With a Stripe account connected, you can ask guests who book on your booking page to pay a deposit, or the full price, while they book. A paid deposit can confirm the booking by itself, and an unpaid one releases the seat at the end of the hold time. Bookings your team makes never have a deposit, and neither do requests for a number of dives. Connecting is described in Connect Stripe for online payments.

Set the deposit

Open Settings, then Deposits & cancellations in the Prices & payments group. The Deposits for online bookings card has a block for Fun dives and one for Courses, each with:

  • the switch that asks for a deposit on that kind of booking;
  • Deposit: Part of the price, from 0.01 to 100 percent, a Fixed amount, never more than the booking's price, or the Full price;
  • Hours the booking is held: how long a booking waits for its deposit, from 1 to 168 hours.

The switches can be turned on only while online payment is available; otherwise they say why and link to the Online payments tab. A switch that is already on stays on and reads Paused, with a note that no deposit is asked meanwhile; the rule applies again once online payment is available. Changing them needs the permission Deposit rules, and each change is in the Activity log.

Deposits are worked out from the price estimate, so they apply only while Show prices on the booking page is on, see Turn on online booking. With prices hidden, online bookings ask for no deposit.

A course can have a deposit of its own, for example a fixed amount for the Open Water course: open the course in the price list and set Deposit for this course in its price dialog. It replaces the amount of the Courses block for that course; the hold time stays the block's, and it applies only while the Courses block is switched on. It needs the permission Deposit rules. See The price list.

How the amount is worked out

The deposit is worked out for each booking from the price estimate the guest saw on your booking page: the dives, nitrox, automatic extras (not those charged once per stay), included gear and requested rental gear, with a person's volume discount spread over their bookings. A percentage is rounded to the nearest smallest unit of your currency. Items without a price count as nothing, and a booking without any price gets no deposit.

The amount is fixed when the guest books. A later price change, or moving the booking to another trip, does not change it.

Before Reserve my spot, the guest sees the deposit of each person and the total, and your cancellation policy, see Cancellation policy.

What the guest does

After Reserve my spot, the page shows Pay your deposit and opens Stripe's payment form on it straight away, for the total of the deposits, with the deadline below it; if a payment does not go through, Pay … now opens the form again. The person who books pays for everyone in one payment, and each person's part lands on their own bill, or on the booker's bill when they ticked I pay for everyone. The deadline is the time of booking plus the hold time, but never later than two hours before the first dive or course day starts; a booking made closer to the start than that has half an hour to pay; when one booking mixes fun dives and courses with different hold times, the shorter one applies to all of it. A guest who does not pay at once is told they can pay later from their bill page until the deadline, gets the payment link by email about ten minutes after booking, while the deposit is still unpaid ("Your booking …: please pay the deposit") and one reminder halfway through the hold time ("Reminder: the deposit for booking … is still open"). A guest who pays from the form at once gets no such email, only the "Payment received" email and the confirmation, or the received email while you still have to confirm the booking. See Payment links and the My bill page.

While the deposit is due, Send payment link on the booking's Deposit row opens the guest's payment link to email, copy or show as a QR code, also before they have a bill. It needs the permission Send payment links.

Confirmed by itself, or by you

When the deposit is paid:

  • A fun dive on a published trip that still has room is confirmed at once, and the guest gets the confirmation email.
  • A course booking on a scheduled course with a free place is confirmed at once. Enrolling stays with your team, with the course's prerequisite checks.
  • Anything else, such as a requested date, a trip that filled up or one no longer published, stays Reserved with "Deposit paid, needs confirmation". Everyone who can view bookings gets the notification Deposit paid, needs confirmation, and the dashboard shows the count. Confirm it as usual, see Confirm a booking and seat the guest.

In the Bookings list, badges show "Deposit due, … left", "Deposit overdue" and "Deposit paid, needs confirmation", and the list filters by Deposit due and Deposit paid, needs confirmation.

When the deposit is not paid

At the end of the hold time DivePilot cancels the booking by itself, with the note "Cancelled automatically: the deposit was not paid in time" and no fee, frees the seat and emails the guest ("Booking … cancelled: deposit not paid"). Payment forms still open for it are closed first, and a booking whose payment Stripe is still processing waits until Stripe settles it. DivePilot checks every 15 minutes. If money still arrives later, it lands on the guest's bill as credit and your team is notified; the booking is not brought back. To keep such a booking after all, Restore it: it returns to Reserved without a deposit, and you confirm it as usual. A deposit paid by bank debit, such as SEPA, shows as on its way on the booking page and the guest's bill page until the bank confirms it, which can take a few business days: it is not offered again and no reminder goes out for it.

Waive a deposit

While a deposit is due, Confirm is refused: waive the deposit first, or wait for it to be paid. On the booking, Waive in the deposit panel opens Waive deposit, which asks for a reason; the booking can then be confirmed as usual. It needs the permission Waive deposits, and the Activity log records it.

Seating the guest in a dive group, or enrolling them on a course, also confirms a booking while its deposit is due. From then on the booking no longer shows a deposit due and is not cancelled for it, and the bill carries what is still owed. Only Confirm and Confirm all wait for the deposit to be paid or waived. The deposit is then recorded as waived by the staff member who seated or enrolled the guest, with no reason, and the Activity log records it. Waiving the deposit, or seating or enrolling the guest, also closes a payment form the guest still has open, so a deposit no longer asked for cannot be paid.

Deposits on the bill

A paid deposit is a payment on the guest's bill. While the booking is reserved, the bill holds it as credit, because a reserved booking has no lines yet. With Automatic receipts on, the deposit gets its receipt, see Receipts; in Thailand a registered dive centre issues the tax invoice at the close, or earlier with Issue invoice, see What your documents are in your country. A full-price deposit can be more than the bill later holds, for example when requested gear was never rented: later charges use the credit, or it is refunded at Settle & close.

Good to know

  • Two guests paying for the last seat: the first is confirmed, the second waits as "Deposit paid, needs confirmation".
  • Deleting a trip or cancelling a course puts the bookings back to Reserved, and paid deposits stay as credit.
  • When the Stripe connection stops, the guest's page says "Please pay at the dive centre" and deadlines still run: waive the deposit to keep a booking.
  • Cancelling a booking with a paid deposit can refund it to the card, see Cancellation policy.

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