You can take deposits/prepayments in two ways.

1 - On the Add booking screen, there is a deposit button.  Click on this to bring up a receipt screen where you enter the payment type and amount.

Only deposits added through the appointment screen will show on the Estimate.

Please note:  You can only make one deposit per appointment through the booking screen.  If you add another deposit for the same appointment through the same booking screen, you will be overwriting the previous one.  In that case, there will be no record for previous deposit.  If you need to make additional deposits, do so through Accounting.

2 - Click on Accounting, Receipts, Prepayment/Credit.  You can make unlimited deposits through this screen.

Deposits/Prepayments do not apply to any invoice until the Take Payment screen.  On this screen, all open invoices will show and any credits/prepayments will show.  Check the Pay box for the invoice you want to pay and the Pay box for what credit/prepayment you want to use, if any.

If the deposit equals the amount of the invoice, the invoice will be zeroed out and the client will owe nothing more.

If the deposit is greater than the amount of the invoice, the invoice will be zeroed out.  The remainder of the deposit will be left on the account as a credit.

If the deposit is less than the amount of the invoice, the customer will owe you the balance.  You can take payment for the balance now.

If the customer is not going to pay the balance now, change the Amount Paid column of the invoice to equal to the amount of the deposit.  It will change the Amount Paid on the receipt screen to $0 and the balance will remain on the customer record.

When you print the invoice, it will note at the bottom that a deposit was applied.

You can add a Reference to the deposit in those cases where the payment should only be used for specific bookings.  Let's say your facility takes deposits for Christmas bookings.  On the deposit screen, there is a Reference field.  The space is small, so make your notation brief.  You can enter XMAS or BD12/25, for example.

Please note:  The Reference field defaults to the payment type, i.e. Visa, Cash, Check, etc.  That information is recorded elsewhere so the deposit will still show in the system as the correct payment method if you change the Reference field to flag a payment.

Important:  If you enter your own notes in the Reference field, do so after making any modifications to the Payment Method.  Otherwise, changing the Payment Method will overwrite anything in the Reference field to the Payment type by default.

For our example, we are taking payment on an invoice for 9/6.  The Reference on our deposit is for XMAS so we know not to use it in this case.