Self-hosted booking systems and deposits
Self-hosted booking with deposits: how a deposit is quoted, tracked and paid when the booking software never touches the card.
booking deposits self hosted is a short query with a long reason behind it. A no-show costs the
hour, and the hour cannot be sold twice, so a deposit is the smallest instrument that makes a
customer treat the booking as real. The question underneath the query is how a booking tool on your
own server can take one without turning into a payment processor.
The shape of the problem
Taking money carries a cost that has nothing to do with the money. A page that accepts a card number
drags in a compliance surface, a stored-credential question and a refunds flow, and none of those
are the reason anybody wanted a booking page. Hosted booking services solve it by being the
processor, or by sitting between you and one -- which is also how the monthly fee and the
per-booking cut arrive.
There is a third arrangement, and it is the one a self-hosted tool can genuinely hold: the booking
software quotes and records the deposit, and the money moves on a page your own payment provider
runs.
What owning the copy changes
The deposit becomes a record rather than a transaction. Your database holds the appointment, the
amount due and whether it landed; your provider holds the card handling and the receipt. Nothing in
the middle takes a slice of the booking, because nothing in the middle sees the booking. When you
close a month, the appointment record and the provider's payout report are two independent sources
for the same event, which is a stronger position than one vendor's dashboard.
What to look for
A deposit per service, not per shop. A consultation and a full afternoon are not the same risk.
Slotly sets deposits per service, alongside coupon codes and tax, so the amount asked
tracks the appointment actually being made.
Try the Slotly demo ↗Live, on sample data, no sign-up.
The amount shown where the customer is looking. A deposit mentioned in a confirmation email
three minutes later is a surprise. Slotly quotes the amount due on the booking page and shows your
own payment page right beside it, over HTTPS only, and no card ever touches your server.
A record that survives the payment. Each appointment carries its own status, so a booking whose
deposit has not landed is a visible state rather than a note in somebody's head, and the admin
calendar and the reports by service and by staff read the same figures.
Reminders that go out without you. One cron line turns on automatic email reminders through your
own SMTP server. A deposit reduces no-shows; a reminder reduces them further; the two together are
most of the reason the instrument exists at all.
An honest account of the cancellation. Refunding is your provider's job and your policy, and any
booking tool that offers to automate it is claiming access it does not have.
The limits, stated plainly
Slotly never processes cards, so there is no in-app refund, no stored card and no chargeback screen.
Deposits are quoted and tracked; the payment happens on a Stripe, PayPal or bank page you control,
and reconciling the two is a human act at whatever cadence suits you. Email goes through your own
SMTP server or PHP mail, and the automatic reminders wait on that cron line -- the application runs
no background jobs of its own. Calendar feeds are one way. It runs one business per installation and
is not a marketplace, so it cannot split a deposit between two independent sellers.
None of that is a gap to be filled later. A booking tool that holds no card number cannot leak one,
and the whole deposit feature is built around keeping it that way.
Questions people ask
Does the customer pay inside the booking flow?
They pay on your payment provider's page, opened from the booking page beside the amount quoted. The
booking is recorded either way, and the state of the deposit is visible in admin.
What happens if a deposit is never paid?
Nothing automatic. The appointment stays in whatever state you gave it, and the decision to hold,
chase or release the slot is yours. A tool that cancelled bookings on your behalf would be making a
commercial judgement it has no business making.
Can a deposit carry a coupon, or include tax?
Coupon codes and tax sit in the same per-service setup as the deposit, so the amount quoted is the
amount you intend rather than a base price the customer has to work out.
Where to look next
The product page is Slotly, where the deposit behaviour, the reminder cron and the
payment hand-off are described in the product's own words. The side-by-side puts it
against the rented options, and the booking-software alternatives page
is one place to start if you already pay for one. For what the rented options charge, and for the
per-booking cuts that sit on top of a monthly fee, read the observatory: every figure
there is quoted verbatim beside the date it was read and a link to the vendor page it came from.
Prices are on the observatory; read them on the date shown there.