Tip #17: How to mandate partial payment for your appointments

Tip #17: How to mandate partial payment for your appointments




When you require partial payments during the booking process, customers can only schedule with you after paying a certain amount in advance. This deposit acts as a commitment between both parties. Apart from that, it has many more advantages.

 

Benefits of mandating partial payment

  • Reduced no-shows and cancellations: As the customer has made a deposit, it's less likely that they'll cancel or not show up for the appointment.

  • Only serious inquiries: When people have to invest financially, they will book only when they are sure about proceeding. This filters out customers who book casually with the intention of canceling later.

  • Streamlined processes: Implementing the collection of partial payment through an online scheduler reduces the time and effort needed for follow-up and manual invoicing.

  • Stable revenue: Since only serious customers pop in and book appointments, revenue will be stable for your business.

  • Better time management: As most of the bookings happen without cancellation, you can efficiently manage the time slots for staff members and resources.

Use case

Consider an event management company that has an online scheduler embedded into its website. When clients book event services, such as catering, venue rentals, event decorations, and more, a partial payment requirement ensures commitment and helps cover initial expenses. In certain industries, such as event planning, customers often explore multiple options, which indicates uncertainty about committing to a particular service provider. By mandating partial payment, event planners or service providers can safeguard themselves against last-minute cancellations. Collecting a portion upfront allows event planners to proceed confidently with organizing the events, knowing that the client is invested in the process.

 

Zoho Bookings allows you to set the deposit amount to be paid while booking an appointment. It provides detailed customization by allowing you to configure different partial payment costs for different services (i.e., each services can have its own deposit amount).

 

Steps to set up partial payment

  1. Click Services on the Bookings menu bar, then select the required service on the left pane.

  1. Click Service Information in the middle pane.

  2. In the Type of Payment dropdown, select the option Deposit. A textbox will appear; enter the payment amount that should be paid in advance in the text box and click Save.



Now, when the customer tries to book a service with you, they'll be prompted to pay this deposit amount. But for this to work as intended, you'll need to configure a payment gateway:

  1. Navigate to Integrations > Payments and configure any one of the payment gateways available. Refer to this help page for more details about adding a payment gateway.



  2. After adding a payment gateway, enable the toggle beside Online Payments.



The setup is done; your booking page will allow appointments only when this deposit amount is paid.

 

Although implementing a partial deposit is necessary in many cases, it's also imperative that you stay flexible to show that you understand reasonable requests. This helps maintain good client relations.

 

Thank you for checking out this post. Please leave you questions and feedback in the comments section, or write to us at support@zohobookings.com.

 

Regards,

The Zoho Bookings Team

 


 

Related articles

  1. Configure Payments
  2. Payment Integration

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #13: Identify where your bookings come from with Source Tracking

      Source tracking is the practice of identifying where your bookings originated. This is important, because online bookings come from a wide variety of sources like social media platforms, your website, email and ad campaigns, partner websites, organic

    • Tip #17: How to mandate partial payment for your appointments

      When you require partial payments during the booking process, customers can only schedule with you after paying a certain amount in advance. This deposit acts as a commitment between both parties. Apart from that, it has many more advantages. Benefits

    • Tip #18: Organize a group workshop in a few steps

      It's the season for workshops—they're everywhere, catering to diverse interests and needs. Whether for more professional goals like leadership development or creative endeavors like painting, there's an abundance of workshops offered every day. A scheduler

    • Tip #16: Custom labels for staff, service, and resources

      Every industry uses its own jargon. Take healthcare, for example; when you visit a doctor, it's not just an appointment, it's a consultation. The people who provide consultations are the providers. Similarly, in the tranquil world of a spa, a massage

    • Tip #15: Customize service prices for each staff member

      It's common practice for a service to be priced differently based on the staff member providing it. For example, an experienced hair stylist may charge more for a haircut compared to the other stylists. This pricing strategy allows businesses to charge

    • Recent Topics

    • AI Interview Insights: Turn Recorded Interviews into Quick Transcripts & Summaries

