Set up booking deposits
Connect the practice's Stripe account and configure deposit amounts, link expiry and the no-show policy.
Booking deposits let the practice take a refundable payment before a consultation is booked. Patients pay through a short link sent by SMS, email or WhatsApp; when the consultation is marked as attended, the deposit is refunded automatically.
Payments go directly into the practice's own Stripe account — the practice is the merchant of record, receives the payouts and pays Stripe's processing fees. Smileline adds no fee on top.
Connect Stripe
Only owners and managers can connect Stripe.
Stripe authorization is tied to the immutable practice country chosen during sign-up. United States practices use USD; the United Kingdom uses GBP; every other currently supported country uses EUR. Every deposit uses that same country and currency.
Open Settings → Payments & deposits.
Click Connect Stripe. You'll be taken to Stripe to sign in, choose the practice's existing Standard account or register one, and authorize Smileline.
When Stripe sends you back, Smileline verifies the account once and shows its
payment and payout status, together with the account's name, email and
account ID (acct_…) so you can tell which Stripe account is attached. If
Stripe still needs information, use Authorize Stripe after resolving the
requirements in Stripe.
Stripe can approve access before the browser returns to Smileline. Smileline records that grant independently and attaches it only after the single-use callback proves the practice and connection generation. If the callback is abandoned, rejected or superseded, the unused grant is deauthorised automatically within a bounded one-hour cleanup window rather than remaining attached indefinitely.
Payments are enabled as soon as Stripe verifies the essentials; payouts to the practice's bank can take a little longer to switch on. Both are shown as status pills on the page.
Open Stripe dashboard takes you to Stripe, where you sign in to the practice's own account to see payouts, receipts and disputes.
Change the connected account
Choose Change Stripe account to authorize a different Standard account. Smileline does not move payment traffic immediately. The page shows the candidate as awaiting confirmation, while the current account continues to receive new deposits.
Confirm only after checking that you selected the intended practice account: the confirmation card shows the candidate's name, email and account ID. You can also cancel the switch; cancellation deauthorizes only the candidate and leaves the current account unchanged.
Confirming a switch changes the account used for new deposit payment pages. Every payment page, captured payment and refund already in progress remains pinned to the Stripe account that created it. Smileline never attempts to refund an old charge through the newly selected account.
Configure deposits
Once connected, turn on Deposit requests and set:
- Default amount — what a deposit request asks for when nothing more specific applies (€25, £25 or $25 until you change it, according to the practice's financial region). Deposit amounts must be between €1/£1/$1 and €5,000/£5,000/$5,000.
- Per-treatment amounts — override the default for specific treatments (for example €100, £100 or $100 for implants). Leave a treatment empty to use the default. These are booking deposits, not treatment prices: an amount over 100 shows a reminder, and treatment prices are set in Settings → Fees & prices.
- Link expiry — how many days a payment link stays live (1–30, default 7). Expired links tell the patient to contact the practice.
- If the patient doesn't attend — what happens to a paid deposit on
a missed appointment:
- Hold for review (default): the deposit is flagged and staff decide whether to refund or keep it.
- Keep automatically: the deposit is forfeited as soon as the appointment is marked as not attended.
- WhatsApp template — WhatsApp only allows business-initiated messages outside a 24-hour reply window when they use an approved template. Pick the approved deposit template here; without one, WhatsApp sends only work within 24 hours of the patient's last message. SMS and email have no such restriction.
Each deposit is recorded at one of the practice's locations, where its payment and any refund post, so the practice needs at least one location before it requests deposits. See Which location a deposit belongs to.
An appointment type that requires a deposit is unavailable in online booking whenever the connected account cannot take charges or Smileline cannot reach its configured Stripe environment. The requirement is never silently changed to a free booking. Staff can still take cash or card outside Stripe and use Paid at practice on a deposit request; this is an explicit staff action, not an automatic fallback.
Phone payments (MOTO)
Staff can take a deposit by card when the patient reads their card out on the call (Pay by card on a pending deposit — see Take a card payment over the phone). The card details go straight to Stripe and never pass through Smileline.
Stripe treats a card taken over the phone as a mail order / telephone order (MOTO) payment, which the patient's bank doesn't need to approve. Stripe switches MOTO on per account, after a card-security check: ask Stripe support to enable MOTO payments on the practice's Stripe account.
Until it's switched on, Pay by card still works: when the patient's bank wants approval, its check opens on the staff screen and the patient approves the payment in their banking app during the call.
Refunds
- Attending the consultation refunds the deposit in full, automatically — whether attendance is recorded in Smileline or synced in from your practice management system.
- Staff with the manager role or above can refund or forfeit a deposit manually at any time from the patient's record.
- Stripe's processing fee from the original payment is not returned to the practice on refunds — that's how Stripe works, not a Smileline charge.
Refunds are paid out of the practice's Stripe balance. If the balance can't cover a refund, Stripe debits the practice's bank account; a refund that ultimately fails is flagged in Smileline for staff to retry.