Module · Bookings (incl. Experiences, Staff, spaces & equipment, Check-in)

Where to find it in the app

• Use it: Bookings → Bookings
• Turn it on/off: your business name (top-left) → Settings → Modules → Bookings → Bookings

Plan: Solo and Business · Module group: Bookings & schedule · Navigation: Bookings and the related pages Experiences, Staff, spaces & equipment and Check-in in the same group.

Bookings is the heart of HappierBiz. It is really four connected screens:

1. Experiences, what customers can book (you set this up first).
2. Staff, spaces & equipment, the staff, spaces and equipment a booking uses.
3. Bookings, the live list of reservations you manage day to day.
4. Check-in, the door, on the day.

Your wording. "Booking" is renameable per business, your menus and screens may say appointment, class, party, job or lesson. This manual uses "booking" generically.

What can go with a booking

Each of these is set up once and then applies to every booking it is for. Most are a group in the service's builder (Bookings → Services, open the service). Forms are set on each form and listed on the service under Forms. A group only appears when it applies to that kind of service and its tool is switched on.

To make the forms one kind of business uses, all at once, choose Add a form under Forms on a service, then Set up for your kind of business (Forms & workflows, 7a9).

On each booking, the drawer shows what applies to it: the customer's record, the Forms card, what has been paid and what is owed, the invoice, its job (named at the top, beside Add) and its Day plan, and Add for a task, a file, a quote or an invoice.

A. Experiences, what customers can book

A1. Overview

An experience is anything you let a customer book. Each experience has a type that shapes its booking flow and sets smart defaults, while every value stays editable. Set up your experiences before taking online bookings.

The five types:

A2. Required permissions

• Manage experiences & packages (experiences.manage).

A3. Navigation path

Bookings → Services

A4. Step-by-step, create an experience

1. Go to Bookings → Services and choose Add (or pick a type under "What can people book?").
2. Pick the type (Appointment, Class, Group, Event, Rental).
3. Fill in The basics: Name, a one-line summary (shown under the name on your booking page), and the Live toggle ("customers can book this").
4. Set Pricing, choose a pricing model and enter the price:
   • Flat, one price.
   • Per person, price × number of people.
   • Per unit, price × units, for rentals and work by the hour. Set the Unit word customers see ("How many hours?"). Left blank, a unit of time that is exactly an hour, a day or a week uses that word, and anything else reads as units, so name it (session, half day). Then say what one unit is:
     • A length of time (the default, and what hire by the hour or day means): the customer picks how many, and the booking runs that long and holds the whole window, so nobody can book the middle of it. Three hours on a one-hour duration is a three-hour booking.
     • A thing they take (3 kayaks): the price multiplies but the booking keeps its normal length. Customers choose the number before picking a time, so the times offered are only the ones the whole hire fits into. Set a minimum and a maximum if you have them, for example a two hour minimum and no more than eight. The booking page starts on the minimum, says the limit out loud if somebody types past it, shows Minimum 2 hours beside the price, and the price reads "$65 per hour, minimum 2 hours". Bookings you make yourself in New booking, and through the assistant, follow the same limits. Once it is priced by a unit of time, the duration box above reads One hour (minutes) (in your unit word): it is the length of one unit, 60 for an hour, and it warns you when an hour is set to anything else. Work you quote by the hour, a five hour clean or a day of sorting: price it per unit with hour as the unit and A length of time, set One hour to 60 minutes, add your minimum and maximum, and turn on By quote only under Go live. Each quote then says how many hours it is for, and holds that whole length in the diary (Invoicing, 7c, Quote a booking). Tick Charge each night per dog (in your words) and the price is for each one booked as well: two dogs for three nights at $50 is $300.
   • Package, offer selectable packages (each with a name, blurb, inclusions list, price and its own duration).
   • For events/classes you can add ticket types (e.g. Adult, Child) with their own prices, these are named ticket categories on top of (or instead of) the per-person price.
   • Per-staff pricing (optional), override the price for specific staff members (e.g. a senior stylist charges more for the same service).
   • How the price reads (optional), your own wording for the price on your booking page. Leave it blank and we write it from your numbers, so a party package at $350 covering 8 with $12 a head after that reads "from $350 (incl. 8)". Type your own to say it your way, and Customers will see right underneath shows exactly what they will read as you type. Tap one of the Or try suggestions to take a ready-made wording, or use ours to go back to the automatic one.
     • This is wording only. It never changes what anyone is charged, and it never changes the total on the booking page, the payment, the invoice or the confirmation.
     • The word "from" only appears when a booking really can come to more than the number shown, which means a package that charges for extra people, several packages or ticket types to pick between, or a service that costs more with certain staff. A single flat price is never "from".
     • If your wording hides the fact the price can go up, we say so under the box, with what a bigger group would actually pay. It is a heads-up, not a block, and it is only for you: your customers never see it.
   • Class passes (classes), sell a multi-session bundle up front: a flexible pass (buy N credits to use on any session until expiry) or a term enrolment (a held seat in specific weekly sessions), with your choice of missed-session policy (forfeit, make-up, refund, or reviewed case-by-case). Passes appear on your booking page alongside single sessions; sold passes are managed from the admin Passes view.
5. When it runs, for a class or an event, sits directly under the basics because nothing is bookable until it is filled in: Class times (recurring days + time) or Event dates (one-off dates, one row each). The panel tells you where you stand: "Nobody can book this until you add a date" while it is empty, and "Every date has passed" once a run is over, which is also when it drops off your booking page. Add another date to run it again. On your public booking page, scheduled types show only your real upcoming dates as tappable chips, while rolling types (appointment, group, rental) use an open calendar.
6. Where it happens, directly under the basics and the times: at your place, at the customer's place (We come to the customer, which asks for their address), or online by video. It decides what booking asks, what every message says and, when you charge travel, whether this service charges it. See A6.
7. Set Time & capacity: duration and capacity.

