Take payment at the desk

Turn any appointment into a bill at the front desk: add services, items and discounts, then take the money from a saved card, in cash or on your own card machine.

Take payment turns Booked into a till for your front desk. Every appointment gets a bill that starts at its own price. Add another service, a product or a discount, then take the money from a card the customer saved with you, in cash, or on your own card machine. Part payments are fine, and a deposit paid online sits on the same bill as the money taken at the desk, so the figures always add up.

It is built for whoever is on the desk when the customer comes out: a receptionist, a dispenser, or the pharmacist between patients.

Switch it on

1. Open FeaturesIt is under System. Take payment is in the Taking money group: "A till on every appointment: add services, items and discounts, then charge the card they saved or record cash or your card machine."
2. Flip its switchIt saves at once. The pill changes from Off to On, an Open button appears, and Payments joins the sidebar under Bookings.

The Take payment and Walk-in buttons on bookings and in the diary appear when the page loads, so reload the page if they are missing after you switch on. Only people who can edit Features can flip the switch. Switching it off hides the screen and its buttons but deletes nothing; a bill left open then says "Take payment is switched off. Turn it on in Features."

Open a bill

There are three ways in: the Take payment tab on the Payments screen, Take payment in a booking’s Quick actions, and Take payment in the diary pop-over. All three open the same bill. For somebody who is not booked in, Walk-in (on the Payments screen, the diary and the Bookings list) and Quick sale open a bill of their own; see Walk-ins and quick sales.

The Take payment tab

The Take payment tab lists only the bills that still owe money: appointments, no-shows included but never cancelled ones, and quick sales. It opens on Today; Overdue, This week and All time widen it. A bill that has been paid is not listed here. Find it under All payments and click the customer to open it.

• 1All payments / Take payment — the two tabs. All payments lists every payment over a range of days and is where money is given back; see the All payments tab. Take payment is every bill that still owes money. The screen opens on All payments the first time, then reopens whichever tab you used last.
• 2Quick sale / Walk-in — start a bill for somebody who is not in the diary. Only people who can edit Take payment see them.
• 3Today / Overdue / This week / All time — which bills to list. Today is today’s. Overdue is every appointment before today that still owes money. This week is today and the next seven days. All time is everything owing, past and future. Booked remembers the one you chose.
• 4The tiles — Still to collect adds up what the listed bills still owe, and says how many bills that is. Overdue is the part of it on appointments that have been and gone. Part paid counts the bills with something already paid, with how many have nothing paid under it. Each carries the period it covers: Today, Before today, Next 7 days or All time.
• 5The pill — Part paid or Unpaid. The bill itself has a few more states; see the table below.
• 6Check out — opens the bill. Beside it is what is left to pay, with "£23.40 paid of £78.00" under it, or "to pay of £40.00" when nothing has been paid yet. Team members who can only view see Open bill instead.

Today and This week run in time order. Overdue and All time show the most recent first, with the date under the time, in red once the appointment has been and gone. At most 300 bills are listed; past that, a line above the list reads "Showing the most recent 300 of 481 bills. The figures above count them all." An empty list says "Nobody owes anything today.", "Nothing overdue. Everyone has paid up." or "Nothing owing."

From a booking or the diary

• 1Take payment · £88.98 — in Quick actions on an open booking, in green. The amount is what the bill still owes, extras and discounts included. Once nothing is owed it reads just Take payment.
• 2Take payment — in the pop-over you get by clicking an appointment in the diary, next to Open booking. The bill opens over the diary, and the diary reloads when you close it.

Neither button appears on a cancelled appointment, or for team members who can only view Take payment. Closing a bill opened from a booking refreshes the booking.

What is on the bill

The bill belongs to the appointment, so anyone who opens it sees the same lines and payments. Every change saves as you make it.

• 1Where it stands, and when — the bill’s pill, then the time and who they are seeing, under the customer’s name. A walk-in has a Walk-in tag after the pill.
• 2The appointment — always the first line, at the price on the booking. It has no × and cannot come off.
• 3+15 min — this service also made the appointment 15 minutes longer in the diary.
• 4× — takes the line off the bill. See Take a line off below for when Booked refuses.
• 5The discount — named after its reason, with the percentage. Discounts always sit at the foot of the lines, in green with a minus.
• 6+ Service, + Custom item, + Discount — each opens a small form under the buttons. Press the same button again to close it.
• 7The totals — Before discount and Total, explained in the list below. What is still owed is in the panel on the right, under To pay; see Take the money.

