Deposit software for trades that never forgets to ask
Every trades owner knows they should take a deposit before a job. The problem was never conviction. It is that in most tools the deposit is a manual line item someone has to remember to add, send, and chase. OptiTech Automation makes it structural: the deposit fires because the booking happened, automatically, through Stripe, into your own account. If the job is in the diary, the deposit was taken as the customer booked.
Want the wording and the law first? Read the companion guide: how to take a deposit before a job, for UK trades.
Why deposits die in practice
The deposit policy that exists in your head is not the one that runs your business. The one that runs your business is whatever survives a busy week. Three things kill it, and none of them is laziness.
- 01
The awkward ask
Asking a stranger for money before you have lifted a tool feels wrong to most tradespeople. So on a busy day, with a friendly-sounding customer, the deposit conversation gets skipped. Not because you decided deposits are a bad idea. Because in the moment, on the phone, it was easier not to ask.
- 02
The forgotten line item
In a quote-and-invoice tool, a deposit is a manual step. Someone has to remember to add the line, send the request, watch for the payment, and chase it when it does not arrive. Four chances to slip, per job, forever. A policy that depends on someone remembering is not a policy. It is a hope.
- 03
The dead chase
Even when the request goes out, a deposit that arrives three days later is not protecting anything. The slot is already held. The customer has already had days to cool off, shop around, or vanish. A deposit only does its job if it lands before you commit your diary, not after.
What changes when the deposit is structural
In OptiTech Automation, the deposit is not a task on a list. It is a property of the booking itself. When a customer books a slot on your page, the deposit is taken at that same moment, through Stripe, into your own Stripe account. The funds never pass through us. There is no step two.
That one change removes every failure point at once. Nobody has to ask, so the awkward conversation never happens. Nobody has to remember, so nothing gets forgotten on a busy day. Nobody has to chase, because a booking without a paid deposit simply does not exist. The rule enforces itself, on every job, every time, without you being the enforcer.
It also changes how the ask feels to the customer. A deposit requested by a person sounds like a judgement about trust. A deposit built into a booking page reads like what it is: how professional businesses take bookings. The customer pays it the way they pay for a train ticket, without anyone having to justify it.
What a no-show actually costs
We will not hand you an invented industry percentage. Count your own. A no-show costs you three times over: the slot you could have sold to someone else, the fuel and the hour if you travelled before finding the locked door, and the evening you spend reshuffling the diary to fill the hole it left.
The difference between a booked slot with money attached and one without is the difference between a commitment and an intention. A customer with a deposit down has a reason to tell you their plans changed, because there is money in the conversation. A customer with nothing down can just go quiet, and the first you hear of it is the doorbell nobody answers.
So the deposit does two jobs at once. It secures real money at booking, before you commit your day. And it turns silent cancellations into conversations you hear about in time to resell the slot. Both halves are worth money. Only you know how much: put your own numbers through the calculator and see.
Your policy, your call
Automatic does not mean out of your hands. The refund and cancellation terms your business offers are yours to set, and refunds go back through your own Stripe when you decide they should. If a job changes, if weather kills a day, if a good customer deserves flexibility, you have it. The software makes the deposit reliable. It does not make you rigid.
And the human side still matters. Knowing how to word a deposit policy, what UK consumer law expects, and how to handle the customer who pushes back is a skill in itself. We wrote the long version: how to take a deposit before a job, the UK trades guide covers the wording, the law, and the awkward cases. This page is the machinery. That guide is the manner.
Deposit questions, answered honestly
Put it in the structure instead of the conversation. With OptiTech Automation, your booking page states the deposit, and the customer pays it through Stripe as part of making the booking. Nobody asks anybody for money on the phone. The policy applies itself, evenly, to every booking, on the worst Friday as reliably as the quietest Tuesday.
Straight into your own Stripe account. The funds never touch OptiTech Automation, and we never take a cut of your deposits. It is your money: secured at booking, captured as the job confirms, and sitting in your own account under your control.
Your policy applies, because it is your policy. You decide the cancellation and refund terms your business offers, and refunds go back through your own Stripe on your say-so. OptiTech Automation gives the deposit a reliable place to happen. It does not take the decision away from you.
Some people will not pay anything upfront, and it is worth being honest about that. But think about who those people are. A customer who will not put a deposit on a confirmed slot is the same customer most likely to be out when you arrive. A deposit filters your diary towards people who mean it. You decide the policy that fits your trade and your customers.
No. The deposit is paid online through a secure Stripe checkout on your booking page, at the moment of booking. There is no hardware to buy, and nothing to carry in the van.
You can take a deposit for free today: a bank transfer or a manually sent payment link costs nothing. The catch is not the payment, it is the process. A free link still depends on someone remembering to send it, watching for it, and chasing it, which is exactly where deposits die. OptiTech Automation ties the deposit to the booking itself so none of that exists, as part of a full booking system priced flat per plan, from £599 a month. The calculator at /worth-it will tell you whether that trade makes sense for your numbers.
No. The deposit engine is one part of a full booking system: customers book real slots on your branded page, jobs go straight to the right worker by rota and qualifications, engineers run their day from the worker app, and completed jobs sync two ways with Xero. The deposit is automatic because the booking is, too.
Keep reading: how to take a deposit before a job, the full UK guide · the booking system behind the deposit · the flat monthly price · the no lock-in pledge
See a deposit land at booking
Book a 15-minute call with the founder and watch the whole thing happen: booking made, deposit in, job dispatched. If it is not right for your trade, you will be told so on the call.