Deposits & card holds

Sidedoor lets you protect a booking with a card hold - an authorisation on the guest’s card that you only turn into a real charge if you need to. This page explains the whole model so you know exactly what happens to a guest’s money at each step.

Deposit types

Deposits are set on a venue’s payment policies (Settings → Policies → Payment). Each policy chooses a deposit type:

Deposit type	What it does
None	No deposit is taken. This is the default.
Hold	A card hold - the amount is authorised on the guest’s card but not charged until you capture it.

Hold versus capture

The distinction at the heart of the model:

• Hold (authorise) - the amount is reserved on the guest’s card. No money moves. The deposit status is authorised and, on the reservations grid, the hold icon shows gold. This is the default behaviour.
• Capture - you take some or all of the held amount. The money moves to you, the status becomes captured, and the hold icon turns green.
• Release - you let the hold go without charging. The reservation is unaffected, the guest is never charged, and the hold icon turns grey.

Price lists have their own deposit mode too - hold (the default) or capture - which decides whether a per-cover deposit is held or charged up front.

Note

Hold-only is how Sidedoor ships by default: guests are authorised, not charged, and you settle at the door. You take money only when you deliberately capture.

How the amount is worked out

For per-cover deposits, the amount comes from your price lists (Settings → Tables → Pricing), which are linked to your access rules. The deposit is calculated per cover as the price multiplied by the party size, respecting a minimum number of covers - so a small party is still held for a sensible minimum spend. Any attached bundles add to the total.

The minimum for any hold is £0.50.

Authorising a hold

A hold can be attached when you create a reservation (+ Request deposit) or a guest-list booking, or sent afterwards as a payment request (below).

• If Sidedoor already has the guest’s saved card, the hold is placed immediately (off-session).
• If not, the guest completes a secure card form to authorise it (on-session).

Once authorised, no funds have left the guest’s account - the amount is simply held.

Capturing at the door

When the guest arrives (or doesn’t), settle the hold from the reservation’s detail panel:

1. Open the reservation and find the Deposit controls.

2. Choose Capture to take the deposit. You can capture the full amount or a partial amount - for example, capturing only a no-show fee.

3. Or choose Release to let the hold go entirely, charging the guest nothing.

• Capture is idempotent - capturing an already-released hold is refused.
• Release is idempotent too - if a hold was already captured, you can’t release it; issue a refund instead.

Cancellations

If a booking with a hold is cancelled, the hold is released automatically - the guest is never left with a lingering authorisation on their card.

Staff-initiated payment requests

You can ask a guest to pay or authorise at any time from the booking or reservation:

• Email link - Sidedoor emails the guest a secure Stripe link to complete the hold or payment themselves.
• Card entry (MOTO) - take the card details there and then over the phone or at the desk.

Both routes use the same £0.50 minimum and feed into the same hold / capture / release lifecycle described above.

Caution

Deposits and card holds require Stripe to be connected and enabled at the operator level. Set this up under Operator settings → Payments before you rely on holds.