Deposits & balances

For a made-to-order job — an engraving, a trophy order, anything you build before the customer pays in full — you can take a deposit now and collect the balance when they pick it up. The order is saved as part-paid, with a balance still owing, and only becomes a finished sale once it’s paid off.

Take a deposit

Build the cart as usual (Ring up a sale) — add the custom line (or lines) for the job. Then, instead of taking the full amount:

1. Choose Deposit (rather than Full payment) in the payment area.
2. Enter the Deposit amount — what the customer is paying now. It has to be more than nothing and less than the full total; for the full amount, just take the sale the normal way (Take cash & finish the sale).
3. Choose how they’re paying — Cash, Card or Cheque — and complete. For cash, enter what they hand you and the change is worked out as usual. Card and cheque simply record the deposit amount: run the card on your own card terminal, or bank the cheque yourself.

The order is saved as part-paid with the balance due recorded against it, and a deposit receipt is ready to print or email (see The deposit receipt). A cash deposit goes into the drawer and is counted in that day’s till close, just like any other cash sale. A card or cheque deposit never goes into the drawer.

Any stocked items on the order are held for it from the moment you take the deposit — set aside as promised to this customer. They only come off your on-hand count when the order is paid off, and cancelling the order releases the hold. (Custom lines have no stock to hold, and the parts of a bundle aren’t held.)

Find orders that still owe a balance

Go to Sales → Balance owing for the list of every order with a deposit taken that’s still waiting to be paid off. Each row shows the order, when the deposit was taken, the total, what’s been paid so far, and the balance due. Open any one to collect its balance. (You can also find these under Sales → Orders with the By status filter set to part-paid.)

Above the list, if you can view reports, three totals cover every open deposit — not just the rows loaded on screen: how many there are, the Deposits held (what customers have paid you so far) and what’s Still owed. The owner dashboard on the tablet shows the same whole-list totals on its Open deposits tile. If the tablet can’t read those totals (for example, without the View reports permission) and you have more than 50 open jobs, the tile counts only the first 50, shows the count as 50+, and says so underneath — open Balances for the rest. See Deposits held for what each figure means.

Collect the balance at pickup

When the customer comes back to collect the job:

1. Open their part-paid order (find it under Sales → Orders).
2. Press Collect balance.
3. Take the remaining amount due — in cash, by card or by cheque — and complete.

You don’t have to clear the whole balance in one go — you can take another part-payment and leave the rest owing, and each payment is recorded against the order. On the web back office that works for cash, card and cheque alike: enter what the customer is paying now. Card and cheque record exactly the amount you enter, up to what’s owing — only cash hands back change. On the tablet POS, a part-payment is cash only; card and cheque there record the whole balance. Once the payments add up to the full total the order completes: it becomes a finished sale, any stock on it comes off your shelves, and the final receipt is ready.

Add to a deposited order

The customer came back and wants more on the job — extra wording, another plaque? Add it to the same part-paid order instead of ringing a separate sale, so the deposit stays linked to the whole job. This is done on the web back office; you need the Sell permission.

1. Open the part-paid order (Sales → Orders or Sales → Balance owing).
2. Press Add to order.
3. Choose Catalog item to search for something you stock, or Custom line to type a description and price. Set the quantity and, if the workshop needs it, a note.
4. Press Add line.

The deposit you’ve already taken stays applied, and the balance due grows by the added line. The order total is worked out again for the whole order — tax, and any order discount spread across the lines — so read the new total, paid, and still-owing figures shown after the line is added rather than adding it up yourself. From there you can Collect balance straight away, or leave it owing until pickup. A stocked item you add is held for the order just like the ones taken with the deposit.

A few limits:

• 18 lines per order. An order can hold at most 18 lines in total, including the ones you add. Once it’s full, Add to order is no longer offered — ring the extra work as a new order.
• Items with options chosen at the register can’t be picked here — add them as a Custom line instead.
• Only a part-paid order. Once an order is paid off or canceled, you can’t add to it.

Taking something off a part-paid order works the other way round: press Remove on the line. If what’s left comes to less than the deposit, the difference is refunded and the order completes in the same step — see Remove items from an order.

When an invoice has been issued

If the order has an invoice, what you can add depends on where that invoice stands:

• Not yet sent (still a draft, or issued but never sent to the customer) — you can keep adding lines.
• Sent to the customer — the lines are locked, so the order can’t drift from the invoice your customer holds. To add more, void the invoice first (voiding needs the Sell and Write off invoices permissions), add the lines, then issue a new invoice.
• Written off as uncollectible — the lines are locked for good; a written-off invoice can’t be voided. Start a new order for the additional items.

