Can I take a deposit from my customer now and collect the rest of the money later?

Yes, in most cases you can take a deposit now and collect the balance later, but how far you can go with it depends on the supplier behind the booking and on the options enabled for your account.

The important thing to understand is that there are two separate payments going on. One is what your customer pays you, and the other is what the booking itself needs in order to be confirmed and held. Many hotel rooms sit on a pay later basis and only need to be paid close to the stay, so a deposit from your customer works comfortably. Flight tickets and most non refundable rates are different, because the ticket or the room has to be funded in full at the moment of confirmation. In that situation you can still take a deposit from your customer, but the shortfall is being carried by your agency until they settle, so it is a cash flow decision rather than a software limitation.

On the software side, you can normally record a part payment against a booking, keep the outstanding amount visible, set a due date, and send the customer a link to pay the balance later. Whether your customer can pay that balance themselves online, or whether your staff have to take it manually, depends on the payment setup on your portal and on what your plan includes.

The next step is to decide which products you are happy to sell on a deposit basis, then ask us to confirm how part payments and balance reminders are configured for your account so your team all follow the same rule.