you the ability to enforce your cancellation policy in the event of cancellation or no show. I use this option in my business. I, too, fear that requiring prepayment will drive my customers away.

[MetroCabSF]

@PrimpPolish If you want to accept an appointment it is now accept and charge card or decline appointment (sucks), those are the two options. It is a good set up but theres no way to charge a deposit, collect state sales all of those important issues and they need to fix that asap because it works great, we have done many test runs and would like to give a few high volume customers this option  so they can go in and schedule on thier own but just the non sales tax option alone would have us eating a few grand every month and they have it in invoices and POS, so not sure why this was rolled out the way it is, many needed features in order for a customer to just book all online and not speak to anyone as that seems to be the new norm. 

Love the idea but right now its not really complete in our opinion but hopefully they code these in soon. 

[just4suze]

It seems that if a client books online they are prompted to enter their contact information and credit card to hold their appointment. If I'm scheduling a client via email or in person can't I use that same process to hold their appointment with a credit card but not charge them for the appointment until it's been completed?

[MetroCabSF]

So when do you see the payment? Obviously it is not when they book! We have appointments schedule and have no idea wth is going on with the payments! 

We thought this would work like any other purchase online, once they reserve and pay, a receipt is generated to them and we can tell by looking in daily sales if that transaction went through..... It does not work that way and we are so dissapointed unless we have something set wrong and do not think so. It sucks using two or three different systems back and forth from QB, Google Calender and Square. 

Good idea however we are about to change processors because really your funcionality is no good beyond card transactions or emailing an invoice and asking people to pay that way, WHICH makes all that much more data entry which is what we are NOT wanting to do any longer. 

[BrandNewK]

How does that answer have anything to do with what the OP is asking about?? I am having the same issue.  I do not want to charge full price at the time of booking.  I want to charge a deposit and then at the time of the service, they check out and pay the rest.

[nika]

Hi @BrandNewK- @ Kelly's Best Answer above walks through how to Set Up a Prepayment Option so your customers don't have to pay full price when booking. 

Let me know if you need any additional information!

[CC10]

I’m sorry Square but the questions about deposits are consistent with no answers. There are no videos,  no articles, no tutorials where Square Appointments walk you through taking a deposit for appointments. This is really frustrating because now I have to look for another booking app where my clients really liked the operation of square appointments. I can’t run them away when their only option Is to pay in full. When you guys fix this let us know. I have to look elsewhere. 😔

[matronmedusa]

Hey! I've learned to work around that by allowing them to request an appointment that needs approval first. I have a copy/paste message ready to text them explaining that there is a deposit required, and that an invoice for the deposit amount has been sent to their email. Then, I have a default message in my invoice that also explains the deposit is required for the appointment. So they get an email and a text. I also only give them about two to three days to pay the deposit before I have another copy paste message ready to go explaining that their appointment request will be declined if they do not submit the deposit within x amount of time. This system has worked beautifully for me. 

- Medusa

[dragons1ayer]

That’s a lot of extra work though. 

[TStylesthe1]

I felt the exact same way. Here's a link to a video I found that helped me out so much. Now I'm confident about booking with deposits. I hope this helps. https://youtu.be/SI7e7V_oL_M

[BTrasae]

How do I set a deposit for clients when booking an appointment 

[Joe]

Hi there, @BTrasae 👋 Thanks for reaching out and joining us here on the Seller Community! 

I've gone ahead and merged your post into an existing thread of Sellers who were also looking for information regarding collecting a deposit for Appointments. Take a look at this Best Answer here for more information.

[TStylesthe1]

Check out this video. It helped me out.

https://youtu.be/SI7e7V_oL_M

[Luxcrystallash]

I’m having difficulties figuring out how to set up the option to charge clients a deposit for their service prior to their appointment

[Joe]

Hi there, @Luxcrystallash 👋Thanks for reaching out and joining us here on the Seller Community!

I've gone ahead and merged your post into an existing thread of Sellers who were also looking for information regarding receiving a deposit before an appointment. Take a look at this Best Answer from that same thread for more details.

Let us know if you have any additional questions!

[matronmedusa]

Prepayment only works if you already know what the final cost will be. For me, I request a deposit by setting it up to where they request an appointment, but it has to be approved before it's accepted. Then, I send an invoice to their email requesting a deposit and a copy/paste text message to their phone explaining the process. I don't accept the appointment until the invoice for the deposit is paid. Everywhere I have that link posted for them to go book explains the process, so they understand every step of the way. 

[BHS1]

That's all lot of work when other booking site offer deposits

[girlsandcurlz]

HI! What do you do about including the deposit amount on the tip for the total service?