Approving and taking a deposit

Open a new request and you get two buttons: Approve and Decline. Approve does not book anything on its own. It opens Build Quote, where you set the price, the deposit and the dates, and then send the whole thing to the client in one go.

That is the shape of the whole flow. You quote, they pay, it books itself. Nobody has to chase an invoice, and you are not holding a chair for someone who has not committed.

Build Quote has three sections that unlock in order. Your location sits in the header and applies to the whole quote.

1. 1

   Sessions

   One session per sitting. Pick a saved preset, or set it up yourself with either an Hourly Rate or a Total Cost, plus the Deposit Required.

   Two duration fields, and the difference matters. Est. Duration is what the client sees. Appt. Length is the time actually reserved in your schedule. Quote six hours and block seven if that is how your day really runs.

   If the piece will need more sittings than you can price today, tick May require additional sessions and give a rough number. The client sees that estimate, so nobody thinks a sleeve is a one day job.

2. 2

   Scheduling

   Per session, either Offer dates and pick times yourself, or Client picks and hand over your open availability. Covered in full in proposing dates and replying.

3. 3

   Final Review

   The summary shows every session with its Total Cost, Deposit Required and Schedule Type. Add a Message for Client, which appears in their email as your own words, and any private Appointment Notes only you see.

   Preview Email shows exactly what lands in their inbox. Then Send Quote.

Your client gets an email headed Your project has been approved, with your message, a table of the sessions, the times you offered and a Book Now button. The link signs them straight into their client hub. No password, no account to create.

In the hub they see Ready to book, the full quote, and a Continue button once they have chosen a time. There is no separate approve step for them: accepting your quote is paying the deposit. The checkout page shows Due today and tells them plainly that it comes off their total.

If the quote covers several sittings, they only have to book the next one. The rest sit under a group telling them those can wait.

The moment their deposit clears, the session becomes confirmed and the appointment is locked into your calendar. You get a notification titled with their name and the words is booked in, on your sidebar bell and, if you have push turned on, on your phone.

Your client gets a booking confirmation email with their receipt and a calendar file they can add to their own diary. The receipt stays in their hub as Deposit receipt, so they never have to ask you for it.

On your side the request moves out of Inbox and into Booked. The panel becomes Booking Details with a Transactions tab, showing Total Paid and Remaining, and a Collect Final Payment button for the balance on the day.

If your quote has several sessions and each carries a deposit, the request only becomes Deposit Paid once every one of them is settled. Until then it stays as Approved in your Inbox.

That is not a bug and it is worth knowing, because the row still says Approved while real money has already landed. Look for the green upcoming badge on the row: it counts the sessions that are genuinely confirmed and on your calendar.

A quote never expires and there is no hold timer. It sits in your Inbox under Approved until something happens. What Maelo does instead is chase, and then tell you when chasing has run out.

• •A Quote Follow-up email goes out automatically a few days after you send the quote, if the client has not replied and has not booked. You can edit the wording and the timing in your notification settings.
• •The request's menu has Send reminder, which shows you the email first and then sends it. You get five of those per request, and after that Maelo tells you to contact the client directly.
• •After a couple of quiet days the request grows an amber chip counting the days since the client last heard from you: the quote, an updated quote, or your last reminder, whichever came most recently. The row in the list picks up an orange day counter.

You can also just change your mind. Edit quote (the grey button beside the menu) reopens the builder from the start, and a session's own menu has Edit session to open the builder with that line already expanded. Cancelling or archiving takes it off your list without deleting anything.

Deposits go through Stripe, so your payouts have to be connected before a client can pay one. If they are not, Maelo stops you at the review step rather than letting your client hit an error at checkout.

A zero deposit quote is completely valid. The client still confirms their time, you still get the booking, they just pay you in person instead.