It sounds all too familiar—a client schedules an appointment only to later cancel on you—leaving you potentially out of pocket and annoyed because you've had 3 clients cancel in 2 days. Whatever the case may be, charging your clients a Deposit can drastically reduce the likelihood of cancellations.
Simple Salon allows you to take a Deposit when your clients make an Online Booking. This will ensure that your clients value your time the same way you do. It's also less likely a client will forget their appointment if a deposit has already been paid!
This article will specifically cover taking deposits through Online Bookings. If you're looking to take deposits through POS instead, please click here.
We'll be covering the following (you can use the following links to jump ahead):
- How to Enable Deposits for Online Bookings
- What Happens on the Client's End when Deposits are Required
- How to Use a Client's Deposit in POS
- Viewing a Client's Deposit Balance via Client Card
- Canceling an Open Appointment with a Deposit from the Appointments Page
- Refunding Deposits
- Reporting
One thing to note about Simple Salon's Deposits system is that Deposits are assigned to the client and not just to one specific booking. Once a Deposit has been collected (i.e when an Online Booking is accepted), it can be used in POS to pay for other services/products if needed (but we'll show you more on this later in the article).
How to Enable Deposits for Online Bookings
Before you can enable Deposits, you'll need to ensure you're connected to Stripe.
If you don't already have a Stripe account linked to Simple Salon, please go to the following article to learn how:
Connecting Stripe to Online Bookings
If you're already connected to Stripe, then go to the Online tab then into Admin:
Select the Require Deposit option, and click Save.
(As long as you've followed the steps here, your Stripe account will automatically show in the Select Payment Method section as shown above)
Next step is to set your Deposit Percentage. To do this, go to Settings:
Then Cash Register (POS):
You'll see the Deposit Percentage option. Click the dropdown menu to select your percentage, and then Save:
All done! Deposits have now been enabled for your Online Booking site.
If you'd like to also enable Deposits for POS, please click here to learn how!
What Happens on the Client's End When Deposits Are Required:
- Making an Online Booking with Deposits
- Redeeming Packages with Deposits Enabled
- Client Cancels Their Own Appointment
Making an Online Booking with Deposits
The client will first choose their service, operator and date/time of appointment, as per How Clients Make Online Bookings.
Once they've chosen their appointment, they'll be taken over to review their Cart Items.
Depending on what amount you've selected as the Deposit Percentage, they'll have a Deposit Owing amount that they'll need to pay before the booking goes through:
When "Pay Deposit" is enabled, customers will also have the option to select "Full Payment" instead, in the event they'd prefer to pay the full amount prior to their appointment.
Once they've paid the Deposit amount, they'll be sent a notification that their appointment is Pending and awaiting your confirmation (that is unless of course you have Auto Approval enabled).
After the client has successfully paid for the Deposit—and their appointment is pending—a hold is placed on the user's card for the deposit amount.
If you reject the client's appointment, the hold is released on the payment and it won't be taken from the client's account.
If you approve the appointment, the deposit transaction will be processed.
Redeeming Packages with Deposits Enabled
If the client chooses a service to book (that they have already purchased previously as part of a package) the system will automatically detect this.
The client can book a package as normal via the My Packages tab (in their Online Booking account):
When they go to confirm their booking in the Shopping Cart, you'll notice they will not have to pay a Deposit:
The client can book their package item with no deposit owing, and they'll be notified that their appointment is pending and awaiting approval (unless you have Auto-Approval enabled).
Client Cancels Their Own Appointment
If the client has booked an appointment outside of your minimum cancellation period, this means clients have the option of cancelling their appointment from their end via their Online Booking account, under My Bookings:
If the client chooses to Cancel the appointment, they'll be notified that their Deposit will be refunded back onto their original form of payment.
Once confirmed, their booking will be cancelled, and Deposit refunded back onto their card.
This will be reflected in your Online Dashboard, under Booking Activities. If the client has cancelled their booking after already being accepted, the status will appear in green (i.e. appointment accepted, however cancelled after acceptance):
If the client cancels their appointment before it was accepted (while still pending), the cancelled status will appear in red (you can also hover over the status to see the reason):
Appointments cancelled by the client can also be seen via your Activity Report (Reporting > Report List).
How to Use a Client's Deposit in POS
When a client has finished their appointment and is ready to pay, you can Add Client to Sale from their Appointment as you usually would:
You'll notice on the POS screen the Deposit Paid amount:
You can Receive Payment, where the Sale Payment Details will pop up. As you can see, there is a new drop-down menu added for the Deposit/s that they have previously paid. You can proceed to Finish Sale as usual.
The Appointment has now been paid for, and the Deposit will now be taken away from their Deposit balance.
