Take a deposit or hold it on the customer's card

Introduction

Every booking carries a deposit: money the customer leaves as security. On the screen headed Booking payments you can record it as money received (Deposit (manual)), or put a hold on the customer's credit card (Authorize (credit card)). A hold reserves the money without charging it. When the vehicle comes back you charge what you need from the hold (Capture) or free it (Expire).

On the left of the screen are the payment list with its buttons and, below it, the list of card holds. On the right is a grey Price breakdown panel with the Deposit line and an Outstanding block.

You would be here because:

• a customer is collecting a car and you need the deposit before handing over the keys
• the car came back with a scratch and you want to charge part of the hold
• the car came back clean and the customer wants the hold on their card freed
• the customer paid rent and deposit in one go, and the booking is now invoiced
• you are checking whether any holds are about to run out

Terms used on this screen

Skim this once; you will come back to rows as they come up:

Every way to take a deposit

Use this page when you need to secure the deposit, or to sort out deposit and rent afterwards.

How to use

Configuration

How much the deposit is comes from the vehicle class, the insurance the customer chose, or the customer's own terms. Set up the insurance a customer can choose explains which of these wins. To change the deposit on one booking, use Overrides, then Change deposit (Adjust the price on a booking).

Holds on a card need your company's connection to Mollie, the payment company that handles the cards. A company administrator sets this up:

1. From the main menu, open Admin, then Settings, and click the Integrations tile.
2. On the Mollie row, set the switch to on, then connect your Mollie account with OAuth (beta) on the right of that row. Holds use this connection, so a Mollie account set up only through Setup is not enough.

Before you start: any staff account can take a deposit, place a hold, capture it, release it and use Settle. Only a company administrator can open Integrations. The booking needs a customer. Without one, Deposit (manual) says Please assign a customer first. The Authorize (credit card) button shows on every booking, even when Mollie is not connected, so it can fail with an error. See the Q&A.

Using the Booking payments screen

From the main menu, open Bookings, then Overview, and open the booking. Click Payments at the top of the booking. The screen headed Booking payments opens.

Record a deposit as money received

1. Click Deposit (manual). The Edit Payment popup opens with Payment type set to Deposit.
2. Amount already holds the rent plus deposit that are still unpaid. Two links under it change the amount: Deposit + Rent followed by that figure, and Deposit followed by the unpaid deposit alone. Click one, or type an amount.
3. Choose the Payment method, for example Cash or DebitCard. Check Payment date. It starts at today.
4. Add a Payment reference if you want to, such as the receipt number, and click Save.

A missing field shows a message such as Payment method is empty.

Put a hold on the customer's card

1. In the lower list, click Authorize (credit card). Mollie's card page opens in your browser. Let the customer enter their credit card details and confirm.
2. You come back to a page that says Authorization succesful. (the typo is on the screen). If it says Authorization processing., wait a few seconds and click Refresh status. If it says Authorization failed / cancelled., nothing is held. Try again.
3. Click Back to booking. You are back on Booking payments, and the hold is in the lower list with status pending, the Amount held and the Capture before date.

Charge a hold

1. On the hold's row, click Capture. The Authorization Capture popup opens.
2. Capture amount starts at the full amount held. Type the amount you want to charge.
3. Click Capture. The popup closes, Amount captured shows your figure and the status becomes captured.

Free a hold

Click Expire, the red link with the bin icon on the hold's row. There is no confirmation: the status becomes released at once and cannot be undone. To hold money again, the customer enters their card again.

Move money between deposit and rent

• For one payment, click its row in the payment list. In the Edit Payment popup, switch Payment type between Deposit and Rental and click Save.
• For the whole booking, once it is invoiced, click Settle. The app shows Settled!.

Key details

How much a hold asks for. For a confirmed or picked-up booking: rent plus deposit, minus what has been paid and minus any open hold. If your company asks an advance on bookings far ahead, it can be that advance. Once the booking is returned, only unpaid rent. You cannot type the amount yourself.

