# Take a deposit on a quote

Source: https://help.mucka.ai/quotes/take-a-deposit-on-a-quote
Category: Quotes
Last updated: 2026-09-08

> Tick one box when you build the quote and your customer pays the deposit by card the moment they accept it. It comes off the final bill automatically, so nobody pays twice.

If you'd rather not order a boiler on your own money, you can ask for a deposit up front. The customer pays it when they accept the quote, on the same page, before you've lifted a spanner.

## Setting it up

You need Live Quotes switched on and card payments connected — that's Settings, then Payments. Without those the customer has no way to pay you online.

Then, when you're building the quote:

1. Tick **Take a deposit**.
2. Choose **%** or **£** and put the number in. Twenty-five percent of a £2,400 boiler swap, or a flat £500 — whichever suits the job.
3. Mucka shows you what the customer will actually be asked for, VAT included, as you type.
4. Send the quote as normal.

If you don't tick the box, nothing changes. Quotes without a deposit look and work exactly as they always have.

## What the customer sees

They open the quote link, read it, accept and sign as usual. Straight after signing, the same page asks them for the deposit and shows a Pay button — card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. It says plainly that it's a deposit and that it comes off their final bill.

You get the usual "quote accepted" notification, and a second one when the deposit lands.

## What happens to your books

The deposit is a **real invoice**, not a note on the quote. It gets its own number, it appears in your invoice list, and it goes across to Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent like any other invoice. That matters for VAT: taking money up front creates a tax point, and a proper invoice is what makes that right.

When you come to bill the rest of the job, Mucka takes the deposit off for you. The final invoice shows a line like:

> Less deposit — invoiced INV-104, paid 12 Aug 2026    −£500.00

So your customer can see exactly what they've already paid and what's left. You'll see two invoices for the job where you used to see one — that's deliberate, and it's what keeps the VAT and the accounts right.

## If they accept but don't pay

The deposit invoice is due the day they accept, so it goes overdue the next morning and joins your normal chase. You'll see it in your invoice list like any other unpaid bill.

## Things worth knowing

- **You can't change a deposit once it's been invoiced.** By then the customer has a document, possibly a paid one. Raise a credit or adjust the final invoice instead.
- **Deposits aren't available on CIS subcontractor work yet.** A card payment comes in gross, and the CIS deduction wouldn't get recorded — so rather than put wrong numbers in your CIS return, Mucka doesn't offer it there.
- **A deposit can't be more than the job.** If it were, the final invoice would come out negative.
- **Don't type the deposit as a minus line.** A line with a price below £0 won't save, and it wouldn't do the job anyway: the deposit belongs on the quote's payment schedule, which raises the deposit invoice and takes it off the final one for you.
- **You can go further than a deposit.** If you want the whole job billed in instalments — 25% now, 50% at first fix, the rest on completion — tick "Split the rest into stages" as well. See [Bill a job in stages](/help/quotes/bill-a-job-in-stages).