As we mentioned earlier, when a Deposit is collected (i.e. when a booking is accepted), this amount can be used in POS for other services/products.
Therefore if the client has a Deposit balance, it will still appear in POS even if the current appointment was made through the Appointments page (and they didn't pay a Deposit for it).
If they don't want to use their Deposit amount when paying for an appointment, you can click the red X next to the relevant Deposit/s so that the client can pay for the remaining amount another way:
Viewing a Client's Deposit Balance via Client Card
If you would like to view a client's current deposit balance, you can go to their Client Card > click on the Actions menu and select the Deposits 
icon:
All of their Deposit transaction history can be viewed from here:
Selecting View next to any Transaction Type will take you over to the Transaction/Invoice Details in your Transaction List:
Canceling an Open Appointment with Deposit from the Appointments Page
If you try to delete an appointment from the appointments page that has had a Deposit paid with it, you'll receive a pop-up that will ask if you would like to either Retain (the salon will keep the client's deposit) the Deposit—or Refund the Deposit (deposit goes back to client's original payment method):
Refund Deposit
If you select Refund Deposit, you'll receive a pop-up asking if you're sure you would like to delete the appointment and refund the deposit:
Select Yes if you would like to proceed.
Once it has processed, the appointment will be deleted, and the deposit will be refunded back to the client's original deposit payment method.
Retain Deposit
If you select Retain Deposit, you'll receive a pop-up asking if you're sure you would like to delete the appointment and retain the deposit:
NOTE: Selecting Yes will FORFEIT the client's deposit. Your salon will be retaining/keeping the payment.
Select Yes if you would like to proceed. Once it has processed, the appointment will be deleted, and the salon will retain the deposit amount.
Refunding Deposits
Refunding a Sale with a Deposit:
If you need to refund the whole transaction including their deposit, go to the Transaction List (via POS) and locate the original Sale.
This sale will have two payment types, i.e. Cash/EFTPOS and "Deposit used".
Click Details next to the sale with the deposit used that you are looking to refund:
Now we can select "Refund Transaction" to begin the refund process:
The items from the original transaction will appear in the POS Refund list:
By selecting Refund Payment, you'll see the original way they paid and the Deposit that was processed with the sale:
If you select Finish Refund as above—the whole refund transaction will process, and their deposit will be refunded into their original payment method.
If you click the X next to the deposit instead, you will receive the following pop-up:
NOTE: Retain Deposit is referring to the salon retaining the deposit, i.e. the deposit has been forfeited by the client and will be kept by the salon.
If you're happy to go ahead with refunding the services and forfeiting the clients deposit, go ahead and Finish Refund (you'll notice the Forfeit Deposit line item added):
Refunding the Deposit Only
If you are looking to refund a deposit that has not yet been used, you can navigate to the client's Client Card, go to the Actions menu and click on the Deposits
option.
Click "View" next to a deposit that has been "taken" (i.e. hasn't been used for an appointment yet):
This will bring you to the original deposit transaction in your Transaction List, where you can go ahead and click Refund Transaction to refund the deposit back to their original payment method:
You'll be asked to confirm the transaction, and then will be notified that the refund was successful:
Refunding a Retained Deposit
You can also refund a client's retained deposit via their Client Card > selecting the Actions menu > clicking the Deposit 
option:
Selecting "View" next to the "Deposit Retained" type will take you to the transaction on the Transaction List, where you can go ahead with the refund:
You can now click "Refund Transaction", where you will be asked if you're sure you want to refund the transaction:
Selecting "Yes" will complete the refund, and the retained deposit will be refunded back onto the client's original payment method:
You can also do this directly via your Transaction List instead. A Retained Deposit will appear as a "Sale" Type, and will have the Payment Method as "Deposit Used".
Clicking Details, you'll see that the type was a "Retained Deposit".
Reporting
Liability Report
You can view a list of outstanding deposit balances from the Liability Report (from Reporting then in the Report List).
When in the Liability Report, click Show Details next to Deposit Liability:
This will give you a list of all clients that currently have an outstanding deposit balance. You can export from the Export as CSV button, or print this report via the Print button:
Sales Report
You can view Deposits figures via the Sales Report (Reporting > Report List). You will be able to view the following specific figures relating to your Deposit transactions:
- Total Revenue from Deposits Retained
- Total Deposits Received
- Total Deposits Used
Transaction Report
If you need to look for a specific Deposit transaction, you can go to the Transaction Report (via Reporting > Report List) and use the Payment Type and Type Filters:
You can filter the Payment Type by 'Deposit', and filter the Type by either:
- Deposit Correction
- Deposit Refund Correction
- Deposit
- Deposit Refund
If you have any questions, please send them to us via the Submit a Request option in your Help & Support page.