When food clients are required to commit to their reservations with a deposit, they are more inclined to honor their bookings or provide advance notice of any changes. The Reservation deposit service ensures that restaurants can minimize empty tables, optimize seating, and better manage their resources while addressing the challenge of last-minute cancellations.
This premium service allows restaurants to charge and keep / refund deposits.
Restaurants will be able to use this service if they have the Online Payment service enabled and a merchant account connected.

This service can be enabled from the restaurant admin panel -> Setup -> Payments -> Reservation deposit, like this:

How to set Reservation deposit

Within the Reservation deposit section, restaurants can:

• Set when reservation deposits are displayed to food clients:
  
  • all the time - Reservation deposit will always be displayed to the food client regardless of the time and date
  • on weekends - Reservation deposit is displayed to food clients only during Saturdays and Sunday. Outside of this time interval Reservation deposit is not displayed to the guests; the standard reservation flow appears instead in the widget
  • on custom time intervals - Reservation deposit will be displayed to the food clients only during the time interval configured by the restaurant
• Charge deposit amount (set the amount and charge per guest or per reservation)
• Select what food clients see the reservation 
  
  • All reservations (pre-selected) - the Reservation deposit will be displayed to the clients booking a table
  • Only if party size exceeds a configured number of persons – the limits are set in the Services & opening hours > Table reservations > Settings > Minimum / Maximum guests. 
• Define your Refund policy: 
  
  • No refund, pre-selected when configuring Reservation deposit
  • Custom refund policy, returning the full and/or partial amount if the reservation is canceled before the defined number of days

Manage Reservation deposit from the Order-taking app

The restaurant will be able to manage the reservation deposits from the Order-taking app: 

A. Cancel table reservation

In the order-taking app, access the order details -> Cancel order button: 

• Keep deposit
• Refund deposit
   

B. Mark table reservation as No-Show
When guests fail to honor their reservation, swipe (left or right) No-Show on an accepted table reservation with a deposit in the order-taking app to:

• Keep (=keep the full deposit) - pre-selected -> Confirmation screen displays Reservation marked as No-Show | Remember to process the {amount} deposit
• Refund (initiate a refund operation) -> Confirmation screen displays Reservation marked as No-Show | A refund of {amount} was initiated

If the food client that placed the reservation at your restaurant makes another reservation or a food order paid with cash or card at pick-up counter / delivery driver, the Previously No-show label will be displayed for that food client.  This label will disappear only when the respective food client places a reservation and honors it (i.e. the reservation is marked as Ready for Guests).

C. Mark table reservation as Ready for guests

When food clients honor the reservation, swipe (left or right) Ready for guests on a reservation with a deposit in the order-taking app to:

• Keep (=apply discount to bill) -> Pre-selected (allows the restaurant to keep the full deposit) -> Confirmation screen displays Reservation marked ready | Remember to apply the {amount} deposit to the bill
• Refund (Full amount) -> Allows the restaurant to initiate a refund operation -> Confirmation screen displays Reservation marked ready | A refund of {amount} was initiated

How food clients see the Reservation deposit in the ordering widget

Based on the restaurant admin panel settings, the reservation deposit costs, and refund policy will be reflected in the ordering widget:

SMS notification
When the Reservation deposit feature is enabled, the food client who checked You may opt-in to receive a SMS reminder message prior to your reservation in the ordering widget will receive 1 SMS reminder to the phone number associated with the reservation, 2 hours before fulfilment of the reservation. 

If they wish to receive the notification, the food client needs to make check this option for every reservation – messages will not be sent to food clients without their express consent.

Please note that if you enable Table reservations service after already publishing the ordering widget using the HTML code, you will need to republish it because the code has been updated.

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Now that you know how to enable the Reservation deposit service, it would be recommended to revisit the Table reservation settings and the Online Payment service activation.