Online booking

Related docs: Services | Bookings | Sessions | Products

Your booking page

Each location's storefront is also its booking page. Customers find your services grouped by category, your session timetable, your packages and memberships, and your products, each on its own tab when there is something to show. Book now, beside the location's name, takes the customer to your services, or to the timetable when you only run sessions. It is not shown while they are already on one of those tabs.

Share your storefront link in your social media bios, on your website and in emails. Collateral has a QR code for it too.

Booking a time

For a one-to-one service, the customer:

1. Chooses the service and, if there is more than one, the pricing option
2. Chooses who they would like, or Any available
3. Sets the party size
4. Picks a day and a time, grouped into morning, afternoon and evening. Times are always shown in your location's timezone
5. Adds it to their cart and goes to checkout

A single visit holds up to 8 services. Once it holds that many, Book is switched off on the other services and says so. A cart that already holds the most bookings it can switches off Book on sessions and Reserve in the same way, and Reserve stays off while a visit is already in the cart, saying to remove it first.

Only times that fit your rules are offered: opening hours, your resources' schedules, the service's minimum notice and booking window, and its limits. When nothing is free on a day, the next available time is offered.

For a busy walk-in service, a customer who finds nothing free soon can Join the queue instead, and is told by text message when it's their turn. The queue asks for a mobile number and will not go ahead without one. See Bookings.

Booking a session

From the timetable, the customer picks a session and books a place, with the number of places left shown. Each seat is priced separately. A session already in the cart offers Remove and Checkout instead of Book, or Choose a time when the cart also holds a service still waiting for its time.

When a session is full they can Join waitlist, and they are booked in automatically if a place frees up. A session whose service needs their address has no waitlist, and says so. See Sessions.

Checkout

Checkout has up to three steps: Who, where there is a staff member to choose or a party to size, then When and Confirm. The button that leads there from the storefront says Choose a time while a service in the cart still needs one, and Checkout once only Confirm is left.

• Signing in: customers confirm their email address with a code, and an account is created for them if they don't have one
• Their details: a mobile number so you can reach them, and their address for services where you travel to them
• Discount codes: entered once their email is confirmed. A code that does not apply to what they are buying is left off the order
• Packages: a booking covered by a package they hold shows Covered by your package and how many credits will be left
• Account credit: any account credit they hold with you is used first
• Deposits: if the service takes a deposit, they can pay just the deposit by card now and the rest on the day of the booking, or pay in full. The deposit secures the booking; see Paying the deposit
• Approval: a service that requires approval shows Request booking. You confirm it before it is final, and it lapses if nobody does
• Party size: a party larger than this location seats at one booking is told the most it can take
• Sessions: if a session in the cart cannot be read, Confirm waits and offers Try again
• No price yet: a service priced after the visit says so, and nothing is charged at checkout

The order creates the bookings and an invoice for anything left to pay, and the customer pays it by card. The invoice is due on the day of the booking, or of the earliest one when it holds several. An order that also buys a product or a package is due the day it is placed. Rescheduling a booking moves its invoice's due date with it, unless you have changed that date yourself. Until your location takes card payments, checkout tells them you will be in touch to arrange payment instead.

Paying the deposit

A booking for a service that takes a deposit is held until the deposit is paid. The invoice and the booking name the deposit and say to pay it by a time 30 minutes after the booking was made, on your location's clock, naming your time zone when the customer is in another. The booking reads Awaiting deposit to the customer and to your team, and the customer's bookings list shows the deadline too. No confirmation is sent and no reminder is set while it is held.

• Paid in time: paying the deposit, or the whole invoice, confirms the booking and sends the usual confirmation. Account credit or a package credit that already covers the deposit confirms it straight away
• Not paid in time: the booking is released and the time is offered again. The customer is told the deposit was not paid in time, any part of it they did pay goes back to their card, and no fee is charged
• Your team can keep it anyway: Confirm on the booking keeps it without the deposit, which stays owed on the invoice
• Changing a held booking: the customer can reschedule or cancel it as usual, and cancelling while it is held costs nothing. A reschedule does not restart the 30 minutes

A booking made as a request, because its service required approval when it was booked, still waits for you after the deposit is paid, and is released if the deposit is not paid in time. Bookings your team makes, and bookings at a location that does not take card payments, are never held.

Saving a card

When a customer pays an invoice by card while signed in to their account, the pay page offers Save this card with your business for future payments. It is never ticked for them. A pay link opened without signing in, or by someone other than the person the invoice is for, does not offer it.

With a card saved, your team can take what is still owed, such as the rest of a booking after its deposit, with Charge card on file on the invoice or the booking. See Invoices. Late cancellation and no-show fees are charged to the saved card too.

Some banks ask the customer to confirm a payment, for example in their banking app. A customer with one of those cards may be asked once when saving it and again when paying.

Cards can be saved only where your location takes card payments through Stripe. The customer can remove a saved card from their account at any time.

A location that has closed shows This location has closed on its storefront and takes no more bookings or orders.

What customers see in their account

Customers sign in to see everything they have with your business.

Bookings

Upcoming and Past bookings, each with its reference, time, service and status. A booking also shows its invoice and what is still due, and your location's phone number and email address. While something is due, Pay names the amount left after any account credit they hold, or, while the booking is held for its deposit, the part of the deposit that credit does not cover. It reads Payment processing while a charge is in flight, and says online payment is unavailable when your location takes none. From a booking they can:

• Add to calendar
• Reschedule a one-to-one booking to another time. It is not offered inside the service's late cancellation window where cancelling would charge a fee, and where a business's plan no longer includes bookings the booking says "Moving bookings isn't available at this business right now."
• Cancel it, whenever the booking allows it. If they paid, what they paid stays as account credit with your business, less any late cancellation fee

Once a booking's start time has passed, they can no longer reschedule or cancel it themselves: the booking tells them to contact your business, and your staff can still move or cancel it.

A cancelled booking tells them who cancelled it and why: themselves, your business, a recurring booking that ended, a service no longer offered, or a location that stopped trading. A package credit returned on cancelling shows as Package credit returned.

Packages

Every package they own, with credits left, expiry and the services it covers. Credits are used automatically when they book.

Memberships

Their memberships, with what is included, the next payment and anything owed. They can pay, cancel, restart a paused membership or cancel a scheduled pause. See Memberships.

Waitlist

Every session waitlist they are on, with their position. They can change their party or leave.

Saved cards

On their profile, Saved cards lists each card they saved, with the business it is saved with and when it expires. Remove card stops that business charging it, and they can save it again next time they pay.