      Evaluating interviews shouldn’t require replaying long recordings or taking manual notes. With AI Interview Insights, you can now review complete transcripts and AI-generated summaries of your One-way (Recorded) interviews right inside Zoho Recruit. This

    • Archiving Contacts

      How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

    • Suggestion: Associating Assets with Company in Zoho FSM

      Hello Team, I would like to share an idea based on practical experience. Currently, all assets in the Zoho FSM Asset module are linked to a specific contact person. I would like to know if it is possible to associate assets with a company instead. This

    • Zoho Mail iOS app update - RTL languages support and access emails using permalink and universal link, image upload resolution

      Hello everyone! In the most recent version of the Zoho Mail iOS app update, we have brought in support for RTL languages(Arabic and Urudu), providing a seamless reading experience with proper text alignment and layout throughout the app. We have also

    • Presenting ABM for Zoho CRM: Expand and retain your customers with precision

      Picture this scenario: You're a growing SaaS company ready to launch a powerful business suite, and are looking to gain traction and momentum. But as a business with a tight budget, you know acquiring new customers is slow, expensive, and often delivers

    • Why are emails sending with @viazohocrm.com ?

      I just sent out mass emails from CRM. They are sending from the email below and people cannot reply, and they are getting this message: Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to sales.XXXXXXXX.com.au@viazohocrm.com because the address couldn't

    • 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

      In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email

    • Duplicating and referencing datasets

      I am moving from PowerBI to Zoho Analytics and while I find Zoho easier to use in many ways, there is one function that I use in PowerBI that I have not been able to find in Zoho.   I have several data sets that I need to modify in different ways to get

    • From Zoho CRM to Paper : Design & Print Data Directly using Canvas Print View

      Hello Everyone, We are excited to announce a new addition to your Canvas in Zoho CRM - Print View. Canvas print view helps you transform your custom CRM layouts into print-ready documents, so you can bring your digital data to the physical world with

    • Zoho Inventory Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

      Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal

    • Depreciated mergeAndStore Function Help!

      Hello, I have a function designed to create a PDF containing information from the fields in a Deals record. There is a Writer Mail Merge template in WorkDrive that is populated via Deluge code, and a copy of the resulting PDF is then attached to the record.

    • Why am I seeing deleted records in Zoho Analytics syncing with Zoho CRM?

      I have done a data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics, and the recycle bin is empty. Why do I see deleted leads/deals/contacts in Zoho Analytics if it doesn't exist in Zoho CRM? How can I solve this problem? Thanks

    • Employee self-service portal: Onboarding and continuous learning platform for support reps

      Hello everyone, In any organization, employees must go through multiple courses to learn about the product, their organization's standards, and how to respond to customer queries using the knowledge base articles available. This typically requires completing

    • Enhancements to Zoho Map integration tasks

      Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Map integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

    • Let’s Talk Recruit: Meet Zia, your all-in-one AI assistant (Part-3)

      Welcome back to the Let’s Talk Recruit series. In the part 2 post, we explored how Zia has evolved with smarter summaries and seamless AI-assisted content creation. This time, we’re diving into the latest upgrades that take productivity even further —

    • Announcing Early Access to "Zoho CRM for Everyone" — A new and exciting update to Zoho CRM

      Update : Zoho CRM For Everyone's Nextgen Interface gets an upgrade! Hello everyone, We’ve updated the Zoho CRM for Everyone Nextgen interface based on your feedback. The UI is now simpler with a unified sidebar, a more visible global search and features

    • Unable to verify domain for Zoho People

      I have added TXT records in my DNS (GoDaddy) [screenshot attached], but unable to verify even after 12 hours after adding. On checking the console, it shows some errors [screenshot attached]. It appears that the verification flow is broken - please provide

    • Zoho Invoice Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

      Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal

    • Zoho Billing Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

      Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal

    • Weekly Tips : Make your email content error free with Spell check in Zoho Mail

      As someone who writes multiple emails a day, we are bound to make both grammatical and spelling errors. Most of them we may not even notice, and even if we do, we may not have the time to correct each one individually when we are in a hurry. So how do