• Before discount appears once there is a discount: everything before anything comes off.
• Total is what the visit costs.
• To pay, in the panel on the right, is the total less everything paid on this bill, online and at the desk. Under it, "£10.00 of £98.98 paid already" says how much of that is in. Giving money back does not add to it.
• Payments, under the lines, lists every payment and every refund with its own line, in green with a minus for a refund.

Add a service

1. Press + ServiceA grey panel opens under the buttons.
2. Choose the serviceType in Search services…. Every active service is listed, whatever the customer booked.
3. Check Qty and Price (£)The price is filled in from the service. Change it for this visit if you need to; the service itself is not changed.
4. Decide about the timeTick Also add its 15 minutes to the appointment in the diary if the visit runs longer. Leave it unticked to put it on the bill only.
5. Press Add to billThe line appears and the totals update.

• 1Service — search by name. The till has its own list of services, so staff who take payment do not need access to the Services screen.
• 2Qty — from 1 to 50. Two of a service show as one line, "× 2", at the price of both.
• 3Price (£) — the price of one, filled in from the service. Change it for this visit if you need to.
• 4Also add its 15 minutes… — only on an appointment, and only for a service with a length. The minutes are the service’s length times the quantity.
• 5Add to bill — greyed out until you choose a service.
• 6The refusal — nothing has been added. It appears in red near the foot of the bill, under the payment buttons, not next to the form.

With the box ticked, the appointment ends later. The diary shows it at once and any connected calendar is updated, but the customer is not emailed. Taking the line off gives the minutes back.

Booked will not stretch an appointment into the next one for the same member of staff: "That would run into Holly Price at 12:00. Add it to the bill only, or move one of them first." Untick the box and add it again, or move one of the appointments. Booked only checks that person’s other appointments, not breaks or closing time, and cannot check when nobody is on the appointment.

Add a custom item

For anything that is not a service, such as sun cream, press + Custom item. Fill in What it is, Qty and Price (£), the price of one, and press Add to bill. It stays greyed out until the item has a name and a price. A custom item never changes the diary.

Add a discount

Press + Discount. Under Take off, choose A percentage or An amount, type the figure, add a Reason (optional) such as "Loyalty", and press Take it off. Without a reason the line is called "Discount".

• An amount takes off exactly that, but never takes the bill below zero.
• A percentage takes its share of every service and item above it. Discounts always sit at the foot of the bill, so a percentage also covers anything added later. Two percentages are each worked out on the whole bill: 10% and 5% take off 15%. Over 100% gets "A discount cannot be more than 100%."

Take a line off

Press the × at the end of a line. The appointment’s own line has none; to charge less for it, add a discount. A line cannot come off if that would leave the bill below what the customer has already paid: "That has been paid for, so it stays on the bill. Refund the payment instead, from Payments." Once the money has gone back (see Refunds), the line can come off.

Take the money

The panel on the right of the bill is where the money is taken. It shows what is To pay, the ways to pay, the amount and one button. Choose a way, check the amount and press the button.

• 1Card on file — the customer’s saved card, by brand and last four digits. It is only listed when there is a card you may charge.
• 2Cash — records cash handed over at the desk.
• 3Card machine — records a payment you have already taken on your own terminal.
• 4Amount (£) — starts at the full To pay. Lower it to take part now and the rest later; All of it (£88.98) puts the full figure back.
• 5Record £40.00 in cash — the button carries the amount and the way. It reads Charge £40.00 to the card for Card on file, which takes the money there and then, and Record £40.00 in cash or Record £40.00 on the card machine for the other two, which only write it down. While it works it reads Taking payment…
• 6Payments — every payment on this bill, how and when, with any refunds under them. It appears under the lines once anything has been paid.
• 7Close — becomes Done once nothing is left to pay. Closing loses nothing.

• Card on file charges a card the customer left with you when they paid a deposit online. It is only listed for appointments, when you use Booked Payments with Saved cards switched on and the customer has a card you may charge. Booked uses the card saved with the customer’s permission that is still in date; you cannot pick another. See Cards on file.
• Cash just writes the payment down. Booked does not count change, so record what they owe, not what they handed you.
• Card machine is your own terminal, and Booked does not talk to it. Take the payment on the machine first and record it once the machine says it went through.

Booked starts on Card on file when there is a card to charge, otherwise on Cash. An amount of nothing, or more than To pay, gets "Enter an amount up to £88.98." To charge more, add it to the bill first.

The payment PIN. If you have set one under Payment protection, Charge opens Enter your payment PIN: "Charges, refunds and payouts on this site need your six-digit payment PIN." Type it and press Confirm; Cancel charges nothing. Cash and card machine never ask.

