Guide

Set your deposit and balance rules

Your deposit and balance rules decide how much a customer pays at booking and when the rest is due. This covers the deposit type, the minimum, and the pay-in-full window for last-minute bookings.

5 min read

This guide answers

  • How much deposit do I take?
  • When is the balance charged?
  • How do I take the full amount for last-minute bookings?
  • Can Glovebox charge the balance automatically?

Your deposit rule sets how much a customer pays when they book; the balance is the rest, due before pickup. Both are configured in one place and apply to every new booking.

Before you start

Connect a payment gateway first, or there is nothing to take the deposit with. See Connect a way to take payment.

All the amounts here are GST inclusive — a percentage deposit is a percentage of the GST-inclusive booking total, which is what the customer sees.

Where to find it

In the left sidebar, open Settings, then Booking policies (under the Business heading).

Steps

  1. Choose a Deposit type:
    • Percentage of total (incl. GST) — the usual choice. Set Deposit (%) (the default is 20).
    • Fixed amount (NZD) — a flat deposit regardless of hire value. Set Fixed deposit (NZD).
    • Full balance up front — the whole amount is taken at booking.
  2. If you use a percentage, you can set a Minimum deposit (NZD) so small hires still leave a worthwhile deposit. Leave it blank for no minimum.
  3. Set Charge balance (days before pickup) — how many days before pickup the balance is due. The default is 7.
  4. If you want last-minute bookings paid in full, set Pay in full within (days of pickup). When a booking's pickup is within this many days, the customer is charged 100% at booking. Leave it at 0 to switch this off.
  5. Ignore Automatically charge the balance on the due date. It no longer does anything — see the warning below.
  6. Click Save.

What you should see when it worked

A new test booking on your booking page shows the deposit you configured as "Deposit due today", with the balance noted as payable before pickup. A last-minute booking inside your pay-in-full window shows the full amount due at booking.

Things worth knowing

  • The deposit percentage is taken from the GST-inclusive total, not an ex-GST figure.
  • "Automatically charge the balance on the due date" does nothing. The switch is still on the screen, but the job behind it no longer takes money — it was stripped of that after it charged a real customer off-session in August. Leaving it on does not collect anything, and turning it off changes nothing either. If you are relying on it, your balances are not being collected.
  • Glovebox asks for the balance; it does not take it. The scheduler emails the customer a payment link and reminds them. Charging a card is something you do deliberately, from the booking's Payments tab. See Automate balance payments and reminders for what it does send.

If it did not work

  • Save does nothing and a field is red. A required amount is missing for the deposit type you chose (for example a fixed deposit with no amount). Fill it in and save again.
  • Connect a way to take payment Until you connect a payment gateway your booking page cannot take a deposit, so this is one of the first things to do. It covers connecting Stripe, using Windcave, and the one difference that matters: only Stripe can auto-charge for damage, fuel and over-mileage after a hire.
  • Set up and release bonds A bond is the security amount you hold against a hire. This covers the default amount, the difference between an authorisation hold and a capture, and how long after return the hold is released.
  • Automate balance payments and reminders Instead of clicking Request payment on every booking, Glovebox can send the balance requests and reminders for you. Glovebox asks for the money; it never takes it from a card on its own.

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