Is there a solution to issuing rental deposit refunds without fees? Can you place a hold on a card?

[lakesidemarina]

We are in the business of renting boats.  We require a deposit that is charged at the time of the reservation.  If the boat is returned without damage, the deposit is refunded.  

Square's recent announcement about the charges for refunds is forcing us to evaluate other options that may be available to avoid these fees.

I have found this article about credit card authorization forms.  There is text in the article that mentions placing holds on a customer's card until the equipment is returned, however I cannot find any information on how to place a hold on a card.  Here is the link to the information about how to download the template.

 Credit card authorization form 

Notice this in the text of the article

"This comes in handy if you run any type of business that rents expensive equipment. You can use a credit card authorization form to put a hold on a card until the equipment is returned."

Does anyone have any input or perhaps may be in a business that is similar and uses a different method for deposits?

Thanks!

[sayra]

Hello, @lakesidemarina - Welcome to the Seller Community!

Happy to see you here asking for more clarification around credit card authorization forms. In this case, to place a card on hold you would need to subscribe to Square Appointments. @Sean provides some insight here related to how you can use this software and credit card authorization form with a business like yours. 

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

[sklopfenstein]

I’m curious about this “hold “ as well. We sell kegs of beer and charge a deposit on the equipment use to serve it. Average deposit 30-150 bucks) In my experience with taking holds on funds (example to do this for a table reservation at events) square only holds the funds for 6 days. After 6 days it automatically goes back to the client. Unless we manually process the charge. So during wedding season for example we sell 20/30 kegs out the door a weekend we now have to hold their deposit on equipment and require it back within 6 days where we had given 60 days prior. Charging the client up front and issuing a refund is so much clearer to track and safer for businesses assets. Adding a new daily task of tracking equipment out and processing holds adds labor hours and is messy for tracking. With a refund I pull up one transaction and it’s all on the same ticket so it’s easy to see the customers entire ticket at one time rather that having a separate deposit ticket to match up with each transaction, not to mention our customers offen return things in stages and may not return it all at one time so now I’ll have partial holds. I’m curious why square is making this change and why they see this new added fee as necessary. While I realize I can just change company policy to accommodate this change in deposits it seams cumbersome for a such a streamlined and user friendly program like square to complicate returns all of a sudden. Is there a threshold like if you do less that $1000 a week this new fee doesn’t apply or x number a month. Especially on high ticket items like the above boat business or multiple equipment pieces like my business. I’d like further explanation and recommendation on work around that don’t add more labor and tracking inventory