If you hire out a barn for weddings, run a Christmas party season, or sell anything that costs a few hundred pounds a head, you have had this conversation. The guest wants the date. They do not want to hand over two thousand pounds in one go, four months out. So you take a deposit by card, then spend the next three months chasing the rest by email, bank transfer and, eventually, a phone call you would rather not make.
Deposits now handle that whole stretch for you. Your guest pays part of the cost at checkout and their booking confirms straight away. What is left sits on the booking as a balance with a due date, and we email them about it until it is paid.
Guests choose what they pay today
At checkout, a deposit with partial payments turned on shows an amount picker instead of a fixed figure. The guest drags it, or taps Pay in full, and the total updates as they go. Underneath, in plain numbers, is what they still owe and the date it falls due.
The slider opens at whatever percentage that deposit already charged, so if you have been taking 30% for years, 30% is what your guests see pre-selected. They can push it up if they would rather clear more now, but they cannot go below the minimum you set. Either way, the booking confirms the moment that first payment lands. Nothing sits pending while you wait for the rest.
Setting it up on a deposit
Partial payments are a setting on a deposit, not a venue-wide switch, so you can offer them on your wedding package and keep your Sunday lunch deposit exactly as it is. Open Payments & Discounts → Deposits & Payments, edit the deposit you want, and expand Partial Payments.
The panel covers three decisions:
- When the balance is due. Either a set number of days before each booking (30 days before the wedding), or one fixed calendar date that every balance lands on. The fixed date suits a seasonal programme where you want the money in before the season starts, whatever date each individual booking falls on.
- The minimum first payment. Set a cash floor, a percentage, or both. When you set both, the guest has to clear whichever is higher, so a £100 minimum on a percentage-based package protects you on the small bookings.
- Instalments. Leave them on and guests can chip away at the balance whenever they like. Turn them off and the remainder has to be paid in one go.
The one combination that will not work is a card-on-file deposit that only authorises a card without charging it. No money moves at checkout, so there is no balance to track, and the settings page will tell you so rather than saving something that cannot run.
The balance lives on their booking
Every guest with an outstanding balance gets a payment card on their booking page, reachable from the link in their confirmation email. It shows the total, what they have paid, what is left, and when it is due.
If you allow instalments, they type an amount and pay it. If you do not, the Full amount button fills in the lot and that is the only option. They do not need an account or a code. The link in their confirmation email is enough.
Reminders that chase for you
Reminders are a venue setting rather than a per-deposit one, and they stay off until you turn them on. You will find them under Settings → Customer Notifications & Reminders, in a Balance Payment Reminders block. Switch it on, then list the days before the due date you want reminders to go out on.
14,7,1 gives your guest a fortnight's warning, a nudge a week out, and a last call the day before. One reminder a fortnight ahead is plenty for a corporate booking. Use whatever rhythm fits the money you are asking for.
The email your guests get
The reminder carries the booking details, the arithmetic and a button that drops the guest straight onto their payment card.
It is in the template editor alongside your confirmations and reminders, so you can rewrite the wording in your own voice. Five merge tags are available for the figures and the due date, and the preview renders with sample numbers so you can see what you are writing before anyone receives it.
Your diary knows who still owes you
Open any booking with a balance and the card carries a Balance row: how much of the total is paid, how much is left, and the date it is due by. Once the due date passes, that badge turns red and says overdue, which is hard to walk past.
Payments your team takes by hand count too. Card machine, bank transfer, cash on a site visit: record it against the booking the way you always have and the outstanding balance comes down by the same amount.
One list of every outstanding balance
For the Monday morning version of the same question, the Advanced View has a Balance column and a Balance Status filter. Filter by Balance Outstanding, Balance Overdue or Fully Paid, and you have your call list sorted by date.
That list exports to CSV like any other view, and the same balance filter is available when you build a marketing audience, so a single email to everyone whose balance is overdue is a couple of clicks rather than a spreadsheet exercise.
The awkward cases
Somebody books three days before the event. If a booking is placed after its balance would already have been due, there is nothing sensible to defer, so checkout charges the full amount there and then. No balance is created and no reminder is scheduled.
The guest changes their booking. If they add ten people or move to a cheaper room, the change settles against the total cost rather than the percentage they paid on the day. Move the date and the due date is worked out again from the new one. If the price drops below what they have already paid, the difference comes back to them across their payments.
The booking is cancelled. The plan closes with it and the reminders stop. You will not be emailing someone about a balance on a wedding that is not happening.
You refund something. The outstanding balance goes back up by the amount refunded, so the number on the booking is always the number you would ask them for today.
Getting started
Partial payments are live in your account now. Nothing changes on your existing deposits until you switch them on.
- Open Payments & Discounts → Deposits & Payments and edit the deposit you want to offer them on.
- Expand Partial Payments, turn it on, and set your due date rule and minimum first payment.
- Head to Settings → Customer Notifications & Reminders and switch on balance reminders with the days that suit you.
- Take a test booking on your own site to see the amount picker your guests will see.
If you have a pricing structure this does not quite cover, tell us what it looks like and we will see what we can do.