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Deposits & Prepay

Collect money before work begins — a partial deposit or a full prepayment — and apply it to invoices later.

Deposits and prepay let you collect money on a job before you invoice it. A deposit is a partial amount required to get the job started; prepay collects a recurring job's full contract total up front, optionally at a discount. Both go into the job's advance pool and are applied to the job's invoices as they're generated.

Set up a deposit on a job

In the job form's Deposit section:

  1. Turn on Deposit required.
  2. Choose a Deposit type — Percentage (of the pre-tax estimate total) or Flat amount.
  3. Enter the Deposit amount.

The Jobs list has Requires Deposit? and Unpaid Deposit columns so you can see which jobs are waiting on money.

Set up prepay on a job

In the job form's Prepay section, turn on Prepay enabled and optionally add an Early-payment discount (percentage or amount, or no discount). Prepay is only available for recurring jobs that:

  • aren't billed on a Combined Billing Schedule, and
  • have an end date or occurrence count (so the contract total is known).

How clients pay

When a client accepts a proposal online and you have online payments active, the acceptance page follows up with a payment card:

  • Pay Deposit — "A deposit of {amount} is required to get this job started."
  • Pay in Full — offered when prepay is enabled, showing any savings from the early-payment discount.

Card payments confirm quickly; bank transfers (ACH) can take a few business days. See Proposal acceptance for the acceptance flow itself.

Record a deposit or prepay by hand

If the client pays by check or another manual method, record it from the job:

  1. Open the job's detail page and find the Deposit & Prepay card. It shows the required amount and a running Paid / Applied / Remaining line for each pool.
  2. Click Process Deposit or Process Prepay.
  3. Choose the Payment method, enter the Amount, Date, and any Notes, then click Process payment.

Note: If a client's online payment for the same job is still in progress, BranchSite blocks a manual entry until it completes or you cancel it — this prevents collecting twice.

Apply advance funds to invoices

Deposit and prepay money sits in the job's pool until it's applied:

  • On an invoice for the job, choose Apply Deposit, pick which pool to apply from, enter the amount, and click Apply. The application appears in the invoice's Payments section with a Deposit or Prepay chip.
  • When completing a job, the Apply Available Deposit option applies remaining funds to the job's invoices automatically. Only users with payment management permission can change it.

To reverse an application, click Unapply on the payment — the funds return to the job's pool.

Refund an advance

On the job's Deposit & Prepay card, click Refund to reset a pool (for example, if the job is canceled). Unapply any applications first. If the advance was paid online, the refund goes back through Stripe to the client's card or bank account and the ledger updates once Stripe confirms.