How do I take a deposit on a cake order and collect the balance later?

Give the order a payment schedule. A schedule is a short list of rows: a deposit taken as a percentage of the order or as a fixed amount, then a balance row set to "remaining". ibakepro works out each amount, tracks what has been paid against what is outstanding and chases the customer as each due date approaches.

How a schedule is built

Every row has two parts, an amount and a timing.

The amount is a percentage of the order total, a fixed amount or "remaining". The timing is the order date, a number of days after the order or a number of days before the event date, which is the one most custom orders want: the balance falls due a fixed run-up before the cake is collected, whenever that happens to be.

A worked example for a wedding cake. Row one: a deposit of a quarter of the order, due on the order date. Row two: remaining, due two weeks before the event. If the couple later add a dessert table, the deposit you already took stays exactly as it was and the second row absorbs the increase, because "remaining" is calculated against whatever the order total has become.

Two details that matter in practice. A row can carry conditions, so an order above a value you choose can take a different deposit from a small one. And if you use more than one "remaining" row, the leftover is split evenly between them rather than each row claiming the whole balance.

Getting the money in

Customers pay online from their portal or from a payment link you send, through your connected Stripe account. PayPal and Square are coming soon. Payments you take any other way, cash at collection or a transfer you have confirmed yourself, are recorded against the same order. Either way the outstanding balance is one number, not one number per payment method.

Being reminded, and reminding them

Due dates are checked automatically, and the results reach the automations engine as triggers: payment due soon, payment overdue, payment received. You can send a polite nudge before a balance is due, a firmer one after and a receipt when it lands, without watching a spreadsheet of dates.

Where this does not apply

• A schedule only balances while it has a "remaining" row. If you replace it with fixed amounts that do not add up to the order total, part of that order is never billed to anybody. ibakepro tells you when a schedule does not balance and leaves the fix to you.
• Trade customers usually want terms, not a deposit. If you are invoicing a cafe rather than taking a deposit from a couple, see selling wholesale, where the whole total falls due a set number of days after the order instead.
• Refund and chargeback rules belong to your payment provider, not to ibakepro. Your deposit terms are a matter for your own terms of trade.