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 — the cash 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. Take the cash and complete.

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). The deposit cash goes into the drawer and is counted in that day’s till close, just like any other cash sale.

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.)

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 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. 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.

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 — paid back out of the cash drawer (Swann Retail is cash-only at the counter) and counted in that day’s till close as cash out. 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).

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 (anything from nothing up to the full deposit) and the customer is refunded the rest.

• The cash paid back out is the 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 the whole deposit and nothing is paid back out. Either way the order is marked canceled and the amount kept stays recorded against it.

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.