Rental deposits
Require a deposit or full payment for a rental — good protection for pricey resources and long bookings.
An expensive court blocked for three hours by someone who never turns up — that is the classic rental loss. The obvious answer is a deposit. Which is why this page starts with the most important fact:
Today a rental has no deposit setting. In the offering editor the Deposit & prepayment block lives inside the Pricing section, and for the Rental / resource type that section is not rendered at all — it is replaced by Rental settings. There is nowhere to switch on “Require online payment” for a rental.
If you came here looking for that switch: it doesn’t exist. The rest of this article explains what you can actually do instead.
1. How to verify it yourself
- Open Catalog → Offerings and enter a rental.
- Look at the section list on the left: Template, Basics, Rental settings, Price by day & time, Public-page details, Highlight, the client questions, Resources & add-ons, and (on multi-branch boards) Locations.
- There is no Pricing section. And with it, no Deposit & prepayment.
For comparison open an appointment — there the section is present, with the Require online payment switch, the What to charge choice (Deposit / Full price) and Refund on cancellation.
2. Alternatives that work
2.1 Take the money on site and record it
The most common approach, and it works fully.
- The client books without paying.
- They arrive and pay in cash or by card at the desk.
- You open the booking in Schedule and record the payment.
- The amount lands in the till and in the reports.
Details: Recording cash and card.
2.2 Keep an eye on who owes you
A booking that has passed and hasn’t been paid shows up in Money → Who owes me. From there you see the amount, the client, and can act.
Details: Who owes me.
2.3 Make a no-show expensive by other means
- Write your rules into Public-page details → Cancellation policy. That is text the client sees before booking. It is never applied automatically — but it is the ground on which you refuse the next booking.
- Mark the people who don’t turn up as No-show. The history is visible on the client card and in reports.
- For repeat offenders, ban the client with a reason.
2.4 Sell the rental up front as a package
If you want the money before the visit, sell a package that covers the rental:
- Credits — “a 10-hour court card”: the client pays once and then books without paying each time;
- Gift card — a money balance the price of each booking is taken from.
For this to work the rental must have Accepts package payment switched on, and the package’s scope must cover it. See Packages & memberships.
A money caveat: a package bought through the public page counts as sold but unpaid until someone records that the money arrived. A package issued from the client card without taking money is a gift and never enters revenue. See Redeeming & balances.
2.5 Flip the model — make it an appointment
If the deposit really is mandatory and flexible length is not, change the product: create an Appointment-type offering with a fixed duration (“Court — 1 hour”, “Court — 2 hours”) and enable the deposit in its Pricing section.
| What you gain | What you lose |
|---|---|
| a deposit or full prepayment | the flexible “1 to 4 hours” choice |
| a refund policy on cancellation | one offering instead of several |
| automatic release of unpaid holds | — |
In practice two or three fixed variants cover most cases and the client barely notices the difference.
3. What does not work
- Trying to set a deposit “somewhere else”. There is no board-level setting that turns deposits on for rentals only.
- Charging a card manually through the payment provider. Mountify won’t open a payment on a booking that never asked for prepayment.
- Expecting the cancellation policy to hold money. It is informational text, not a mechanism.
4. If you already have a payment provider connected
The connection stays useful: deposits work for appointments and for group classes. Rentals simply don’t take part in that piece.
Check the state under Setup → Integrations → Online payments (Stripe). See Connect Stripe and Deposits & prepayment.
5. Troubleshooting
I used to see the “Deposit & prepayment” block and now it’s gone. You’re looking at a rental. Open an appointment — it’s there.
I published a rental and the client walked through without paying. Expected. A rental asks for no prepayment. See §2.
I want at least a small booking fee. Not possible through a rental today. The closest thing is §2.5 — a fixed-length appointment with a deposit.
What’s next
- Deposits & prepayment — how it works where it is available.
- Rental slots & pricing — what a rental can configure.
- Recording cash and card — taking money at the desk.
- Who owes me — tracking what is unpaid.