If The Client Doesn't Show Up, You Still Keep Their Money

Are client no-shows causing you trouble?

Solve this problem with the advance payments feature.

We keep hearing that last-minute cancellations and no-shows are one of the biggest pains of beauty professionals. Even if the client rebooks an appointment for the following week, it still means a portion of your day’s income going down the drain. Add a couple more missed appointments per week and you can already feel a significant loss of your weekly income.

To protect you from financial damages, we’ve introduced a super handy advance payment option. With this payment method enabled, your clients will have to pay for their appointment in advance - during their booking process. And the best part is, if the client doesn’t show up (or cancels their appointment too late) you will still get paid the total value of their order!

Sounds great, huh?

Read on and find out how to activate this payment method and stop your clients from causing you losses.

Why should you activate the advance payments option?

First and foremost, the obvious: even the smallest businesses all around the world are increasingly adopting digital payment methods instead of cash operations. Cash payments make you dependent on ATMs and are simply impractical for a present-day consumer.

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Watalook’s Advance Payments are a convenient, cashless way to get paid for your services

1. With advance payments on, you’re protected from financial losses caused by client no-shows.
   Once you set advance payment as your main payment method, every client will have to pay for their bookings in advance, via your Watalook page.
   When the client pays for their booking, a new appointment will automatically appear in your calendar.
   All your client has left to do is show up on their appointment day.
   
   

2. If the client doesn't show up or cancels less than 24 hours before the appointment, you keep the money!
   Our advance payments feature encourages your clients to not miss their appointments, otherwise, they are risking losing their pre-paid money. As a result, you’re guaranteed to get paid even if the client doesn’t show up to their appointment.
   
   It’s also important to know that Advance payments is only one of the several payment methods available on Watalook. In addition to this, you can activate the Pay on the spot method so your client has the option to pay immediately after their appointment.
   
   See? Everything is really simple and convenient for both you and your clients.‍

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How to activate Advance Payments in your Watalook app?

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You can turn on online payment option in your Watalook app settings in three different ways:

1. Go to your profile, then Payments and then in the pop-up window choose Enable online payments
   
   
2. In your profile menu, go to Payouts and then Enable online payments.
   
   
3. When booking an appointment for your client, you’ll have to choose the payment method. Choose “Pay by card” and then you’ll get an option to enable online payments.
   
   

How are the advance payments paid out?

Go to your profile and tap Payouts: here, you’ll find every online payment completed by your clients.

In order to be able to withdraw your earnings, you have to add your debit card number.

Payouts are authorised automatically on the 1st and 16th day of each month for the previous month.

If you don’t want to wait for the 1st or the 16th day of the month, you can withdraw your earnings manually - whenever you want.
‍However, you need to have at least 100 EUR in your Watalook balance in order to do manual payout.

Things to remember

• Watalook’s advance payments are made through Stripe system, so 3% will be deducted from the total value of each client’s order. Even though the 3% fee may seem a lot to some, it is worth considering that client no-shows sometimes cause even bigger financial losses. The advance payments feature is our best guarantee that will protect you from unprofitable gaps in your schedule and encourage your clients to not miss their appointments.
• Stripe may not confirm payments immediately, in which case you may need to provide additional identification.
• You must have at least one of available payment methods enabled in your app’s settings. If you have the Pay on the spot method disabled and the Advance payments enabled but you decide to disable that too, then Pay on the spot method will be enabled automatically.
• Watalook app automatically updates the list of invoices. In just one click, the system will create a .zip file with all of your invoices and download it to your computer.

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