Balance 
Guides
Practical guides to taking deposits and collecting balances on Shopify: setup, policy wording, plans without Plus, pre-orders and what to do when a payment fails. Written for the person who runs the shop, not for a developer.
Where to start
Five guides, read in roughly this order if you are new to deposits on Shopify.
- 1
How to take deposits on Shopify
The setup, the payment setting that trips most stores up, and the policy wording. Start here.
- 2
Deposits without Shopify Plus
Why the built-in feature is Plus-only, why the mechanism underneath it is not, and the three routes a Basic, Shopify or Advanced store can take.
- 3
Partial payments on Shopify
Deposit then balance, pay-later links and buy now pay later are three different things. Picking the right one is most of the decision.
- 4
Pre-order deposits
Fixed dates against ready-triggered balances, deposit size for stock that can be resold, and what to tell customers when the date slips.
- 5
When a balance payment fails
The retry ladder, the payment link, overdue status, what to do and when to give up.
The rules every guide relies on
Shopify supports deferred purchase options on every plan: a product can be sold with a deposit charged at checkout and the rest recorded as payment terms on the order. On Shopify Payments or PayPal Express the customer's card is saved against the order so the balance can be charged later. Shopify gives Plus stores a built-in interface for this; everyone else uses an app to create the purchase option and to run the collection afterwards.
The second rule is that the order's outstanding amount in Shopify is the only figure that matters. Edits, refunds and payments taken elsewhere change it, and a well-behaved deposit app follows it rather than keeping a copy of its own.
Everything in these guides applies to any Shopify plan. Where Balance Due is mentioned, it is as the example of an app doing the work; the mechanism is Shopify's.
Questions
Do these guides apply if I am not using Balance Due?
Yes. The payment settings, the policy wording, the pre-order advice and the failed-payment process are about Shopify and about running a deposit business. Where Balance Due is named it is as the worked example.
Is there a guide for my trade?
The trade pages under Who it's for cover a dozen kinds of business, each with the usual deposit, the balance rule that suits it and the questions that come up.
How long does setup take?
About ten minutes for a first plan, most of which is deciding on the percentage. The how-to guide lists the steps.
Ready to set one up?
A first deposit plan takes about ten minutes, and the Free plan covers a real order end to end.