Add a deposit/upfront payment requirement to your proposals easily with Bonsai. This guide will provide you with everything you need to know about how to add an upfront payment and what to expect.
Note: This feature only works with Bonsai Payments - our integrated payment system. If you enable this option, it will automatically use Bonsai's online payment processing.
Bonsai Payments is currently only available in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.
How to set up an upfront payment on a proposal
To add the upfront payment requirement to your proposal, navigate to your proposal’s settings pane and scroll down to the Payment section.
Here, you can toggle the ‘Require Upfront Payment’ button on. A pop-up will appear to set up the deposit amount. The payment amount must be input as a percentage of the total invoice amount. This percentage is of the owing amount before any processing fees.
You can also configure which payment methods are offered to your client in this section. Once your selections have been made, click on ‘Save changes’ and send the proposal.
Processing fees
By default, the client will not pay processing fees unless the selection is made in your invoice settings. Click here for an up-to-date overview of the applicable processing fees.
If you opt for the client to pay the processing fees, it will be added to their owing invoice amount.
How this looks for clients
Once the deposit option has been enabled and sent to your client, a section of the proposal will display the following message.
The client can accept the proposal and will then be prompted to complete their deposit payment on the next screen.
Your client will need to complete the upfront payment in order to accept the proposal. Once the payment has been made, the associated invoice will reflect as paid.
How this works on invoices
Deposit invoice
After the proposal has been sent to your client, an invoice for the deposit amount is automatically generated. The status of the invoice will be marked as Invoice Outstanding and the title will be formatted as ‘Project Name Deposit’.
This invoice is almost identical to any other invoice you would create, where you can send your client a reminder, manually record a payment, download a PDF file and more.
Invoice for the remainder
After the upfront payment is paid, another invoice will be generated for the remaining amount. This invoice will not be sent out to the client automatically. As such, you can customize the invoice to your liking and send it out. To learn more about Bonsai’s invoicing capabilities, take a look at our guide on How to create an invoice.
For more help with setting upfront payments for clients, get in touch with the Bonsai Support team at support@hellobonsai.com