Deposits and no-show protection

A colour that takes three hours is booked for Saturday morning. Nobody arrives. That's not a gap in the diary — it's the best-paid slot of the week, sold to nobody, and no amount of being annoyed about it gets the money back.

There are two ways to stop it, and they're independent. You can take money at booking, or you can hold a card and charge only if it goes wrong.

Taking a deposit

Settings → Online booking → Deposits, then Collect a deposit at booking. A Payment step appears in the client's flow before they can finish, and the balance is due at the salon.

Two shapes:

• Percentage of the service total — a $500 colour asks for more than a $30 trim. Set 100% and you're taking the whole thing up front.
• Fixed amount — the same sum whatever's booked, minimum $1.00.

The percentage runs on the service prices, not the finished bill, so add-ons are settled in person. A fixed deposit is capped at what's being booked, so it can never exceed the appointment it's holding.

Individual services can override this. A service can be set to require a deposit even when your salon-wide switch is off, or to never need one when it is — which is the answer for a menu where one three-hour service is the whole problem and everything else is fine.

Holding a card instead

Card on file → Require a card on file to book asks the client to save a card at booking without charging it. If they no-show or cancel late, the fee from your cancellation policy is charged automatically.

Both of these need card payments connected under Settings → Payments. Until then they're visibly disabled with a link to go and finish it, rather than letting you switch on something that can't work.

Setting the fee

Settings → Cancellation policy is where the numbers live.

• Self-service cutoff — how close to the appointment a client can still reschedule or cancel on their own.
• Late-cancel window — a cancellation inside this counts as late.
• How the fee is worked out — Share of the service, or Flat amount.

Share of the service is usually the right answer, and the panel underneath shows why: it prices your live numbers on a $500 colour and a $30 trim side by side. A flat fee big enough to matter on the colour is punitive on the trim, and one small enough to be fair on the trim doesn't cover the colour. The caps are there for the top end.

Why the client has to agree

None of this charges anything unless the client ticked I agree to the cancellation policy at booking. That tick is what turns your terms into something you can point at, and the exact wording they saw is stored with their appointment — which is what you'd need if a charge is ever disputed.

Your Policy text is what they read. If writing it is the thing stopping you, Draft with AI on that screen writes it from the fee settings you've already saved — save first, then draft, or it describes the old numbers.