If you have online payments enabled, your patients can pay for their appointment at the time of booking. You're able to require the full amount up front, or just a deposit—and then collect the final amount later on, at the time of the appointment. In this guide, we'll walk you through how to set up a deposit for the appointment types you offer via online bookings.
This is an optional setting. Deposits aren't mandatory (you can require the full amount, or simply not require payment at all). This guide is meant to assist those who do wish to take a deposit at the time of booking.
Require a deposit for online bookings
If you're requiring deposits, you will need to be sure that the relevant appointment types are set up to require online payment of some sort. Learn how to do that here.
Head to Settings, and then Integrations:
Under the Stripe Payments integration, add a number for the default deposit amount (in the example below, we've used $25, but you can use whatever suits you):
Save the settings—that's the first step complete. The next thing you'll want to do is head into your appointment type settings to ensure that the relevant appointment types have deposits enabled. More on that below. 👇
Enable deposits in appointment types
Head to Settings, and then Appointment types:
Select the appointment type that you know you want to require a deposit for.
On the Edit Appointment type page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and make sure that the box under Show in online bookings is checked.
Assuming it is, you'll see another field called Online payments:
If this is your first time using online payments, each appointment type will be defaulted to "Disabled".
If you select the menu under Online payments, you'll see four options:
The one you'll want to select is Require deposit during booking:
If you leave the Deposit amount field blank, patients will be required to pay the default (that you've set up in step one). If you add a different number, patients will be required to pay that amount.
Update the appointment type, and you're all set! If you're wondering what your patients will see, we're covering that next.
You can choose the settings for each appointment type, so some can require the default deposit, some can require something higher or lower, and some can require no deposit. It's entirely up to you.
How do patients pay a deposit?
When patients pay a deposit, it will be very similar to if they were paying the full amount. They'll select the appointment type, choose the relevant practitioner, date, and time, and before confirming, they'll be prompted for the deposit:
When they pay the deposit, the appointment will be confirmed, and a partially-paid invoice will be generated. You can then take the remainder of the payment at a later date, and close out the invoice.
🚨 If the patient has paid for their online booking in advance, they cannot cancel their own appointment using the cancellation link.
If you'd like to require a deposit but have it applied as a credit balance, rather than being allocated to an invoice, you can do that, too! Head over here to learn how to set it up.
Curious to know more about online payments? It's all covered here. Our support team is also available to answer any questions!