Help / Online booking

Set the rules for online booking

Choose whether online bookings need your approval, how far ahead and how soon clients can book, and what happens to same-day bookings.

Who can do this: Everyone on the team can read these settings. Only the owner or an admin can change them.

These rules apply only to clients booking themselves on your booking page. Your team can still book anyone at any time on the calendar.

Steps

Open Business settings and choose Online booking. (You can also press Online booking settings on the Requests page.)
Online bookings: choose Confirm automatically or Require my approval. With approval on, every online booking holds its time and waits in Requests until you answer.
Book up to: type how many days ahead clients can book (a whole number from 1 to 730).
Minimum notice: type how many hours from now a client must book at the earliest (0 to 240).
Same-day online bookings: choose Until and pick a Same-day cutoff time, or choose Off so that tomorrow is the first day offered.
Same-day bookings arrive as: choose Request (shop confirms) or Confirmed. This only matters when approval is off and same-day is on; otherwise it is greyed out.
Unanswered requests: choose Decline automatically after Off, or 1 to 24 hours.
Text new requests to: optionally type a phone number such as 916-555-0100.
Press Save. The Save button stays disabled until you change something.

A box headed What this means rewrites your choices in plain sentences as you edit, for example "Clients can book today until 2:00 PM; after that, tomorrow is the first day offered."
After saving: "Saved. The booking page uses this right away."

The fields are greyed out and there is no Save button.: Only the owner or an admin can change these rules. The page says "Only the owner or an admin can change these."
A message like "Book up to: a whole number of days, 1 to 730." appears next to Save.: Fix the field named in the message. Minimum notice must be 0 to 240 hours, and Same-day cutoff needs a time of day.
"Text new requests to: enter a phone number like 916-555-0100, or leave it empty.": Type a ten-digit phone number or clear the box.
I added a phone number but no text arrives.: The text is sent only when texting is turned on in Settings > Texting. Your owner and admins are always emailed.
My booking page says online booking is not open yet.: The page needs at least one service set to Bookable online and at least one groomer set to Bookable online. See the related articles.

A request nobody answers is declined at the earlier of your automatic-decline hours or one hour before the appointment. The client is told the shop could not confirm in time.
A service category can have its own online notice in Settings > Services. When it is longer than your Minimum notice, the longer one is used.