This feature was renamed on 26 February 2018. This blog has been updated to reflect this change.
We’ve been crunching the numbers on 10 million client bookings and found out some pretty cool stuff.
On average, Kitomba customers with Online Booking take 10% of all their appointments online, that’s 56 client Online Bookings every month, or almost $50,000 a year*. That’s a great boost to any business!
We also found, on average, 10% or 1 in 10 appointments are cancelled or become no shows. Cancellations are the biggest challenge making up almost 9 out of 10 of these ‘bad’ appointments. The good news is that if a client makes their appointment using Online Booking, the cancellation and no show numbers drop.
Introducing Online Booking Deposits
With extra sales, less work for your staff, improved client service and lower rates of cancellations and no shows, it’s pretty clear that Kitomba Online Booking is a great addition to any business. And now with Online Booking Deposits, it’s even better!
This new feature gives you the option to collect a deposit when your clients book via Online Booking which increases their commitment to the appointment.
How it works
- Set up: Set the deposit amount needed to book an appointment online. This can be a percentage of the service cost (e.g. 20%), a set amount (e.g. $20) or the full cost of the service. Then set your cancellation policy so that your clients know what happens to the deposit if the client cancels.
- Client booking: When your clients make an appointment via Online Booking they’ll be asked to pay a deposit with their credit card or PayPal account to secure their booking.
- At your business: When the client finishes their appointment and comes to pay, they only need to pay you the remaining balance.
- Cancellations & no-shows: If your client cancels or no shows you have the option to keep or refund their deposit, depending on your preference. Simple!
Want to trial Online Booking for free?
If you’re a Kitomba customer but don’t have Online Booking, you can trial it free for 30-days. We’re sure you’ll love it!
To find out more about taking Online Booking Deposits or the Online Booking Payments received report, visit our support guides.
FAQs
Where do deposits go?
Deposits are paid into your PayPal account, you will need to setup an account if you haven’t got one already.
I don’t use PayPal, can I collect deposits another way?
No, the only way to collect Online Booking deposits is for them to be paid into your PayPal account.
How can my clients pay the deposit if they don’t have a PayPal account?
Your clients can choose to pay with their credit/debit card or PayPal account.
I trust my clients to come to their appointments, do I have to take deposits?
It’s completely up to you whether you require a deposit from clients making online bookings. If you don’t want to take deposits then you don’t need to do anything.
Where do I write a cancellation policy?
Head to ‘Online Booking Settings’ in Kitomba 1 to write your cancellation policy, remember to save any changes you make.
What should I include in my cancellation policy?
A cancellation policy is optional but it’s always best to be upfront with your clients about what you do with their money. The exact wording of the policy is up to you but if you take deposits your policy should clearly state when a client will lose their deposit.
How do I calculate how much the client has left to pay for their service?
Kitomba will automatically do this for you. When a customer comes to pay, the deposit will be applied to the invoice and Kitomba will show the remaining balance to be paid.
How long does it take for PayPal to send me the client’s deposit?
Deposits take 2-3 days to be credited to your PayPal account. You’ll need to select the withdraw option in PayPal when you want to pay them into your bank account. This takes a further 3-4 days.
Will the deposit values be displayed in my Kitomba financial reports?
Not directly, however you will see a special payment type called ‘Online Booking payments received’. This is a balancing entry to show invoices that have been partially paid with a deposit.
How do I refund a client’s deposit?
There are two ways deposits can be refunded…
Admins have a refund button on an appointment – this allows a refund at any stage.
When you cancel or deny a booking you are given an option to refund the deposit, which will trigger a refund from your PayPal account.
How long before my client gets their refund?
PayPal says that refunds can take anywhere from 24 hours to 5 working days. Payments from a PayPal account are processed faster than payments from credit cards.
If I refund the customer directly from my PayPal account will this be updated in Kitomba?
No, refunds must be processed in Kitomba for updates to be displayed there.
I only want to take deposits for some of my services how do I do this?
You can’t – the deposit option selected for your business applies to all services.
I only want to take deposits for some of my staff how do I do this?
You can’t – the deposit option selected for your business applies to all staff members.
My accountant wants to know the total outstanding liability of my deposits, how do I find this?
The ‘Online Booking payments received’ report in Kitomba 1 will display what has happened to all deposits taken over the selected period of time. Those not yet used will represent the liability built up in that period.
If you run the report for the entire time you have been taking deposits the total unused will be your total current outstanding liability.
*Average client visit value in 2016 measured across over 749 salons.
Oh no I have been so exited for this feature to come out, but I thought the client would be able to choose whether to pay up front. As a lot of our clients book with gift vouchers there’s no option to get around not paying (if we turn it on) when making a booking online. So in it’s current state so we can’t use this new feature at all. Please, please let this be an option that the client can choose to pre-pay or pay a deposit if they want and then we can really get some benefit from it.
