Online payments for appointments: how to get clients to pay in advance

Why paying on the day costs you time and money

Lots of businesses let clients pay after the appointment. It feels natural, but it has a price. Someone does not turn up and you have nothing in hand. A client pays cash and you still have to count it and take it to the bank. Another says they will transfer the money and forgets. You check your account, send a reminder and feel like a debt collector.

Then there is the awkwardness. Asking for money after a lovely treatment is not the best moment of your day. Paying online moves that moment to the booking. Your client pays the way they buy a cinema ticket, and you do not have to say a word about it.

Your diary benefits too. Someone who has paid in advance is less likely to let an appointment slip. You can work out what an empty hour costs you in what does a no show cost.

Pay online or pay on the day: what suits your business?

You do not have to do everything online. Plenty of businesses combine the two: a small amount online when booking and the rest on the day. These are the four usual ways side by side.

The last way is the only one that asks nothing of you. There is no link to send and no transfer to check. The payment is part of the booking.

Payment link

A payment link is a web address that takes your client to a payment page. You create it with a payment provider and send it by email or message. That works well for a single payment, for example a balance afterwards. For every appointment it is too much manual work.

Paying on the day

Paying on the day is still a good choice for the rest of the price. Your client pays after the treatment and the deposit they paid online is deducted. So your client never pays twice.

What should clients pay in advance?

That depends on your appointment and on how often people stay away. You have three options.

A deposit of roughly a fifth of the price is a sensible starting point for many businesses. It is a rule of thumb and not a rule. For help choosing the amount, read asking your clients for a deposit.

Asking for everything upfront means even less work. Your client walks in and everything is settled. It suits appointments where the client uses nothing without you, such as an online session or a workshop.

Bancontact and iDEAL: which payment methods should you offer?

For Belgian clients, Bancontact comes first. Most people have the Bancontact app or their bank card to hand and confirm the payment with a fingerprint or a code. Your client does not have to create an account or type a card number.

If you have clients in the Netherlands, switch on iDEAL as well. Your client picks their bank and confirms in their own banking app. As with Bancontact, their bank details stay with their bank.

Bookable offers Bancontact and iDEAL through Mollie. You switch them on in your Mollie account. After that, your client sees them while booking.

What does taking online payments cost?

Online payment has two kinds of cost, and you should look at them separately.

• The subscription for your booking system. With Bookable no commission comes off your bookings. Start costs from €29 a month when paid yearly and Praktijk from €49 a month when paid yearly. Everything is on the pricing page.
• The fee per payment at your payment provider. With Bookable that is Mollie. You pay that fee directly to Mollie, for each successful payment. Current rates per payment method are on mollie.com.

Do your own sums. Assume a fee of €0.25 per payment, purely as an assumption and not as a rate. With 80 online payments a month, that comes to €20 a month. Swap in your own number and Mollie's actual rate, and you know what it costs you.

Compare that with what an empty appointment costs. In this example, one missed appointment worth €45 costs more than a whole month of payment fees.

What about invoices and your bookkeeping?

This is a factual overview and not accounting or tax advice. Ask your accountant how they want to handle deposits and online payments.

Where does the money go?

With Bookable, your client pays through Mollie straight into your Mollie account. Bookable never receives that money and does not hold it. Mollie then pays it out to your business bank account. By default that happens every week, and you can change the rhythm in Mollie.

Is the payment receipt an invoice?

No. The receipt your client gets proves they have paid. It is not a VAT invoice. If your client is entitled to an invoice, for example because they are a business, you issue it yourself with your own invoicing software.

What do you give your accountant?

Bookable gives you a list of all payments and refunds as a csv file. Your accountant can lay that list next to the payouts from Mollie. That way what came in matches what you booked. A deposit that is deducted from the price of the treatment belongs to the same sale. How to record it is something to agree with your accountant.

Without a booking system it works the same way, with more manual work. You keep a list of every deposit with name, date and amount, and compare it with your bank statements. That is fine for a few payments a week and tedious for dozens.

How do you refund a client who cancels?

You decide in advance when a client gets their deposit back and when you keep it. Put that in your cancellation policy. A simple rule: if your client cancels in time, they get the deposit back or put it towards a new appointment. If they cancel too late, you keep it.

A refund comes out of the balance you hold with Mollie. In Bookable you decide whether and when to refund, and you carry it out in Bookable or at Mollie. The app refunds automatically in the cases you set up, for example when a cancellation falls under the rules of your deposit.

How to connect Mollie to Bookable

Setting it up takes a few minutes, and after that it works for every booking. This is the order to follow.

Create a Mollie account

You need your company number, a business bank account, an ID document for the director and your website showing your services and prices. Mollie checks your details, which can take up to 10 working days. Meanwhile you carry on setting up Bookable.

Switch on Bancontact and iDEAL

In Mollie, open your organisation settings and then payment methods. Switch on Bancontact, and iDEAL if you have clients in the Netherlands.

Connect Mollie to Bookable

In Bookable, go to Settings and then Payments. Click the button to connect Mollie, log in and approve the connection. You come back to Bookable automatically. If you do not have a Mollie account yet, you can create one during the connection. All the steps are in connecting Mollie.

Choose what your client pays

Per treatment you choose whether a deposit is needed, a fixed amount or a percentage, or whether your client pays everything upfront. To see how to set that up, read asking for a deposit per service.

After that it happens by itself. Your client picks a treatment and a time, fills in their details and pays with Bancontact or iDEAL. If they do not pay, the booking stays held for a limited time and then expires. You choose how long, two hours by default. Your client gets a confirmation by email and you see the appointment in your calendar.

See how it looks for a physiotherapy practice, a hair salon, a nail salon or a B&B. You can try Bookable free for 14 days, no card needed.

Common mistakes with online payments

• Asking for everything upfront on a short appointment, which puts clients off.
• Not writing a cancellation policy, so nobody knows what happens to the money.
• Forgetting that a payment receipt is not an invoice.
• Following up payments by hand when a system can do it.
• Getting your Mollie account checked only when clients already want to book.

Frequently asked questions