Charging for Appointments or Cancellations

With BridalLive, you can charge for your Appointments. Appointments can be charged for Booking or for Cancelations.

For this feature to be accessible, you will need to have a subscription on the Standard Plus or Elite Plans using one of our integrated credit card processors. 

Setup the Charge on the Appointment Type:

Navigate to Settings > Activities > Appointment Types. If you are updating an existing Appointment Type, you'll need to click edit on the right for that Appointment. If you are adding a new appointment, click on Add Appointment Type. 

You will see the Card on File Settings at the bottom of the Edit Appointment Type window.

• Require Payment info for Booking to Yes - this will prompt the user to enter their card details. If you set this to No, the user will NOT be prompted to enter their card details on the appointment form.
• Select whether you would like to charge for booking or canceling the appointment type. You will be prompted to make the charge based on these settings, but the actual charge will be made by the store. This way the store can decide to charge the customer or not. Refunds for the appointment can also be done in the system easily if needed.
• The Item Used for Booking/Cancellation is the Item that will be placed automatically on the Sale Transaction when the card is charged. (see below for steps on creating this item)

Creating the Item used for Booking/Cancellation 

You can create the Item before setting up the Appointment from Inventory > Add Item or click the + button on the Edit Appointment window to create a new Item.

The Item can be named anything you'd like. For example, you can name it "Cancellation Fee". The item should have the following:

• Department = Fees/Extra Charges
• Item Type = Non-Inventory
• Tax Code = Generally this will be No Tax, but please check with your specific location's tax laws
• Vendor = Your Store's Name. **If your store is not already a Vendor in BridalLive, you can add your store into your BridalLive account by going to Inventory > Add Vendor.**
• Retail Price = This will be how much you'd like to charge for the fee

Your Add Item screen should look similar to this.

Custom Appointment Scheduler Appointment Charge Agreements

With the Custom Appointment Scheduler, you have the option for a custom booking fee and custom cancellation fee agreement. If you charge automatically for the booking fee at time of booking the appointment, BridalLive can also request a signature from the customer that will be stored on the payment receipt on the transaction for the booking fee.

Navigate to Settings > Custom Website Forms > and select the General Settings tab. If you do not see Custom Website Forms under Settings, please review your permissions and BridalLive subscription plan.
Custom Website Form Appointment Scheduler Setup Guide

By default, your BridalLive booking and cancellation policy will say I acknowledge and agree to the charge of [AMOUNT]. The merge key [AMOUNT] will pull from the appointment type fee amount. This area is fully HTML customizable, and you may want to work with your lawyer to come up with the best wording for your shop! A great option is having an appointment fee policy page on your website that you can link to from the agreement if you need to make this policy lengthy. When adding a URL, you will want to make sure the URL is opened in a new tab, so the customer is not directed away from your booking page. You can do this in HTML by adding a target attribute on your URL. Learn more about there here.

• Appointment Charge - Automatically Charge Booking Fee - If you have an appointment fee set to booking, you can select this checkbox to have BridalLive immediately charge this fee at the time of booking.
• Capture Signature - Capture Signature for Charge for booking appointments. If you charge for the appointment booking fee automatically at the time of booking the appointment (setting above is checked and appointment type is setup to charge for booking), then BridalLive will require a signature for the payment at time of booking. The signature will be store on the booking fee transaction payment receipt.
• Display Agreement - Show Appointment Charge Agreements. This setting will allow the below agreements to be displayed when the customer visits your website and you have a booking or cancellation fee applied to the selected appointment type. Customer must select the checkbox next to the agreement before the appointment can be booked.
• Booking Charge Agreement - If the appointment type has a booking fee, the customer must select the checkbox next to the booking charge agreement before the appointment can be booked. The BridalLive merge key to display the fee amount is [AMOUNT].
• Cancellation Charge Agreement - If the appointment type has a cancellation fee, the customer must select the checkbox next to the cancellation charge agreement before the appointment can be booked. The BridalLive merge key to display the fee amount is [AMOUNT].

What Your Customers See

BridalLive Custom Appointment Scheduler

With the Booking or Cancellation charge in place, your customers will be prompted to input their card details on the last step of your custom appointment scheduler. Once they've input their card details, they can be required to check they agree to your fee. If you use the auto charge booking fee, you can also require a payment signature.

BridalLive Website Forms - Appointment Scheduler & Appointment Request Form
With the Booking or Cancellation charge in place, your customers will be prompted to input their card details from your online webform. Once they've input their card details, they will click on an "Agree to Fee" button to submit their Appointment. 

The form may be slightly different for other integrated processors.

Charging the Customer's Card

With the Custom Appointment Scheduler, you can set BridalLive to automatically charge the booking fee when the customer books their appointment.

The non-custom scheduler and request form do not automatically charge a customer's card for the booking fee. You will tell BridalLive when you're ready to apply the fee to the customer's appointment. 

If you are charging a cancellation fee, you will be prompted by BridalLive to charge the card when you mark the appointment as canceled or as a no show. You can decide at that time to charge the customer or not.

When you view the Appointment pop-up inside of BridalLive, you will now see an option to View Card or Charge. If you are Charging for Cancellations, this will only Appear if the Appointment has been marked as Cancelled.

Click Charge when you're ready to charge the card. BridalLive will ask if you would like to charge the card now. Clicking on Yes will then bring up this screen:

Clicking Charge & Close will process the card that the customer stored on file when they booked their appointment. You will see an automated Completed Sale Transaction Type in your Transactions list for the Customer with a Line Item for the Fee for the customer charged.

You will also see the status of the Appointment in your Appointments show that the card has been charged.