Booking Deposits

A deposit makes a booking cost something to abandon. REV23 tracks it as real money with an owner from the moment it’s collected to the moment it’s spent, refunded, or forfeited, and never decides what happens to it without you.

Deposits are collected through checkouts and land as credits, both part of the Sales feature, so Sales needs to be on alongside Booking.

Requiring a deposit

Set a deposit with Deposit to book in the service type’s booking defaults, or type an amount directly on a booking. Artists can carry their own deposit amounts on their skills.

One deposit secures the whole appointment. A booking that combines several services or quantities requires the highest deposit among the selected services, once: deposits never add together, and quantity never multiplies them. A $15 lobe plus a $10 jewelry change requires $15, and two lobes with a $15 deposit still require a single $15 deposit. An amount typed on the booking or a booking invite overrides this default.

A deposit offer starts after every earlier approval requirement has cleared. A booking that needs no review begins Awaiting deposit right away. A Request to book remains Pending first; approving it moves the booking to Awaiting deposit and sends the customer the payment amount, exact deadline, and payment link. A booking invite is already approved, so its deposit offer starts when the customer claims the time.

The offer blocks the slot until it is paid or expires. Set its length under Settings → Booking → Offer expiry (hours). The clock starts when the booking becomes Awaiting deposit. Approving a request, or adding or increasing a deposit on an approved appointment, starts a new clock.

The deadline shown to the customer is also enforced when they pay. When it passes unpaid, the booking becomes Deposit expired, the time is released, and REV23 sends the enabled Deposit offer expired text or email. The customer’s manage page explains that the appointment was not confirmed and asks them to contact the studio for another time. Approve without deposit waives the deposit and confirms the appointment.

Approval and deposits

Auto-approve deposit bookings (Settings → Booking → Booking Settings) applies to deposit offers that did not already pass a review step. It is on by default, and each artist can carry their own setting:

• On: full payment confirms the booking.
• Off: full payment leaves the booking Pending with its deposit attached until you approve it.

The setting never repeats a review. When a Request to book has already been approved, full payment confirms it even if Auto-approve deposit bookings is off. Paying against a plain Pending request also cannot skip approval.

Nothing is confirmed until the full deposit is covered; a partial payment leaves the booking Awaiting deposit.

Collecting

Collect deposit on the booking opens an inline payment panel: the same fast flow as Take payment on a service, no tip prompt (it’s a pre-payment), split tender supported, and an Open full cart escape hatch for anything fancier. Online, the customer pays from the booking flow or their manage link. A studio with no online card processor connected doesn’t show a payment step at all: the customer gets a pay-in-person deadline instead, automatically.

Paid, the deposit becomes a deposit credit on the customer’s account, linked to the booking, with the sale visible from the checkout. The customer’s Credits tab and the Balances report both show who the deposit is for (the artist), as distinct from who’s holding the cash.

That attribution follows the booking. Reassign the booking and a studio-held deposit moves with it, recorded on the credit’s ledger — so a later forfeit pays the artist who actually lost the slot. It holds the other way too: a deposit held in the artist’s own account pins the booking, which can’t change artists until that deposit is resolved. A deposit with no booking behind it takes direct assignment instead.

A live deposit surfaces at payment time so it gets applied instead of stranding while the customer pays full freight: the full cart offers customer credit as a tender, and the service’s Take payment panel shows the amount on file and opens the full checkout to apply it. Applying a deposit to a different artist’s sale asks for confirmation first rather than blocking it.

When an Approved booking’s deposit is applied to the completed sale for that appointment’s exact session, the booking stops controlling any remainder. Its link to the deposit remains part of the history, but the remainder can be forfeited later from the completed sale or Credits. The booking stays Approved.

While a card deposit is being authorized, the booking shows Processing deposit: the slot stays blocked, reschedule and cancel wait until the payment finishes, and if the full requirement still isn’t covered it returns to Awaiting deposit. A stalled attempt releases the processing hold within minutes.

REV23 does not check the calendar again when a customer pays through a deposit link. If the studio deliberately booked over the held time, the deposit can still complete. Payment is refused when the offer has expired or another deposit payment is already processing; the expired offer leaves the card uncharged.

No-show deposit decisions

Marking a no-show on a deposit-holding booking asks what happens to the money, in three options:

• Keep the full deposit as a fee — the studio keeps all of it.
• Keep part as a fee — the studio keeps some; the rest stays as spendable credit on the customer’s account.
• No fee — keep it as their credit — the full amount stays spendable. Not refunded to their card.

Whatever’s kept forfeits to the studio, and the artist’s share (their deposit forfeit rate, per-studio override supported) posts to payroll as a forfeited-deposit earning; a deposit with no artist attached stays entirely with the studio. Either way the kept amount is recognized as income on the day of the forfeit. Restoring a no-show does not un-forfeit the deposit. A forfeit can be reversed from the customer’s Credits tab, which restores the balance and claws back the artist’s share in one step.

Cancellation deposit decisions

Cancelling never auto-forfeits. The cancel dialog asks who’s cancelling: the studio (doesn’t affect reliability) or the customer (counts, unless you tick Don’t count this against them). Then it asks what happens to the deposit, with the same keep-full, keep-part, or keep-nothing choices.

When the front desk cancels a booking they’re not the artist on, the default is Let [Artist] decide: the cancel commits, and the deposit waits in that artist’s Deposit review instead of the desk ruling on someone else’s money.

The cancellation window — Settings → Booking → Booking Settings, default 72 hours — is how close to the appointment a customer’s own cancellation counts as late. A customer cancelling through their own link inside the window gets the review treatment: the deposit lands in Deposit review flagged Late cancel, and their cancel page says the studio will review it rather than promising a forfeit. Cancelling earlier than the window releases the deposit back to spendable credit on its own.

The Deposit review list

Bookings → Resolve lists cancelled bookings whose deposit is still live and undecided: amount, customer, artist, and whether it was a late or forgiven cancel. Each row takes one of two actions:

• Keep as credit — the money stays spendable on the customer’s account. Nothing goes to the artist.
• Forfeit — kept as a cancellation fee; the artist earns their forfeit share. Forfeit the whole amount or a partial one, with an optional reason recorded on the credit history.

Both the list and the dashboard’s Needs you count follow booking access: an artist sees their own deposits to resolve, and Bookings → View (Everyone) widens the list to the whole studio.

Rebooking keeps the money

Rebooking a cancelled, no-show, or lapsed booking carries the existing deposit forward to the new booking instead of demanding a fresh one. The rebook treats the new deposit as a total requirement: apply the live credit, see exactly what’s still to collect, and collect only the shortfall. An excess stays spendable on the customer’s account instead of being put at risk on the new booking.

Refunds

Refunding a deposit is all-or-nothing: it releases the credit and re-opens the booking’s deposit requirement. Once the credit has been spent or forfeited, it can’t be refunded, so the same money never pays out twice.

Permissions

Resolving a deposit — keeping, forfeiting, or waiving it — rides on booking editing: Bookings → Edit covers your own bookings, Bookings → Edit (Everyone) anyone’s. Choosing Pay in full for the artist on a forfeit takes Compensation → Override on top. See Roles & Permissions.