When it comes to taking a deposit, you absolutely to get the cardholder's okay first, and they must enter it. Seriously, if you don't, you're opening yourself up to all sorts of headaches. Think about it: someone could give you a gift card, a fake card, or just straight-up cancel. And even worse, if you try to charge a no-show without their consent (especially for an online or over-the-phone booking), you're almost guaranteed to lose any chargeback dispute. That means you're out the money, you'll probably get hit with higher processing fees, you'll pay a chargeback fee. It's just not worth the hassle.

My two cents? Let's focus those deposits on the bigger groups, like parties of 5 or more. I get it, losing a 'deuce' (a two-top) stings a little, but honestly, trying to charge someone for a missed reservation for a small party often backfires. Maybe their guest got stuck at work or was just wiped out. If you charge them, they're probably not coming back, and you could end up with a nasty review online, which, let's be real, costs way more in the long run than that missed 'deuce' ever would."back because their guest may have been stuck at work or exhausted and charging a missed reservation will make them not come back and lead to a bad review which all cost more than losing a deuce.

100% we need this!

This. Exactly. I am currently looking at demos from SevenRooms and Tock because Toast doesn't offer this feature. I'd hate to get locked into a contract with a third party reservation service and then have Toast add this. Fingers crossed on this.