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Deposit or Retainer

Feature Request

Hello, 

This is so small but it's a legal thing. Can we have the option to click Deposit OR Retainer when sending the invoice out? And if you click on deposit or retainer via the invoice or whatever then said booking automatically turns any place it mentions the term deposit into deposit or retainer. 

Posted by Tanyah Anderson ·
2 comments

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Comments2

  • Lucas Steflor

    Team•

    Sep 4

    Hey @Tanyah Anderson , curious to hear a little more about this.

    I haven't heard the deposit vs retainer distinction come up much. Can you walk me through what's behind it on your end? Some things I’m curious about:

    • Is this coming from a lawyer, your state's rules, or a past dispute with a client?

    • Is the difference purely the word, or does a retainer also behave differently for you, like being non-refundable when a deposit wouldn't be?

    My instinct is that a toggle that swaps one word for another across everything could confuse more people than it helps, so if the real need is something like "this payment is non-refundable and here's what it's called," I'd rather build that. But I'm guessing, and you know the legal side of your business better than I do.

    • Tanyah Anderson

      •

      Sep 10

      Thanks for asking! This isn't coming from a past dispute or a lawyer telling me Georgia requires the word “retainer.” I'm moving PPC to a retainer/credit model, where the payment secures the client's requested dates and is then applied toward their final balance. My service agreement will clearly define the retainer and the cancellation/rescheduling terms.

      I'm being intentional about the terminology because I want the client-facing payment language to match the agreement they're signing. Georgia's Fair Business Practices Act also makes me want to be careful that I'm clearly and accurately describing what the client is paying for. I'm not saying the law requires “retainer” over “deposit.”

      So for PPC, I would want the existing Scritches deposit workflow to function exactly the same way, but have the option to call it a “Booking Retainer” throughout the client-facing invoice experience. I agree that a universal deposit/retainer toggle could potentially confuse businesses that don't need the distinction, but if it's an optional setting, I think it would solve my use case without changing the underlying payment functionality.