Best wishes, Bethany
Hi Bethany, clients aren’t able to choose whether or not they pay a deposit as we built this feature based on lots of feedback from our customers who want to reduce cancellations and no shows. This feature does that as taking deposits increases a clients commitment to their appointment. We also currently do not support the use of vouchers when taking a deposit, however if you client does have a voucher they would like to use to pay for their appointment, you could refund their deposit and the process the voucher. Hope this helps! 🙂
This comment is absurd.
I have been hacked through a paypal account before with them stealing over $800 from my bank account that was linked.Theres no way i would ever have a paypal account again, especially connected to my business account. Maybe if it was a bank account i would consider it
Hi Aimee, we’re sorry to hear you’ve had problems with PayPal in the past. However, we chose PayPal as it’s extremely safe for our customers! Protecting their users is a top priority, they even have a seller protection policy: http://bit.ly/2kI0Pg7. Additionally, to set up Kitomba Online Booking Payments you are only providing your business account details to PayPal. This is different to using a PayPal account to buy something because when you make a purchase you could enter your PayPal details into an untrustworthy third party website, this is where fraud can occur. Please let us know if you have any further questions as we do want you to use this great new feature!
I agree. I’ve wanted this future for so long but into a paypal account just gets too confusing and just another account we need to manage. The whole tranfering ect from one account to the business ext, poor accountants.
I’m happy for it to go through payapl for safety reasons or whatever goes on but it needs to then directly go in the business account via paypal rather than a separate paypal then we transfer it.
great idea but not practical.
Hi Jorden, thanks for your feedback. We chose PayPal as it was the best option for our customers overall. When it comes to systems that allow for online payments to go directly into a business account there is a lot of process and compliance overheads which may have resulted in some customers not being able to use this feature. Whereas PayPal is quite simply a click and sign up process. PayPal also provides a range of ways to regularly move online payments from your PayPal account to your bank account, for example, in some cases setting up an “auto sweep” to automatically move the money across on a schedule is possible. We suggest contacting Paypal’s support team for more information. Hope this helps! 🙂
Ridiculous, we have found this so bloody easy and very practical
Hi!
Was excited to see the notice and addition of Online Booking Payments.
Disappointed to see that it’s so restrictive…
I fear that implementing this feature would have a negative affect (turn off our regular loyal clients) from using online booking. I won’t be using this feature unless there is an option to only take deposits for new clients; or for specific appointment requests only.
It seems the only regular ‘no-shows’ that we deal with are from new clients booking online; despite sending an Accept Web Booking email, AND a text message reminder. Our regular clients shouldn’t fall within the same category or be inconvenienced by part-payment online, just to book an appointment, because of the unfortunate few who abuse the system.
Also disappointed there is no way to nominate services to include and not to include… There is a huge difference between a single-service booking (blow-dry only, or haircut only etc), and say, a colour correction, relaxing/waving/smoothing, or extension service.
This is what I was looking forward to implementing to help our business, and I surely can’t be alone with these views. As Bethany mentioned, here is an update that in its current state is of no benefit to our salon either.
Regards,
J.
Hi Jack, thanks for your comment! We built Online Book Payments based on demand from our customers and feedback received as we spoke to many customers about what they’d like to see from this feature. The main request was the need to increase clients commitment to their appointment to reduce cancellations and no shows, which is why this feature has been designed the way it is. We can understand that some of our customers, like yourself, would like to see the ability to apply it to some services and not others. We think it’s a good idea and will consider adding this functionality as we continue to improve Online Booking Payments. As for applying this features to new clients only, this was not mentioned as a requirement when we were in the design phase. Online Booking is a fantastic tool for getting new clients and we worry that by adding an additional barrier to booking (i.e. a deposit), you could deter new clients from wanting to book with you. However, we appreciate your feedback and will also take this into consideration in the future. 🙂
I too am both excited and a bit wary of the new system. I don’t have any issue using PP. However I to would like my customers to have a choice of paying a deposit/full pmt, or not. I do understand the logic behind the (no show / cancellations) But regular clients ? I’m not sure???
Its good not to let your clients pay in full via Paypal as they would take too much of a percentage of your service. Minimal is best
Hi Kitomba,
Thank you for doing this, I can finally remove my personal Paypal now,
Thank you, it will just make everyones life easier and hopefully less cancellations or no shows – This feature have always been on the card for a long time.
Thank you for doing a great job!
kindest regards,
D’Artanian Dior
http://www.dartaniandior.com
Hi D’Artanian, we’re so glad to hear you love the new feature! Thanks for your lovely comment! 🙂