Deposit and cancellation rules

Deposits protect you from no-shows and last-minute cancellations. But not every business handles them the same way. A grooming shop might charge the full price upfront because a missed appointment is a lost hour. A boarding kennel might charge only the first night because the customer is committing to a longer stay.

Petsoft gives you six ways to charge deposits. You can use different rules for different services, and different rules for holidays versus regular days.

The six deposit types

Type	How it works	Best for
Flat fee	A fixed amount, like twenty-five dollars	Daycare or short stays where the total bill is predictable
Percentage	A portion of the estimated total, like fifty percent	Boarding stays where the bill varies by length
First night	The price of night one only	Standard boarding; simple for customers to understand
Total price	The full estimated bill paid upfront	Grooming appointments or premium services
No deposit	Nothing charged at booking	Regular customers you trust, or services where last-minute cancellation does not hurt
Manual	You type the amount for each reservation	Special cases, comps, or negotiated rates

Most facilities use a mix. They might charge a flat fee for daycare, first night for boarding, and total price for grooming. You set this per service in Organization > Settings > Deposits.

Cancellation tiers

When a customer cancels, Petsoft looks at how much notice they gave and applies your tier rules. You can set up to three tiers.

Here is how a typical three-tier system looks:

More than seven days notice The customer gets a full refund. You might keep a small processing fee if your policy allows, but most businesses refund the whole deposit to maintain goodwill.

Two to seven days notice The customer gets half back. You keep the other half as a cancellation fee. This covers some of the revenue you lost by holding a run that could have been booked by someone else.

Less than forty-eight hours notice The customer gets no refund. You keep the entire deposit. At this point, the chance of rebooking that run is almost zero, so the deposit needs to cover your loss.

You can change the day thresholds. Some facilities use fourteen days instead of seven. Some use twenty-four hours instead of forty-eight. Pick numbers that match how far in advance your customers typically book.

How the math works

Petsoft calculates refunds automatically. Here are a few real examples.

Example one: boarding with first-night deposit A customer books a five-night stay at sixty dollars per night. The deposit is one night, so sixty dollars. They cancel five days before arrival. Your policy says two to seven days gets fifty percent back.

Petsoft calculates: sixty dollar deposit times fifty percent equals thirty dollars refunded. You keep thirty dollars as a fee.

Example two: grooming with total price deposit A grooming appointment costs ninety dollars total. The customer pays the full ninety upfront. They cancel with three days notice. Your tier says two to seven days gets fifty percent back.

Petsoft refunds forty-five dollars. You keep forty-five. The customer is unhappy, but your groomer still gets paid for the blocked hour.

Example three: daycare with flat fee A customer books ten daycare days. Your flat deposit is twenty-five dollars. They cancel ten days in advance. Your tier says more than seven days is full refund.

Petsoft refunds the full twenty-five dollars. No fee.

Different rules for holidays

Holidays are high-demand periods. A cancellation on Christmas Eve hurts more than a cancellation on a random Tuesday.

You can create holiday-specific deposit rules. Many facilities require a higher deposit during peak seasons:

• Christmas and New Year's: total price deposit, no refunds within fourteen days
• Spring break: first night deposit, no refunds within seven days
• Summer weekends: percentage deposit, standard cancellation tiers

To set this up, create a holiday rule in your deposit settings and assign the dates. Petsoft checks the reservation dates against your holiday list and applies the stricter rule automatically.

Manual overrides

Sometimes the policy is wrong for a specific situation. A customer's mother passed away. Their house flooded. Their dog got sick. Good businesses make exceptions.

When you cancel a reservation, Petsoft shows you the calculated refund based on your tiers. You can override both the refund amount and the fee amount. Change them to whatever you think is fair, add a note explaining why, and save.

The override is logged in the reservation history. If an accountant or manager asks later why the refund did not match the policy, the note is right there.

When deposits do not apply

Deposits are not charged for:

• Walk-in services with no advance booking
• Reservations created by staff without requiring a deposit
• Customers with a permanent deposit waiver in their profile
• Stays paid entirely with store credit

If you have a VIP customer who books twenty times a year and never cancels, you might set their profile to skip deposits. It saves them hassle and shows you trust them.

Refunding deposits

When a cancellation triggers a refund, you choose whether to send the money back to the customer's card or apply it as store credit. Card refunds take three to five business days to appear. Store credit is instant.

If the original payment was made more than six months ago, the card refund might fail. In that case, store credit is your only option. Explain this to the customer upfront so they are not surprised.