How to set the cancellation and online booking policies

You are able to customise your cancellation and online booking policies to suit your business. 

In this guide we're going to show you how to update or set:

1. Initial status for online bookings.
2. Staff booking preference.
3. Online booking preferences.
4. Online booking time policies.
5. Cancellation and change settings, and online payments.

You can update these online bookings settings at any time by heading to  Setup > Online bookings from the main menu:

On the other hand, you can update these online cancellation and payments settings by heading to  Setup > Online payments from the main menu:

Initial status for online bookings

At the top of the page, under the Settings section, you can set the default status for online bookings.

Here you can decide if you'd like online bookings to be:

• Instantly accepted (Confirmed)
• Require your staff to approve or accept online bookings (Pencilled in).   

Click on the option to set the Initial status for online bookings: 

Click on the box next to The customer must enter an email address and telephone number if you want to always capture this information when they book online (recommended) 

Click on the Enable bookings across time zones to allow clients to book in their own time zone. See our How to use customer time zones guide for more information 

Note: If your business has locations in multiple time zones, we do not recommend allowing customers to book appointments in their local time zone. Find out more.

Staff booking preferences

Next up, you can specific how you would like your staff to be assigned in online bookings. You have three options:

• Customers can select a staff member, or choose no preference: This is the default option and allows a customer to select a specific staff member, if they have a preference, or choose No preference if they are happy to see any staff member.
• Customers must select a specific staff member: The customer must select a staff member before they are shown any available times. They can then select another staff member from the options to view their availability instead.
• Have no option to select staff, staff automatically assigned: This will show all available times and the staff member will be assigned based on which time is selected.

Tip: To change the order your staff appear in the online booking process, check out our How to change the staff order guide.

Online booking preferences

You can also set some additional customer requirements and online booking options:

1. Check the box next to Allow multiple services in an appointment to allow multi-service and service group booking.
2. Check the box next to Allow multiple staff in an appointment to allow customers to book one staff member for the first service and another for the second service. And set the maximum time you want a client to wait between the two services for the second staff member
3. Set which time slots will be available to the client when booking online by using Optimise your calendar. For more information on minimising gaps see our How to minimise time gaps between appointments guide 
4. Check the box next to Show clients the login option in Online bookings to give your clients the option to login when they book online. For more information see our Client Login FAQ guide 

Online booking time policies

You can also set some restrictions around when customers can book appointments:

1. Use the first Customers can book appointments up to field to set how much notice you need for online bookings e.g. if this is set to 24 hours, customers will only be shown available bookings at least 24 hours in the future: 

   

2. Use the second Customers can book appointments up to field to set how many days/weeks/months in advance will show up as available online e.g. setting this to 2 months will only allow customers to see availability for the next 2 months: 

   

Cancellation and change settings, and online payments

You can control if customers are able to cancel or change their appointments online, as well as set up policies to collect deposits or store client card details to reduce no-shows. These settings live in Setup > Online payments.

Check out our  How to set up online payments for appointments guide for more information.