The capture deadline. Capture before comes from Mollie, or is set seven days ahead if Mollie sends none. It is green while there is time and red once passed. It counts from the start of that day: with Capture before 16 November, Capture and Expire are gone on the morning of the 16th, so charge the hold on the 15th at the latest. An expired hold stays listed as pending with a red date. It cannot be used, and the customer's bank frees the money by itself.

Holds in the Outstanding block. An open hold before its deadline counts as paid in To be paid, but not in Total outstanding (deposit + rent), which counts only money received. With several open holds, only the largest counts.

A worked example. A four-day Polo rental costs €240 including value-added tax (VAT), with a €750 deposit. The customer pays the €240 rent at the desk, then you click Authorize (credit card): the hold is for €750. The car comes back needing €85 of cleaning. You type 85 in Capture and click Capture. Shortly after, an €85 Deposit payment appears in the list. A hold is captured only once, so the other €665 is never charged. If you had typed 750.01, the popup would say Amount should not exceed authorization amount. 750.00 goes through. A capture amount of 0 closes the popup and charges nothing.

What Settle does. It only runs when the money received is more than the invoiced amount. Say the booking is invoiced at €240 and the customer paid €990 with Deposit (manual) (Deposit + Rent). All €990 then counts as deposit. Settle adds two rows with the reference Settlement and the method Other: +€240 as Rental and −€240 as Deposit. That leaves €240 rent and €750 deposit paid. Rent paid beyond the invoice moves to the deposit the same way. A second click changes nothing.

What to do next

Take the deposit or the hold before the keys go out, when you run the pickup inspection. When the vehicle comes back (Take a vehicle back at the end of a rental), charge or release the hold first, because it has a deadline. Invoice the booking (Invoice a booking) and click Settle afterwards. Give back a deposit you received as money through Refunds.

Q&A

Why does Settle say "Total paid is less than total invoiced." when the customer has paid everything? Settle only runs when the money received is more than the invoiced amount, and the booking must already be invoiced. If the customer paid exactly the invoiced €240 as Deposit, the two are equal and Settle refuses. Click the payment's row, switch Payment type to Rental and click Save.

I captured a hold, but no payment appears and To be paid went up. Why? The payment row is added when Mollie confirms the charge, usually within a minute. Until then the hold no longer counts as paid, and the payment is not in the list yet. Leave the screen and open Payments again. If nothing appears after a few minutes, see Solve payment problems.

Why are there no Capture or Expire buttons on a hold? Either the Capture before date is red because the deadline has passed, or the status is no longer pending because the hold was already captured or released. Once a hold has been captured, it cannot be charged a second time. If you need more money from the customer, send a payment request.

Why did Authorize (credit card) show an error instead of the card page? Your company is not connected to Mollie through OAuth (beta), or the amount to hold is zero because the rent and deposit are already paid. Ask your company administrator to check Integrations. For a paid booking there is nothing to hold.

Why does the hold include the rent when I only wanted the deposit? A hold is always for everything still open on the booking. Record the rent first with New Payment (manual) or New Payment, then click Authorize (credit card).

The customer authorised twice. Is the money held twice? Yes. Mollie holds both amounts on the card. Only the larger one counts in To be paid. Click Expire on the one you do not need.

Why is the deposit paid higher than the deposit on the booking? A payment recorded as Deposit counts in full as deposit, even when it also covered the rent. Online and card-terminal payments are always recorded that way. Invoice the booking and click Settle.

Why is the deposit a different amount from the one on the vehicle class? The insurance chosen or the customer's own terms set a different one. See the order in Set up the insurance a customer can choose.

Related pages: Check what a customer owes and take a payment for the customer's total across bookings, Accounting sync for how deposit and settlement rows reach your bookkeeping, and Set a customer's payment and invoicing terms for a customer's own deposit.