    • Introducing Enhanced Storage Management

      We’re excited to roll out two new enhancements in Zoho Recruit, Subscription Information and Storage Management — designed to give admins complete visibility into subscription details, feature limits, and storage consumption — all from one place inside

    • How to add Product Add-Ons, Mandatory Forms, and Auto-Save Address in Zoho Commerce

      Hi all, I need help setting up several behaviors in Zoho Commerce. I can’t find the correct configuration options, so I want to confirm whether these are supported or if there is a workaround. 1. Product-Specific Add-Ons (Example: GWB Subscription) When

    • how to download all my files

      We are in the middle of zoho docs to zoho workdrive migration. I can not access my zoho docs page. I get redirected immediately to a zoho workdrive page. I would like to download all my files so that I have a backup in case something goes wrong with the

    • Convert Zoho Books SalesOrder - Invoice

      Converting a Zoho Books Sales Order into an Invoice Using the SalesOrder Convert API Hello Zoho Developers, Today, we are sharing a simple and effective solution to convert a Zoho Books Sales Order into a Zoho Books Invoice using the SalesOrder Convert

    • Zoho Expense - Report Templates

      Hi Expense Team, I do a recurring trip once every week which has the same cost: Per diem Milage Toll Payment It would be great if there was a feature which allowed me to clone a previously submitted report or create a template reports. This would save

    • How to add tabular data when execute Add Record API

      Hi everyone! I was send api updateRecord follow by this request url : https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/json/<formLinkName>/updateRecord with parameters "inputData", "tabularData", "recordId". Ex picture below And response success: But. When I

    • Tip #51- Centralized Contact Management for Better Remote Support- 'Insider Insights'

      For our final topic of November, we’re diving into one of the most helpful features in Zoho Assist, the Contacts section on Zoho Assist;s dashboard. Whether you’re managing multiple clients, tracking past sessions, or simply looking to streamline your

    • Using gift vouchers

      We would like to be able to offer a limited number of gift vouchers, of varying values, to our customers, and are looking for the best way to do this. We have looked at Coupons and Gift Certificates, but neither seem to fit the bill perfectly. Coupons:

    • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

      In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.

    • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

      Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

    • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

      Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

    • Say Hello to Telephony in Zoho FSM

      Zoho FSM now brings complete telephony support so your team can manage inbound and outbound calls without switching tabs. Faster responses, smarter routing, and total call visibility—all in one place. Choose the telephony setup that works for you Zoho’s

    • Zoho Sign - Zoho CRM extension upgrade

      Hi everyone, We've updated Zoho Sign extension for Zoho CRM with significant internal changes. Impact on existing Zoho Sign extension users Users using the extension without customization If you are using the integration without implementing Zoho Sign's

    • Is there a way to create a desktop shortcut for a website course portal?

      Hello everyone, I recently got a laptop and bought an online course from a website, Skillwint.com, which I visit regularly. I open that site many times a day and want to create a desktop shortcut so I can open it directly instead of searching in the browser

    • Managing functions

      Can someone let me know if there are any plans to improve the features for managing functions in CRM? I have lots of functions and finding them is hard. The search only works on the function name and the filter only works on function type. I have created

    • Sent mail sort by date disappeared

      Hello, We used to be able to sort the emails by date in the sent folder, but this feature has recently disappeared. Can we bring it back?

    • When will it be possible to edit Subform records via either views or tabular reports?

      Hey there, data maintenance often requires mass update of quite a lot of records. While this is a piece of cake via either List view or Zoho sheet view, the same cannot be carried out for subform records yet. When one of the two options will be made available?

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Books

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. This means that invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Inventory

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. Invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing Works

    • Employee ID is not correct in get records api V2 for leave

      Hi Team, We are facing an issue when calling the Get Records API V2. The employee.id returned in the response is not the actual employee record ID in Zoho People. As a result, our integration is forced to make an additional Get Record API call for every

    • Next Page