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Deposit instead of full payment for Appointments?

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.

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Best Answer

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. 

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Admin

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Hey @Xobrowsbymolly.

 

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

 

I am pretty sure you're referring to requiring prepayment for Square Appointments.

 

Please take a look at the best answer in this thread for insight into how to do this. If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know by replying back to me in this thread. 

️ Isabelle | she/her
Seller Community & Super Seller Program Manager | Square, Inc.
Learn about the Super Seller program!

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Okay so that is where I messed up by not selecting pre payment. So then when do I recieve a payment if i didnt select prepayment. I had a customer come in for their appointment but I still never recieved a $50 deposit for when they booked. I dont understand. Or can I go back now and change everything to prepayment and the deposits will show up? Any help will be great. Thanks

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Okay so where did my deposits go because i didnt select pre payment. I have booked 6 appointments with a $50 deposit for each client that books. I never saw any of those deposits yet. 

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Hello @danielaanthony! For the 6 appointments did you have your customers book with no show protection?  

 

Or did you create a service called deposit for your Online Booking site? 

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I created a serrvice called 50 deposit. I takes the customers card info. but it never charges them. I also added the no show policy for $20. What am I doing wrong. I need the system to pre charge the $50 deposit up front to make the appointment. Thanks

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@danielaanthony thanks! That gives a clear picture into what's happening. 

 

So the solution you're looking for is the Require Prepayment option. This will require the customer to pay the $50 dollar deposit when creating an appointment on your Online Booking site. You'll receive the funds as apart of our Next Business Day Deposit Schedule

 

What happened with your prior appointments was that a customer booked an appointments and entered their card for the no-show protection, but they weren't charged because prepayment wasn't turned on. If this isn't enabled you would take the payment in person after their appointment was complete. 

 

I hope this helps clear things up! If you still have questions please feel free to reach out to me. 😀

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Okay and I did do that now so I am in hopes it all works out. Thanks Chad.

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Im sorry, I am new to the online booking. I’ve tried to go through the thread to get an answer but I’m still confused. I need a charge to be applied to the client for booking fee to schedule an appointment. I understand we need the “prepay” option to be selected, but I need to know how I can apply just a set $50 fee that will charge them for the prepay option and not the full charge for the service. When they come in for the appointment and complete the service, I will charge them the amount of the service minus the deposit fee.

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@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?

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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?

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Square Community Moderator

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! 

Ashley C
Community Moderator, Square
Sign in and click Mark as Best Answer if my reply answers your question.
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Super Seller Alumni

Is this through the online store?

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

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Alumni

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. 🤙🏼

Puka - She/They
Seller Community UX Designer
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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?

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Square Community Moderator

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

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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.

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Square Community Moderator

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. 

 

 

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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

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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. 

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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?

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Alumni

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

Puka - She/They
Seller Community UX Designer
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