When the money is in, the panel says what happened:

If a card charge fails, nothing is taken and the reason shows in red:

What the customer receives

After every payment, part or full, Booked emails the Payment receipt, subject "Your receipt from Meridian Pharmacy". It shows the amount paid; the bill’s lines, when there is more on it than the appointment; what it was for and when; the booking reference; when and how it was paid ("Cash", "Card machine" or "Card on file ending 4242"); and the total price, what is left to pay and, after an earlier payment, what they have paid so far.

It only goes when the booking has an email address; without one the bill just says "Paid in full." Edit it or switch it off under Messages › Email templates, in the Money group (see Editing templates). Adding lines, discounts or minutes never emails the customer.

What changes in your records

• Payment status. On the Take payment tab a bill reads Unpaid or Part paid, and the bill itself Paid once it is settled. Elsewhere a part-paid bill looks like a deposit: Deposit on the Bookings list, Deposit paid on the booking, "Deposit paid · balance on the day" in the diary. Paid off, it becomes Paid or Paid in full. The booking’s Amount paid is everything taken less anything given back.
• The bill’s Payments list. Each payment shows how it was made: Card, online, Card on file, Cash, Card machine or Recorded by hand, with refunds such as "Refund · Cash back". The booking’s own Method line only says "Booked Payments — card" or "Recorded manually", so check the bill for the detail.
• The activity log. Each line added or taken off, and each payment, such as "Took £40.00 by Cash" or "Charged £40.00 to the card ending 4242".
• The All payments tab. Every payment, with the name of whoever took it.

Online and desk money add up. Eleanor paid a £10.00 deposit online, so her bill opened with Paid £10.00, listed as Card, online. She pays £40.00 in cash today and the last £48.98 on your card machine on Friday. The bill lists all three, its panel reads Paid in full, and so does the booking. A booking marked paid by hand before you switched Take payment on opens as paid, listed as Recorded by hand.

Who can use it

Owners always can. For everyone else it is the Take payment row, in the Bookings group, when you change someone’s access under Team (see Team access).

• View gives them the screen, both tabs and every bill to look at, but no Walk-in, Quick sale or Take payment buttons. Every row on the Take payment tab reads Open bill, and the bill has no add buttons, no × and no ways to pay. It says "You can see this bill but not change it or take payment. Ask the account owner for Take payment at Edit."
• Edit adds everything else. The Front desk, Manager and Full access presets include it at Edit.
• Only their own appointments limits them to bills for appointments they are on and quick sales they started; Branches to the branches you tick.
• No Services permission needed. The till has its own list of services and staff.
• Refunds are separate. The Refunds row below it is No access or Edit. Front desk and Manager leave it off; Full access includes it. Without it there is no way to give money back, from the All payments tab or from a booking. See Refunds.

Cancelled appointments

A cancelled appointment’s bill is closed. It is left off the Take payment tab and has no Take payment button on the booking or in the diary. Opened from the All payments tab, by clicking the customer on one of its payments, it shows its lines, total and payments, with no add buttons and no ×. Where the ways to pay would be, a lock says "This appointment is cancelled, so nothing more can go on its bill and no money can be taken for it. Refunds are given from Payments › All payments."

If the appointment is cancelled while its bill is open, Booked refuses what you try next, for example "This is closed, so nothing more can go on its bill." or "This is closed, so no money can be taken for it." Money already taken stays, and can be given back from Payments › All payments. No-shows are not closed.

Common questions

• Can I take payment for a past appointment? Yes. It stays on the Take payment tab, under Overdue and All time, for as long as it owes money; or open the booking. All payments counts the money on the day you take it.
• What if they pay part now and part later? Lower the Amount and record what they give you. The bill stays Part paid and stays on the Take payment tab. When they come back, press Check out and take the rest. Each payment gets its own line and its own receipt.
• Why is there no Card on file? There is no card Booked may charge: they never left one, it has expired, it was kept without permission, or the booking has no customer record (a walk-in with no email address). It is also never offered when you are not on Booked Payments, when Saved cards is off, or on a quick sale.
• Does the customer get an email? A receipt after every payment, if the booking has an email address and the Payment receipt is switched on. Nothing else, and a walk-in gets no booking confirmation.
• Can they pay more, or leave a tip? No. Add a custom item first.
• I recorded the wrong amount. Can I undo it? No. Give it back from the All payments tab, which needs Refunds, then record the right amount. The customer is emailed about the refund, in words that match how it went back, such as "It has been given back to you in cash."