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Feature · Deposits and card guarantees

Deposits and card guarantees for restaurant bookings, on your rules

An empty table of ten on a Saturday costs you the covers, the staff you rostered and the food you bought for them. Slotora asks for money up front only where that risk is — and leaves the couple booking a quiet Tuesday alone.

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Charged through your own Stripe account once you have connected it. Slotora takes no commission on the money.

Three ways to protect a table

They answer different worries, and a restaurant usually needs more than one of them in a year.

A deposit

The guest pays part of the evening when they book. It suits the nights you sell out regardless — New Year's Eve, a tasting menu, the Sunday before Christmas — when a late drop-out is a seat you cannot sell twice.

A card guarantee

The guest leaves card details and pays nothing at booking. Guests who come are not charged for it; the guarantee is there for the evening someone does not turn up. Lighter for the guest, and enough for most large tables.

A no-show or late-cancellation fee

The amount the guarantee stands for. You decide what a no-show costs and what a cancellation inside your late window costs, rule by rule.

Rules, not one policy for everyone

A blanket deposit puts off the regulars who never miss. A rule asks only the bookings that carry the risk. Each rule can look at:

  • The party size — a card from six, a deposit from ten, say.
  • The day of the week — Fridays and Saturdays, when the room would have filled anyway.
  • The service — dinner, but not lunch.
  • A date — Valentine's night, Mother's Day, New Year's Eve.
  • An event — the supper club or the tasting evening with its own set menu.

A booking that matches no rule is taken exactly as it always was, with nothing asked of the guest. The rules sit beside the other booking rules — turn times, pacing, the largest party online — so the whole policy of the restaurant is in one place.

From the booking to the morning after

  1. Online

    On your booking page the guest picks a time, meets the deposit or the guarantee your rule asks for, and pays or leaves the card in a Stripe checkout as part of booking.

  2. On the phone

    A phone booking taken at the stand that meets a rule gets a payment link of its own, so the guest pays or leaves a card from their own phone. Nobody reads a card number down the line.

  3. At the stand

    The booking shows the deposit held, and the guest card counts how many of that guest's bookings were card-guaranteed — useful when a regular rings for the big table again.

  4. After the visit

    Each booking is settled by your rule: holds are released for the guests who came, and the fee you set is charged for a no-show or a late cancellation.

  5. When you want to be kind

    A funeral, a flood, a mistake on your side. The owner or a manager refunds by hand from the booking, on the web or in Slotora's app. A login at the host stand has no refund button, on purpose.

Your money, in your account

Straight to your Stripe account

You connect your own Stripe account once. Deposits and fees are charged there and paid out to you by Stripe, the way your other card income is. Slotora never holds the money in between.

No commission

Slotora takes 0% of a deposit and 0% of a fee. Stripe charges its own processing fee, as any card processor does; the monthly price of Slotora stays the same whatever you take.

Nothing is charged until your Stripe account is connected and your rules are set. Until then a rule is simply written down, and every booking goes through without a payment step.

The rule the guest reads

A fee is easier to stand behind when the guest agreed to it plainly. Three habits that save arguments:

  • Say the amount and when it applies before the guest confirms, in words a tired person reads at midnight.
  • Keep the fee close to what an empty table really costs you. In the UK a fee that reflects your real loss is far easier to defend than a penalty.
  • Give the regular who always comes the benefit of their record. Their guest card shows every visit and every no-show, so the call is yours and it is informed.

This is not legal advice. The guide on no-show fees in the UK sets out what the law allows, with its sources, including a section for Irish restaurants.

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Fewer empty tables of ten

One e-mail on the day Slotora for restaurants opens in the UK or Ireland.

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