   • Waitlist, for scheduled types, when a session is full customers can join the waitlist; if a spot frees up, the next person in the queue is emailed.

   • Capacity is never applied behind the customer's back. If somebody types more people than you can take, the booking page tells them the number you can take and asks them to get in touch, and it holds their booking there until they change it. It does not quietly book them in for fewer. So a party of thirty asking about a room for twenty five reaches you as a phone call, instead of arriving on the day as a booking for twenty five.

   • Min group size (Min per booking on events, classes and hire) is the fewest people one booking made online can be for, when you only take bookings from a number, such as a high tea for two or more. It appears wherever the booking page asks how many are coming. The page opens on it, says "The minimum is 2 guests." if somebody asks for fewer, and waits until they raise the number, and the price reads "$49 per person, minimum 2". With ticket types it counts the tickets. The waitlist and your customers' own change requests hold the same line. Bookings your team makes in New booking, at the kiosk or through the assistant are not held to it, so you can still make an exception.

   • Booking window, when it can be booked:

     • Min notice, how much warning you need, in hours or days. Customers cannot book a start sooner than this, and your booking page says so. 0 means right up to the start time, so today's remaining times are offered. 1 day means 24 hours from now, so no same-day bookings. Each service has its own, so an online consult can take no notice while the in person one needs two hours.
     • Book up to (days ahead), how far ahead customers can book.
     • Gap after (min), quiet time after each booking before the next can start, for cleanup, turnaround or travel.
     • Bookings open on (optional), keeps it visible but not bookable until a date and time you choose.

     These are rules for your customers, not your team. In New booking, Reschedule, Move day, Record leave's Reassign and when booking a quote's time, your team is offered every free time whatever the notice, further ahead than Book up to, and before Bookings open on. Today's list for the team also starts at the time slot happening now, so at 8:05 the 8:00 a cancellation has just freed can still be filled. The gap after each booking, and anything already booked, still count. Customers moving their own booking keep to all of it.

8. What it uses, attach the spaces & equipment this experience needs (a staff member, a room, equipment). This drives availability.
9. Booking rules:
   • Delivery, what the customer gets after booking: A confirmation (date, time, who, a code, best for appointments/rentals) or A ticket with QR check-in (best for events, classes, parties). For ticketed experiences you can also control Individual tickets: every attendee gets their own QR ticket, so a group can arrive separately and each person is scanned in on their own. Events default to one separate ticket per guest, while groups and parties default to one shared group ticket, and you can adjust this per experience.
   • Check-in, how people are checked in at the door: Staff check in, Scan tickets (QR) or Self check-in kiosk. Each shows a "Default for " hint until you override it.
10. Cancellation & reminders: let customers cancel and/or reschedule themselves, set a late-change penalty, and set up the reminders that go out before the day. Reminders have their own section below, A7.

A4a. Step-by-step, the booking form, the money and the extras

The second half of the same Add screen, still in Bookings → Services. Steps 1 to 9 above set the experience up; these decide what the customer is asked, what they pay, and what your team gets ready.

11. Booking questions (optional), add your own questions (e.g. "Allergies & dietary needs", "Preferred stylist"), each required or optional. Pick the answer type: a Text box, a Dropdown, Choose one, or Pick many.

