Guide
Ask for a deposit when clients book from your page
Have a deposit held on the client's card when they ask for a time on your page — charged only when you accept, and taken off the bill at close-out.
A deposit protects your time from someone who books and then doesn't show. It's asked only of people who book through your public page, it needs card payments, and it follows the same few rules every time — so you never have to decide who gets their money back.
Turn it on
Set up card payments first. The deposit goes into your own Stripe account, so it's offered only once your card payments work: Set up card payments with Stripe.
Open Public profile. Under Your page, fill in Deposit when someone books here with the amount. Leave it blank for no deposit.
Choose Save changes (or Publish, if your page isn't published yet).
The field is there only while your card payments can take cards.
What your client sees
On your request form, before they send it, they're told: a deposit of that amount is held on their card when they ask — charged only if you accept, and credited to the total; cancel at least 24 hours before and it's refunded in full; cancel later than that — or at any time once you've accepted, when the signing is less than 24 hours away — and it's kept. The same words are on Stripe's own page, where they put their card in, and in the email that says their request arrived. Their request comes to you.
Before they cancel, their page says what will become of the deposit — so it's never kept as a surprise.
What happens to the deposit
| When | The deposit |
|---|---|
| They ask for a time | Held on their card — nothing charged yet. |
| You accept | Charged into your Stripe account, and into your books that day as a payment on the job. |
| You decline, don't answer in time, or cancel | Let go, or refunded in full — except in the cases below the table. |
| They cancel at least 24 hours before the signing | Refunded in full. |
| They cancel later than that, after you accepted | Kept, on an invoice of its own: “Late cancellation — deposit kept”. |
| They cancel while your price waits for their answer | Refunded in full, however close the signing is. |
| You move the time, and they cancel within 24 hours of that | Refunded in full, however close the signing is. |
| You close out the signing | Taken off the bill (close-out shows the deposit under the total). Any more than the bill is refunded by itself. |
| Nothing to bill at close-out — every fee waived, say | Refunded in full, by itself. |
Whatever the table says, and whoever cancels, a deposit isn't let go or refunded from here, or doesn't reach them, when:
- The client's bank is deciding a dispute of the payment. The refund waits on the bank's decision. If the bank decides for them, what the dispute was for goes back to them through it, and any rest is asked of Stripe; if it decides for you, the refund is asked of Stripe again.
- Hand & Seal is no longer connected to the Stripe account it was paid into. A hold drops off their card by itself, and a charge is yours to give back.
- Stripe says no to the refund — your Stripe balance doesn't cover it, say.
- The refund fails after Stripe took it — their card or their bank sends it back.
Your Cancel step names any of these it knows of before you press it, and the job says so after. The notes below say what you can do about the last two.
Whoever paid it is told by email each time money goes back.
Good to know
- The 24 hours is the same for every notary, whatever the cancellation policy on your page says. Your policy is shown beside every request, as yours.
- “While your price waits for their answer”: you accepted at a total more than $10 above the estimate your form showed them, or with a travel fee they hadn't agreed to, and their page is asking them to agree to it. Until they do, cancelling costs them nothing — the email about the cancellation tells you why the deposit went back.
- Your page asks a deposit only of requests made on it. For a signing you book yourself, take one in hand — cash, Zelle, or a card on your phone: Take a deposit on a booked signing.
- A request is answered or lapses within two days — well inside the time a card hold lasts — so a hold never runs out while it waits for you.
- A refund goes back through Stripe, to the card it came from. Until Stripe has it, the job and the client's page say it is being refunded — not that it is done. If Stripe can't be reached, it's asked again each morning, and there is nothing for you to do. If Stripe is holding it — until your Stripe balance covers it, say — the job says what Stripe is waiting for, and it goes by itself; don't give it back another way meanwhile, or it would be paid twice. If the client has disputed the payment with their bank, the bank decides, and the job says so.
- If Stripe says no to a refund — Hand & Seal is no longer connected to that Stripe account, say, or your balance doesn't cover it — or a refund fails after Stripe took it, you're told by email and on your phone, it's on Today, and Stripe isn't asked again by itself. The job's page on the web then has two buttons. Ask Stripe again asks Stripe now — up to three times a day for one deposit. I gave it back is for when you've given it back another way than through Stripe — cash, a check, Zelle. A refund you make in your own Stripe Dashboard needs no button: it's recorded here by itself — and Stripe is checked when you press I gave it back, so if the refund is already there, the job says it was refunded and there's nothing to record. If Stripe can't be checked at that moment, try again in a minute. Once you've said you gave a whole deposit back, the client's page says that you say so — not that it was refunded — with your number, in case it isn't so.
- A hold that can't be let go from here — Hand & Seal is no longer connected to that Stripe account, say — drops off their card by itself within a week of the day it was made. Nothing is charged, and the job and the client's page say that.
- The picture shows a business that hasn't set up card payments, so its page has no deposit field yet.
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