Customer Prepayment for Square Appointments
With customer prepayment, you can easily manage your cash flow by requiring that customers prepay for fixed-priced services when they book online. Any payments accepted this way will be transferred according to your transfer schedule. Customer prepayment can be enabled from your online Square Dashboard and the Square Appointments app, or on your Square Register.
You can accept any credit, debit, or prepaid cards with a Visa, MasterCard, or American Express logo for prepayment. The maximum prepayment transaction size is £3,800. Note: Clients can use Square Gift Cards as a prepayment method.
Set a Payment Policy for Booking Online
With Square Appointments, you can select from three payment options for booking online: No Requirements to Book Appointment, Hold a Card for No-Show Protection, and Require Prepayment.
No requirement to book is the default option. Clients will not see your cancellation policy during booking or in their appointment notifications if you select this option.
Require full prepayment and Hold a card for no-show protection require you to create a cancellation policy. You can also require clients to save their card on file if you select either of these options. For prepayment, your cancellation policy should specify how you refund your clients in the event of last-minute cancellations or reschedules. Learn more about creating your cancellation policy.
Note: If you are not activated to accept card payments with Square, you will be required to verify your identity before you can enable this feature. This process should be completed by the account holder. Learn more about what’s required to sign up for Square Point of Sale.
To enable customer prepayment from your online Appointments Dashboard:
Visit Settings > Payments & Cancellations.
Click Require Prepayment > Define your cancellation policy. Your customers will be required to agree to your policy before booking online.
If you’d like to require that clients save the card inputted as a card on file, toggle on “Require a card on file for future payments”.
Click Save.
To enable customer prepayment from the Appointments app:
Tap Settings > Online Booking.
Tap Accept Online Payments.
To enable customer prepayment when using Square Appointments on Square Register:
Navigate to Online Booking.
Select Square Booking Site.
Select Accept Online Payments.
Tap Require Prepayment.
Learn more about managing services and pricing options.
You can also accept customer prepayment when you create an appointment from your calendar if you have your customer’s card on file.
Manage Appointments with Customer Prepayment
When your customers prepay for services from your online booking site, the payments will appear in your Square balance and be transferred to your linked bank account. Learn more about linking and editing your bank account.
If a customer needs to cancel or reschedule a prepaid appointment, they must contact you directly to do so. Any changes made to a prepaid appointment after it is booked will not be reflected in your reports and will require a manual refund if needed.
If you decline an appointment, a refund will be automatically issued back to the original payment card and your customer will be notified. You can decline an appointment at any time. Refunds for cancellations exceeding 60 days from the date of booking must be issued outside of Square. Learn more about processing refunds.
Fees
Transaction fees for accepting payments in advance are 1.4% + 25p for UK cards and 2.5% + 25p for non-UK cards per transaction.
Learn more about setting up your cancellation policy with Square Appointments.