What are Deposits?
Deposits are amounts of money you can charge your customers as a guarantee. You can include deposits in plans, add them to contracts on a need-basis or even simply charge them alongside a product purchase or a booking. Deposits can refundable, meaning you hold the deposit until the customers customers sign up to a plan, make a certain purchase, or book a specific resource. You can then use this deposit to cover any damage or unpaid invoices.
How Deposits work
Deposits are simply products that you add to plans and products as such. Deposits need a financial account that has a deposit type. You need a deposits account to avoid having your deposits counted as any other sales revenue when running your reports and for accounting purposes as well.
You first create one or more Deposits accounts. The number of deposit accounts you need depends on the segmentation you want in your accounting and deposits report.
Aim to strike a balance between your accounting/business strategy needs and overly segmented accounts that complicates your operations with little to no added value.
Whether you're adding deposits as such or as a one off fee, you'll need at least one deposit product.
Refundable deposits vs one-off fees
Adding deposits to plans automatically adds them to any new contract. It's a great way to automatically collect deposits for new contracts.
If you forgot to assign a deposit to a new customer contract — no worries, you can always charge as a one-off fee. You can. This one off fee can be the same deposit product you would have added to the initial contract.
FAQ
Can I use the same deposit product for all my plans?
While you can use the same deposit product for all your plans or contracts and manually edit its price, we recommend you create individual deposit products. This ensures you can easily see which deposits are in each customer's account. It also offers better segmentation in your Deposits reports.