Choosing how clients pay for appointments

Have clients pay in full, make a deposit, or provide card details.

After you’ve connected a payment processor to Acuity, it’s time to decide what payment options your clients have when they book appointments with you.

You can have one option for all your appointments, or customize options for each appointment type. Depending on your business needs, there are a few different ways clients can pay for appointments:

• Require payment in full
• Require a deposit
• Require card details that can be charged later
• Offer clients pay-what-you-want-pricing
• Payment information isn’t required

Tip: Your clients also pay you when they buy packages, gift certificates, and subscriptions. Packages and gift certificates are always paid in full at purchase. Subscriptions follow the subscription payment terms.

Edit client payment options

You can change which payment options your clients can use to pay for an appointment on a computer or the Acuity Scheduling Admin mobile app.

On a computer

To edit client payment options on a computer:

1. Click Payments in the left navigation menu, then click Payment at Booking.
2. The Use the same method for all appointment types toggle is on by default. To choose a different payment option for each appointment type, toggle it off. A list of appointment types will appear. Expand each appointment type to choose a payment option for that appointment type.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the list of appointments and click Save. 

On the Acuity Scheduling Admin mobile app

To edit client payment options on the mobile app:

1. From the app home screen, tap Menu, then tap Payment Settings. 
2. In the Payment Processor section, tap Manage.
3. In the Payment at Booking section, the Use the same method for all appointment types toggle is on by default. To choose a different payment option for each appointment type, tap to toggle it off, then tap to expand each appointment type and choose a payment option.

Choose payment options

You have three payment options to choose from: 

• Collect deposits or full payment
• Collect and save card details
• Payment information isn't required

With all three options, if clients have to pay the full cost of the appointment at booking, you’ll have the option to enable tipping.You can also offer clients pay-what-you-want-pricing.

Collect deposits or full payment

Select this option to collect full or partial payment at booking.

1. From the Type of payment dropdown menu, select how much payment is required at booking: 
   • Full payment - Requires clients to pay the full cost of the appointment to book.
   • Deposit amount ($) - The $ will be replaced by your currency symbol if you use a currency with a different symbol. Requires clients to pay a set amount to book.
   • Deposit amount (%) - Requires clients to pay a percentage of the cost of the appointment to book.
2. To give clients an option to pay the deposit or the entire amount at booking, toggle on Clients can pay the full amount in advance.

Collect and save card details

Use this setting to require clients to save their payment details at booking without being charged. You can use this setting if you use Stripe or Square as your sole payment processor. It's not possible to use this feature if you use PayPal either by itself or in combination with another processor.

To accept the full amount in advance instead, click to toggle the Clients can pay full amount in advance setting on. 

When your client enters their card details at booking, your payment processor submits a small pre-authorization charge to validate the card. After verification, the charge is reversed automatically by the payment processor. 

Learn more about using saved card details to charge a client.

Note: If you offer free appointments, clients can always book them without entering their card number. To prevent this, set prices for all your appointment types.

Payment information isn't required

Use this setting so clients can book without paying.

• This setting is enabled by default if you haven't connected a payment processor, but you can still use it after connecting a payment processor if you prefer to collect payments manually.
• You can use the Clients can pay full amount in advance toggle to decide if clients have the option to pay at booking instead of waiting for you to collect payment.