# How does the security bond work?

HBook allows you to ask for a **security bond**, sometimes called security deposit. It is a sum of money which is held during the length of the stay to cover the cost of any damages or loss caused by the customer.  

**What are the available options to manage the security bond?**

There are various options for the security bond to cover the different situations: 

- you might wish to inform your client that there is a security bond but not ask for the payment of it
- include it or not to the total amount
- ask for it to be paid at the time of the booking or not
- use it in combination with Stripe payment gateway to manage the refunds with Stripe

You will find the following settings in **HBook > Payment > Security Bond** :

- set if there is a security bond or not
- set if it needs to be paid by the customer: in that case, it will be added to the total price of the reservation (independently of the payment taking place online or not)
- set the amount of the security bond

If you set that you ask for the security bond to be paid and if you set that there is a deposit option (part of the payment of the reservation to be paid in advance), then you will see in the **Deposit settings** a new option to set if the security bond needs to be added to the deposit amount.

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### How can I proceed if I wish to refund the security bond?

When the customer has checked out, if you have set that Security bonds needs to be paid, you will see a note in the “Payment” section of the list of [reservation](https://maestrel.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HD/pages/61112321/Reservation+list#customer-price-payment). It will display, highlighted in red, for example: “To refund: $250”.  

- If you have activated Stripe payment gateway and if you have set in **HBook > Payment > Stripe settings** that you store customer credit card details: you will be able to refund the security bond using Stripe. In the reservation details of the **Reservations** page, you will see a “Refund” link. You can set which amount is to be refunded, which means you can refund only partially the security bond if needed.
- If you do not use Stripe, the refund process has to be done outside HBook. Once you have refunded the money (given back directly to the customer on check-out, send by bank wire, etc.), you can edit the “Payment” column to show the amount refunded.