Scheduling allows you to collect payment at the time a client books a meeting. This is useful for consultations, coaching sessions, or any service where payment is required in advance.
When enabled, clients must complete payment before their booking is confirmed.
Note: Bonsai Payments is only accessible to customers based in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. To confirm if your paid subscription has access to our Scheduling feature, visit our pricing page.
How to set up a payment requirement for an event
Access your event type
To require payment for bookings:
Open the left navigation menu > More > CRM
Click Scheduling
Choose one of the following:
Click New Event Type to create a new event
Open an existing event and select Edit Event Type
Enable payment for bookings
Within the event setup:
Go to the Details section
Enable the option to require payment to book the event
If you haven't set up online payments yet (Bonsai Payments or Stripe Payments), you will be prompted to do so.
Set pricing and tax
After enabling payments, additional fields appear:
Enter the event price
Add a tax rate (optional)
Save your changes to apply the payment requirement. Here's how the payment field will display for your clients:
How payment for scheduling works
When payment is required:
Clients must pay before confirming a booking
Bookings are only scheduled after successful payment
Payments are processed through your connected payment provider
This ensures that all confirmed meetings are prepaid.
Accepted payment methods
Clients can pay using:
Credit cards
Debit cards
Payments are processed through your connected payment integration.
Invoices for scheduled payments
An invoice is automatically created for every paid booking. You can find these invoices in your Invoices section, where you can:
View payment details
Track transactions
Manage refunds if needed
Manage cancellations and refunds
Handle cancelled bookings
If a client cancels a booking:
Payments are not refunded automatically
You decide whether to issue a refund
Issue a refund
To refund a payment:
Go to the Invoices section
Open the related invoice
Select additional options
Click Refund Payment
To learn more about issuing refunds, take a look at our resource here.