The deposit receipt

A deposit receipt looks like a normal receipt with two extra lines:

• Amount paid — what’s been paid so far (the deposit).
• Balance due — what’s still owing.

When the order is finally paid off, the completed-sale receipt shows a zero balance owing. Print or email either one the same way as any receipt (see Receipts).

Your customer is kept in the loop by email

On top of the printed slip, the customer is automatically emailed at each step of a deposit order — you don’t have to do anything. There are three messages, one for each moment in the order’s life:

1. Deposit received. Sent every time you take the deposit — and again on any further part-payment that doesn’t yet clear the order. It shows the amount received, the total paid so far, the order total, and the balance still owing, so they always know where the order stands.
2. Fully paid. Sent the moment the last payment clears the balance and the order completes — a short “that’s everything, you’re all paid up” note with the total paid. (This is separate from the itemized sale receipt, which you still print or email as usual.)
3. Canceled — deposit refunded. Sent when you cancel a part-paid order and refund the deposit. It shows the deposit paid, any restocking fee you kept, and the amount refunded to them.

Each message goes out once for its moment — a repeated tap or a retry never sends a duplicate.

These emails only go out when the order has a customer with an email on file. A walk-in with no email attached simply relies on the printed slip — nothing to do either way. To make sure the emails are sent, attach a customer with an email address to the order when you take the deposit.

Cancel a deposit (refund)

If a custom order falls through before it’s paid off, you can cancel it: open the part-paid order and cancel. By default the whole deposit is refunded:

• A cash deposit is paid back out of the cash drawer and counted in that day’s till close as cash out.
• A card or cheque deposit never went into the drawer, so nothing is paid out of it. Cancelling voids the payment on the order, and you refund the customer yourself — on your card terminal for a card. The cancel screen reminds you of the amount.
• A deposit paid partly in cash and partly by card or cheque splits the same way: the cash part comes out of the drawer, and you refund the rest yourself.

The order is marked canceled, and the refunded deposit stays on the record, so the money in and back out is always accounted for. If the order has a customer with an email on file, they’re also emailed a refund confirmation (see Your customer is kept in the loop by email).

If your Cash control setting needs an open till, a cancel that pays cash back out needs one too: while the till is closed it’s refused with “Open the till before paying out this refund.” and an Open the till button. Open the till, then cancel again — see When the till is closed.

Keep a restocking fee

When you cancel, you can keep part of the deposit as a restocking fee instead of refunding all of it — handy when a cancelled custom job has already cost you time or materials. Enter the amount to keep and the customer is refunded the rest.

• The fee comes out of the cash part of the deposit. You can keep anything from nothing up to what the customer paid in cash — a higher fee is refused before the cancel goes through. Any card or cheque part of the deposit is refunded in full on your card terminal, whatever fee you keep. A deposit paid entirely by card or cheque has no fee box at all: the whole deposit is refunded on your card terminal.
• The cash paid back out is the cash deposit minus the fee. Only that net amount leaves the drawer and counts as cash out at till close — the fee you keep never goes out, so the day’s till still reconciles.
• The fee you keep is booked as income, not a refund. On the accounting side it lands under Forfeited Deposits on the day of the cancel, while the refunded part clears what the customer had on deposit — see Anatomy of a posted day.

Keep nothing and it’s a full refund, exactly as above; keep all of the cash part and no cash is paid back out. Either way the order is marked canceled and the amount kept stays recorded against it.

The drawer opens for a cash refund

On the tablet POS with a receipt printer and cash drawer connected, cancelling a deposit that pays cash back opens the cash drawer on its own, so you can hand the money straight back — no need to press Open drawer separately. The Order cancelled confirmation shows whether it worked: “Cash drawer opened.”

• Card and cheque deposits never open the drawer. That money never went into the drawer, so there’s nothing to hand back from it.
• Kept the whole deposit as a fee? Nothing is paid back out, so the drawer stays shut.
• No printer set up on this tablet? The cancel goes through as normal — open the drawer yourself to pay the cash out (see Open the drawer without a sale).
• The drawer didn’t open? The order is still canceled and the refund still recorded — a drawer problem never undoes the cancel. If the tablet says it couldn’t open the drawer, tap Try again. If it says the drawer didn’t confirm open, check the drawer first — it may already be open — rather than trying again.

Taking a deposit on a quote

Quoted the job first? You can take the deposit at the moment you turn the quote into a sale — convert the quote and Take deposit instead of the full amount. That gives you the same part-paid order, with the balance to collect at pickup.