Deposits, also called upfront payments, down payments, or advance amounts, help prevent no-shows, late cancellations, and profit loss by making sure timeslots are not wasted. When a customer no-shows or cancels their appointment or class, you get to keep their deposit.
You can configure your Vagaro Listing Page to require a deposit for services or classes booked online as an upfront cost or percentage, or manually charge a deposit when booking from your calendar.
Note
Vagaro only accepts and processes deposits and fees from Vagaro Merchant Services.
Prerequisites: This feature requires Credit Card Processing and the Online Shopping Cart.
Here's what you should know about deposits in Vagaro.
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Appointments and classes with the 100% Prepaid Appointment
, Partial Deposit
, Deposit Paid by Membership
, and Deposit Paid by Package
icons have been fully or partially paid for.
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Customers can use a membership or package visit to fully pay for an appointment that requires a deposit.
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If a membership is used to partially discount a service or class, the deposit amount will be recalculated accordingly.
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Any deposits paid with a card online will automatically store that card in the customer's profile.
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If you have a Vagaro Merchant Account, you'll receive your funds for the deposit one business day after the deposit is paid. Please see our batch time schedule for when you will receive your funds. Employees with their own merchant account will receive the funds for any deposits paid for on their bookings.
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If you run Payroll through Vagaro, employees will receive money from the deposit on the same Payroll Cycle as the appointment date.
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You can refund a deposit when you (or the customer) cancel an appointment. This can be set up automatically from your online appointment settings or directly from the Calendar.
Note
A 100% deposit is due upon booking a live stream service or class, regardless of this setting, to prevent customers from bypassing payments to your business.
To set up deposits for services:
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Go to Online Shopping Cart:
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Phone: Select More
→ → .
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Computer, Tablet, Pay Desk, or PayPro: Select Settings
→ .
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Scroll down to Require Deposit or Capture Credit Card at the time of Booking Services and select Deposits.
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Enter the Deposit Due and configure your deposit:
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In the Deposit Due box, set a percentage-based or fixed deposit.
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In the For Bookings Greater Than or Equal To box, enter the minimum service price that requires a deposit.
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Optionally, to have these settings apply to in-house deposits, select Use Same Rules for In-House Deposits.
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Under Require Payment for, choose what type of customers require a deposit by selecting one or more of the following options:
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New customer appointments: Customers who don't have a customer profile at your business.
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Old customer appointments: Customers who already have a customer profile at your business.
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Mobile service appointments: Customers who schedule a mobile service appointment
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Customer with no-shows or cancellations: Customers who have cancelled or missed an appointment at least once at your business.
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In the Appointment Cancellation Policy box, enter a cancellation policy for your business if you haven't already.
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Select Save.
From now on, the system will prompt the customer to pay upfront for their appointment when booking online.
To set up deposits for classes:
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Go to Online Shopping Cart:
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Phone: Select More
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Computer, Tablet, Pay Desk, or PayPro: Select Settings
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Scroll down to Require Deposit or Capture Credit Card at the time of Booking Classes and select Deposits.
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Enter the Deposit Due and configure your deposit:
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In the Deposit Due box, set a percentage-based or fixed deposit.
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In the For Bookings Greater Than or Equal To box, enter the minimum class price that requires a deposit.
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Optionally, to have these settings apply to in-house deposits, select Use Same Rules for In-House Deposits.
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Under Require Payment for, choose what type of customers require a deposit by selecting one or more of the following options:
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New customer appointments: Customers who don't have a customer profile at your business.
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Old customer appointments: Customers who already have a customer profile at your business.
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Customer with no-shows or cancellations: Customers who have cancelled or missed an appointment at least once at your business.
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In the Class Cancellation Policy box, enter a cancellation policy for your business if you haven't already.
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Select Save.
From now on, the system will prompt the customer to pay upfront for their appointment when booking online.
Comments
16 comments
What happens to the deposit if they cancel before the cancellation window?
Hi, Jessi. It depends on your settings in the Online Appointment Rules screen. If you want your customers to automatically get their deposits back, toggle on Automatically Refund Prepaid Appointments. You can refer to this article for more information about this screen: https://support.vagaro.com/hc/en-us/articles/204347060-Set-Online-Appointment-Rules-Web-Version.
Is there a way to not have the deposit automatically go into the same payroll as the week they paid their deposit, especially if the service is a couple months booked out? Also we have multiple stylist, and we change appointments around, but the deposit will not move with that new stylist, how do we fix this?
Hi Megan,
Because Payroll reporting is based on Appointment Date, not Transaction Date, the deposit cannot currently be paid to employees during the same payroll cycle.
However, if you are changing appointments around, you'll need to go to the Transaction List and change the Sold By employee for the deposit. See the screenshot below.
Thanks, Jamie
If they cancel the future appointment closer to their appointment date, will this be takin out of the employees future payroll automatically because it was refunded?
Hi Megan,
If an appointment is cancelled before the scheduled date and the deposit is refunded, the refunded deposit will not be included in future payrolls. Funds will only be deducted from future payrolls if a past appointment has been refunded. In this case, the refunded amount will be taken out of the employee's next payroll cycle.
On the other hand, if you opt not to refund the deposit for a cancelled appointment, the employee will receive their funds in the payroll cycle of the original appointment date.
Thanks, Jamie
I would like to make my depostis non refundable. Is there somewhere I can advise clients of my deposit policy or is there a receipt of deposit notification I can sent them that contains this information?
Hi Amaris, by default, all deposits are non-refundable unless you configure your settings to automatically refund your customers when they cancel. If you want to emphasize that they are non-refundable, make sure that you mention this in your business's cancellation and refund policies. These policies can be edited in your Online Appointment Rules and Online Shopping Cart settings.
Thanks, Jamie
Is there a way to set different deposits for different services that may require 100% deposit or some other type of deposit
Hi Tiffany,
As of now, Vagaro only supports one universal deposit rule per business. That means whatever deposit amount or percentage you set will apply to all services that require deposits. There's no way to set different deposit requirements for different services individually.
Thanks, Jamie
Yes different tiers for deposits would be nice!
I would also like to request that we are able to set up a deposit for only certain services and credit card on file for others
Jamie B If I require deposits for a service, do I receive the money when the client books, or on the date the service happens?
Hi Jada,
You’ll receive the deposit funds the next business day after your customer books. For example, if a customer pays a $50 deposit on Monday for an appointment scheduled for a future date, the deposit will be deposited on Tuesday.
The remaining balance is deposited one business day after the customer pays for the rest of the service.
Note: The only exception to this is if you run Payroll through Vagaro; employees will receive the deposit on the same Payroll Cycle as the appointment date.
Thanks,
Jamie
I would like to be able to choose when deposit payouts occur - for example, we take deposits for bridal services made a year in advance at times. if the artist becomes unavailable and we have to move that service to a different artist, there is no way to do that because the original artist was already paid. I feel as though it makes more sense for the deposit payout to happen on the pay cycle when the service occurs.
Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your feedback! I'd say, for now, your best bet is to require a credit card on file and manually charge a deposit later, rather than at booking.
Here's an article that covers the process: https://support.vagaro.com/hc/en-us/articles/17733270662427-Manually-Collect-a-Customer-Deposit-From-the-Calendar. Note that you'll need to edit the booking, not create one.
Thanks, Jamie
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