Deferred Deposits and Flexible Payments for Amenity Bookings: What's New

Residents booking a deferrable amenity can now actually defer their refundable deposit, staff have one unified surface to collect any outstanding amenity charge, and staff can add an extra paid item to a booking after the fact, for example a grill rental or a cleaning add-on.

The gap this closes: properties have been able to turn on deferred deposit collection for an amenity for a while (see "How to set up deferred deposit collection"), but that setting only ever took effect when staff created the booking. A resident booking the same amenity directly in the app was always charged the full amount, deposit included, the moment they booked, no matter what the property had configured. That's fixed. A resident booking a deferrable amenity now sees the same deferred-deposit behavior staff have always been able to give them.

What changed for residents

• A "Pay deposit now" toggle appears when booking a deferrable amenity, off by default. With it off, any required fee is still charged immediately, but the refundable deposit is scheduled to be collected closer to the booking date instead of today. If the amenity has no fee at all, the resident pays nothing to book.

• The deposit's status is visible at every stage, escalating calmly from "due later" to "due now" to "overdue" as the collection date approaches, so nothing charges as a surprise.

• A staff-sent payment link opens right inside the app, not a separate hosted page, and a resident who'd rather not wait can pay the deposit early on their own.

• A waived deposit reads as "Waived," never as though something went wrong.

What changed for staff

• One unified collect surface in the amenity booking drawer's Payment & Refunds tab. Staff pick one or more outstanding charges (the deposit, an add-on, anything unpaid) and choose how to collect: Card (sends the resident a secure payment link), Manual (record cash, cheque, e-transfer, or another offline method), or Void (waive the charge, no money changes hands, fully audited).

• The booking list and drawer stop showing a scheduled-but-uncollected deposit as "Paid." That was a display bug: a deposit that's merely scheduled now correctly shows "Deposit due (date)" through its own escalating states, and only reads "Paid" once it's actually been collected.

• Staff can add an optional paid item to an existing booking, for example a grill rental or a cleaning add-on the resident didn't select up front. It shows up as a new outstanding charge the resident (or staff, through the collect surface) can pay.

Who this applies to

Any property with deferred deposit collection turned on for at least one amenity. If your property has never turned that setting on, nothing changes for you: every booking still collects everything up front, exactly as before.

Who can use the staff-side collect surface: staff, board members, or PMs with amenity booking edit permission on the property, same permission tier that already governs the rest of the amenity booking drawer.

Where to find it: Residents see the toggle on the booking screen for any deferrable amenity, and their deposit's status on their bookings list and booking detail. Staff find the unified collect surface on the amenity booking drawer's Payment & Refunds tab, and the optional-item affordance on the same drawer.