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How to use the security bond feature? What are the options for asking a security bond? How can I refund a security bond?

Answer

HBook allows you to ask for a security bond, sometimes called security deposit. It is a sum of money which is held during the length of the stay to cover the cost of any damages or loss caused by the customer.

There are various options for the security bond to cover the different situations: 
  • you might wish to inform your client that there is a security bond but not ask for the payment of it
  • include it or not to the total amount
  • ask for it to be paid at the time of the booking or not
  • use it in combination with Stripe payment gateway to manage the refunds with Stripe
You will find the following settings in HBook - Payment - Security Bond :
  • set if there is a security bond or not
  • set if it needs to be paid by the customer: in that case, it will be added to the total price of the reservation (independenlty of the payment taking place online or not)
  • set the amount of the security bond
If you set that you ask for the security bond to be paid and if you set that there is a deposit option (part of the payment of the reservation to be paid in advance), then you will see in the Deposit settings a new option to set if the security bond needs to be added to the deposit amount.
 
How can I proceed if I wish to refund the security bond?

When the customer has checked out, if you have set that Security bonds needs to be paid, you will see a note in the "Payment" section of the list of reservation.It will display, highlited in red, for example: "To refund: $250".
  • If you have activated Stripe payment gateway and if you have set in HBook - Payment - Stripe settings that you store customer credit card details: you will be able to refund the security bond using Stripe. In the reservation details of the Reservations page, you will see a "Refund" link. You can set which amount is to be refunded, which means you can refund only partially the security bond if needed.
  • If you do not use Stripe, the refund process has to be done outside of HBook. Once you have refunded the money (given back directly to the customer on check-out, send by bank wire, etc...), you can edit the "Payment" column to show the amount refunded.
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