Deposits and paying in full

Decide per service whether customers pay nothing, a deposit, or everything.

Every service can be paid for in one of three ways: nothing up front, a deposit, or the whole price at the moment of booking. Set one default for the site, then override it wherever a category or service needs to differ.

The three ways a service can be paid for

These are the choices, wherever a deposit is set. The figures assume £45.00.

Full amount (100%) is not really a deposit — it charges the entire price and shows to your customer as Pay in full. The amount due is always held between zero and the price, so a £50.00 fixed deposit on a £45.00 service takes £45.00.

Set the site-wide default

The Deposits card lives on Settings Booking rules — not the Payments tab, where most people look first.

• 1Bookings tab — deposits live here, with Booking references and Bank statement name. The Payments tab below holds your balance, payouts and refunds, and no deposit settings.
• 2Require a deposit when customers book — the default for every service. Until a payment method is ready the card reads "To take deposits you first need to set up payments".
• 3Deposit type and the amount — the second box becomes Deposit amount (£) for a fixed sum, and disappears for Full amount (100%).

Override it for one category or one service

Deposits cascade: the service decides, unless it defers to its category, unless that defers to the site-wide setting. The first level not set to inherit wins — so you can take 50% on private travel clinics and leave NHS services free to book.

1. Open Booked › Business › Services and click the serviceThe editor opens on General, where Deposit sits under Price.
2. Change Deposit from "Use category default"No deposit exempts one service from a site-wide rule. Percentage (%) or Amount (£) appears for the two modes that need a figure.
3. Click Save serviceThe six tabs share one form, and switching between them saves nothing.

• 1Price — the deposit is worked out from this figure, for one person. A percentage follows a price change; a fixed amount does not.
• 2Deposit — Use category default inherits; anything else stops the cascade here. Categories show the same list with Use global default on top.
• 3Amount (£) — the flat sum taken from every booking of this service. For a percentage the label reads Percentage (%).

While a service inherits, a hint underneath names what it picks up — "Its category holds a 30% deposit — override it here?" Choose your own setting and the hint goes.

What your customer sees

Before any card is asked for, the details step reads "A £15.00 deposit secures your appointment. The £30.00 balance is due at your visit." The confirm button carries the figure — Confirm booking · £15.00 deposit, or Confirm & pay · £45.00 for the full price. With no deposit it shows the price, badged "No card needed".

• 1Deposit due today — what the card is charged now. When the whole price is taken this reads Amount due today, with no balance line.
• 2The card fields — carry your own colours and fonts, so no other company's branding appears. Apple Pay and Google Pay sit above them on devices that allow it.
• 3Pay £15.00 — once the card clears, the booking becomes Confirmed and the payment is recorded as Deposit paid, or Paid in full if the charge covered the price.

What is owed on the day

Open the appointment and the Payment section shows Status (Deposit paid), Amount paid (£15.00) and Method (Booked Payments — card). The balance is the price less the amount paid.

Take that balance the way you take any counter payment — your till or your card machine. Booked has no box for it. Once a booking is part-paid the Payment dropdown locks to a read-only pill, so you cannot promote "Deposit paid" to "Paid in full" by hand; only unpaid bookings offer the manual Unpaid / Paid (cash / in person) choice. The appointment keeps reading Deposit paid — it records the card, not your till.

To give a deposit back, Refund payment on the booking refunds the whole charge. Part refunds live on Settings Payments, where each transaction offers Full, Half or a custom amount — but a part refund there leaves the booking reading Deposit paid.

Where deposits show in your numbers

Each row in Bookings carries a badge next to the price — Paid, Deposit paid or Refunded. Sync payments matches card payments back to their appointments, and runs on its own whenever you open the list.

• 1Sync payments — safe to press as often as you like; it skips whatever is already correct.
• 2Deposit paid — £45.00 is the appointment's value, and the badge says money is still outstanding. A row with no badge has had nothing charged online.

Two tiles on Analytics show the whole picture. Expected revenue is the value of the appointments booked; Taken revenue is money collected online. The gap between them is roughly what is left to take at the counter. The Dashboard repeats it as Expected this month and Taken this month.

Where deposits catch people out

• Group bookings charge one person's deposit. Three people on a £15.00 service saves as a £45.00 booking, but the deposit comes off £15.00 — even on Full amount (100%). The booking reads Deposit paid.
• Same-visit add-ons are not charged. Only the main service's deposit is taken, although the confirmation screen shows a combined total.
• A course takes one payment. Visit 1 carries the whole price and each follow-up is saved at £0.00, so one charge covers several appointments.
• A free service never charges. A price of £0.00 — and a blank price saves as £0.00 — produces no deposit whatever the settings say.
• Overrides ignore whether payments are ready. Set one too early and your customer is told a deposit secures their appointment, then never asked for a card.