Services

Related docs: Bookings | Sessions | Packages | Online booking

What is a service?

A service is the thing a customer books: a haircut, a personal training hour, a table for dinner, a yoga session. It sets how long a booking lasts, what it costs, and the rules around it.

Services belong to your business. You choose which locations offer each one, and a change to its price, length or schedule applies at every location that runs it.

Choosing a booking type

Every service has one of three booking types:

• One-to-one: each customer picks a time that suits them, from the times your people and spaces are free
• One-off session: one session at a set time that several people can book
• Repeating sessions: sessions that repeat on a schedule, each booked on its own

One-to-one services are booked against your resources' availability. Sessions run at set times and have a number of places. See Sessions.

Creating a service

1. Go to Services and choose Create service
2. Fill in Details: name, description, image and category
3. Choose the booking type
4. Set Duration & availability, or a session's Schedule
5. Add at least one pricing option
6. Set any Deposits & fees and Booking rules
7. Choose the locations that offer it under Available at
8. Create the service

Services at a location lists the services that location offers. One that no resource there delivers yet is marked Not bookable, and the service itself says why. Set Offered at to Any location to see every service the business has, including one offered nowhere yet; if none is offered at this location, View business services opens that wider list so you can add this location to one.

Duration and availability

• Duration: how long each booking lasts
• Buffer: time added after each booking, for clearing up or travelling
• Party size durations: give larger groups a longer slot, such as 90 minutes from a party of 6
• Bookable from and Bookable until: the earliest and latest a booking may start, such as lunch only. Leave both empty to offer it whenever the location is open
• Last start before closing: how long before closing the last booking may start

Notice and booking window

• Minimum notice: how far ahead a customer must book
• Booking window: how far into the future they can book

Pricing options

Each pricing option is a price customers can book at, such as "Standard" and "Senior stylist". Every option runs for the service's duration. Leave the price empty to price it later, when you invoice.

Which pricing option a booking gets can depend on who delivers it. See Who can deliver a service.

VAT

Set the VAT rate for the service. Enter 0 where the service is not VAT-rated: a no-show or late cancellation fee needs a rate stated. The rate is shown only when your business has a VAT number. Without one, a new service is rated 0, and the form says where to add the number: the Tax tab of your business settings.

Deposits and fees

All optional:

• Deposit: how much of the invoice the customer pays up front, as an amount or a percentage. A customer booking online must pay it within 30 minutes to keep the booking; see Online booking. A booking your team makes is never held for it
• No-show fee: charged when a customer does not turn up
• Late cancellation fee: charged when a customer cancels within the late cancellation window you set
• Charge fixed amounts: Per booking or Per person, whether a fixed deposit or fee is taken once for the booking or once for each person in the party. A percentage comes to the same either way
• A deposit already paid counts towards a fee rather than adding to it

A percentage deposit or fee is taken from a fixed price, so a service using one needs a pricing option with a fixed price.

Booking rules

• Requires approval: you confirm each booking before it is paid. Until then it is Pending, and if nobody confirms it before it ends, it lapses
• Requires customer address: for services where you travel to the customer
• Concurrent bookings: how many of this service can run at the same time
• People per time slot: the most people who may start in one time slot, added up across bookings
• Books the whole space: nothing else can use the space while this runs, whatever the party size

Who can deliver a service

A resource is a person or a space a booking has to hold: a staff member, or a room, court, table or piece of equipment.

Adding resources

At each location, go to Resources and choose Create resource. Choose what you are adding:

• Staff: one of your employees
• Space: a room, court, table or piece of equipment, with a name

Give each one a capacity, how many customers it holds at once, and a minimum capacity if it should only be used for larger groups. A capacity can't drop below what upcoming bookings already need: the resource lists the Bookings blocking this change so you can move or cancel them, then save again.

Each resource has a Weekly schedule of the hours it can be booked, and Date overrides to close a date or change its hours, such as for a holiday or a sick day. Saving the weekly schedule or adding an override shows any bookings or sessions that now fall outside the resource's hours; they are not cancelled for you.

Connecting resources to a service

Open a service at a location and choose Manage resources. If the location does not offer the service, the screen says so and links to the service, where you add the location under Available at. Switch on each resource that can deliver it, and the pricing options each one delivers. The switches save as soon as you press them.

You can also work from the resource: open it, choose Edit services under Services, pick the services it delivers and choose Save services. A service that only uses it as its space is not one it delivers, so it is not ticked there.

A one-to-one service cannot be booked at a location until at least one active resource there is switched on for it.

At the same screen you can set where the service runs at that location, its Space, and Booking limits at this location that override the service's own. Space lists spaces only, never staff, and type a name to find one further down. If a staff resource was already set as the space, it stays in the list so you can clear it.

Resource combinations

A resource combination books two or more resources as one unit, such as two tables pushed together. Go to Resource combinations, choose Create resource combination, pick at least two resources, finding any by name, and set the largest and smallest group it serves. Most businesses need none.

Deactivating a resource

A deactivated resource, and any combination it belongs to, stops taking new bookings. Before you can deactivate one, Paydough lists any upcoming bookings, sessions, recurring bookings or services that still rely on it, so you can move them first.

Service categories

A category groups related services on your booking page, such as "Cuts" and "Colour". Go to Service categories, create one, set its Display order (lower numbers appear first), and choose the locations whose booking page uses it under Available at. Categories belong to the whole business.

Open a category and choose Edit services to pick what it groups, then Save services. A service sits in one category at a time, so one already grouped elsewhere says where it moves from. You can also set a service's category from the service.

Deactivating a category hides the grouping. Its services keep selling, ungrouped.

Changing or deactivating a service

Changes to a service apply at every location that runs it. If a change leaves sessions or bookings that no longer match, such as a session now outside the schedule, Paydough lists them so you can update, move or cancel them. Nothing is changed on them automatically.

To stop offering a service at one location, remove the location from its Available at. Paydough refuses while a recurring booking for the service runs there, and names those recurring bookings so you can cancel them first.

Deactivating a service cancels every future booking and session for it, at every location it runs at. Customers are refunded and emailed, and recurring bookings and waitlist places end. Reinstating the service does not bring them back.

You can deactivate a single pricing option instead. Nothing new can be booked with it, and bookings already made keep it.