Set up and accept deposits with Square Appointments
About setting up and editing appointments deposits
Appointment deposits allow you to require a partial payment on each service when a customer books an appointment online. Deposits help you prevent no-shows, collect upfront payment to cover supplies and help project professionalism to your customers.
You can choose to require a deposit for all services or set up deposits for specific services. For example, you can require a higher deposit for premium services while leaving other services deposit-free.
Before you begin
Deposits require a Square Appointments account (Free plan or paid subscription).
Deposits are collected when a client books online. We do not currently support taking payment for a deposit when you book an appointment on behalf of your customer.
You can require deposits for all services or select specific services that require a deposit.
Appointments with a deposit cannot be checked out using Invoices as a payment method.
Appointments with a deposit cannot be checked out on mobile while in Offline Mode.
Loyalty rewards cannot currently be redeemed at checkout for appointments booked with a deposit.
When a customer books multiple services that each have a deposit, the deposit amounts are combined into a single charge at checkout.
Packages cannot be redeemed on services that require a deposit.
Set up deposits
You can set up deposits from your Square Dashboard, iOS devices and Android devices.
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Appointments > Settings > Payments & cancellations.
- Under Payments click on your current policy and select Require a deposit.
- Select whether you want to charge a fixed amount or percentage on each service.
- Add a deposit policy, which will be displayed to your customers online at checkout. Select if you want to include whether deposits are refundable or not.
- You can optionally set up collecting taxes on deposits when clients no-show or cancel.
- Deposits are applied only to fixed price services. Services set up as ‘price varies’ will not require a deposit to book.
- Fixed amount deposits will only be applied to services with a price equal to or greater than the deposit amount.
- Navigate to More > Settings > Appointments > Payments & cancellations.
- Select Require a deposit.
- Select whether you want to charge a fixed amount or percentage on each service.
- Add a deposit policy, which will be displayed to your customers online at checkout. Select if you want to include whether deposits are refundable or not.
- You can optionally enable collecting taxes on deposits when clients no-show or cancel.
Customers booking with deposits
Customers booking online will see the total deposit required at checkout. They must pay the required deposit to complete their booking and will receive an email confirmation of their deposit payment.
Note: If a customer books multiple services that each require a deposit, the total deposit charged is the sum of the deposit amount for each service.
After booking and paying deposits, customers can reschedule their appointment on their own prior to your cutoff time. You can configure your booking cut-off time by navigating on your Square Dashboard to Payments & cancellations.
Learn more about managing booking cancellations and prepayment policies.
Refund an appointment deposit
If a deposit payment has been taken, but the appointment has not yet been checked out, first cancel the appointment or mark it as no-show. You will be given the option to refund the customer while completing this action.
If you have already cancelled the appointment, marked it as no-show or taken full payment for the appointment, you can issue a refund by viewing the payment in Transactions and then selecting Issue refund.
Staff commissions on deposits
Staff commissions will be calculated when the appointment is checked out and will be calculated on the full cost of each service (inclusive of any deposits paid).