• Pick many also asks "How many can they pick?", so a package that covers three items off your food list can say so: Any number, Exactly, Up to, or At least, with the number beside it. The customer sees the rule next to the question ("Party food (choose 3)"), a running count as they tick, and the remaining options grey out once they reach the limit.
• If you ask for more than you have listed, the builder warns you and the booking page falls back to the number of options you do have, so a customer is never stuck on a rule nobody can satisfy.
• Put a price on these options turns a Pick many into a paid menu: each option gets its own price, and "How many are included in the price?" says how many the headline price already covers. The dearest picks are the free ones, so choosing the better platter is never punished, and only what's past the allowance is charged. This is the party-package shape: nine platters listed with prices, three included, a fourth costs. The customer sees each price on the option, a running line telling them what they've used and what the basket adds, and an itemised line on Review.
• Let them add their own puts an extra choice on a Choose one or Pick many, with a box to type in, for the customer who wants something that isn't on your list. You word that choice yourself, so it can say Other, Something else, or Tell us what you need. What they type is never charged, even if they type the name of one of your priced options, and it fills one slot toward any limit you set, so "choose 3" still means three things altogether. Their wording is stored with that label in front of it (Other: dinosaurs), so you can always tell which answers came off your list and which came from the customer. Off unless you ask for it.
• Add a note for customers puts a line or two of your own wording under the question and above the answer, for the part that won't fit in the question itself: "Each platter feeds 8 to 10 adults. Three come with the party." Line breaks are kept, so three sizes typed on three lines show as three lines. Off unless you ask for it, and an empty one shows nothing.
• If a question asks for something the form already collects, the builder says so. Every booking asks for a name, an email and a phone number under Their name, email and phone, so a question called "Mobile number" means the customer types theirs twice. It is only a warning, never a block: asking for a second contact, an emergency number or the name of whoever is paying is a real thing to want, and only you know which you meant.
• Use the ↑ ↓ on a question to move it. You no longer have to delete a question and retype it just to change where it sits.
• Start a new section here puts a heading above a question and a dividing line before it, so everything from there reads as a new part of the form. This is how you group a long booking form: move the questions into the order you want with ↑ ↓, then title the group. A play centre moves its food questions together, puts Food on the first of them and its paid platters straight after, and a parent reads one food section instead of meeting platters, then a theme, then platters again. Off unless you ask for it, and a heading on the very first question draws no line, because the section above it has already drawn one.

12. Order of the booking form, the running order a customer fills in: Tickets, How many people, Their name, email and phone, Your own questions, Paid extras. Move any of them with ↑ ↓ so the form reads the way you'd ask it at the counter. Blocks that don't apply to that offering are skipped on the booking page, so it is safe to leave them in place. You can move every block; you can't remove one, because there is no running order worth having that leaves you unable to email the customer back. The date and time always come first, on the step before, since online the first question is whether you're free at all.
    • Each block also has Give this part your own heading and Add a note above "…", so you can title and introduce a part of the form in your own words: a heading of Platters to share over the paid extras with a note of "Each one feeds 8 to 10 adults, on top of the three that come with your party", or "Count every child coming, including the birthday child" above the headcount. Both travel with the block, so moving it takes your wording with it.
    • Your heading sits above the built-in line, it does not replace it, so Add extras (optional) and Your details (all required) still say optional and required. A customer who loses that is one who thinks the paid extras are compulsory.
    • On the booking page each block is separated by a thin line, so a long form reads as a few parts rather than one long list of fields.
    • A running total sits at the bottom of that step and stays in view while the customer scrolls, so ticking a platter or an extra shows what it comes to before they go on. It is the same figure the review step and the payment use, and a booking with nothing priced does not get one.
13. Payment to book: Nothing (they book now and pay later, in person or your own way), a deposit (a fixed amount or a percentage) or full payment at booking. A deposit and full payment are taken by card online, which needs Stripe connected; until it is, those bookings confirm without charging. Taking payment your own way, such as your own card terminal, bank transfer or direct debit? Choose Nothing, and record what they pay on the booking with Take a payment. See Using your own EFTPOS terminal or payment provider. With Jobs and Invoicing on, Anything added by the end sets how extra time and parts used are paid once the job is done: on your phone, or charged to the card they booked with. See Getting paid at the end of a booking.
14. Optional extras (add-ons), named extras with a price. Tap the charge button to cycle how each one is charged: Per booking (one flat charge), Per person (price × headcount), or They choose how many (price × the number they ask for, e.g. party bags at $7.70 each, with a ceiling you set). The three are exclusive on purpose: per-person and a quantity together would charge headcount times quantity, which nobody means. Priced per unit? Tick Each night (your unit word) to charge it for every unit booked.

12b. Prepared for every booking, the things your team gets ready every single time, that nobody chooses: the water and cordial, the fairy bread, the baskets, cups and plates. Give each one a quantity and choose Whole group (one lot however many people come) or Per person (multiplied by the headcount, e.g. a mat each or a fresh towel each). - It never appears on the booking page. This is the kitchen's list, not an offer, so it is not an add-on and not a question. - Everything here lands on the Day plan, added up across the day with a tick box each, and on each booking's card under Every time. - Use it instead of adding these to a "pick your platters" question, where they would count against the customer's pick limit and could be unticked. - Add a note under the name describes what is actually on it, so the name stays short on the booking page and on the invoice. Put "Sweets Platter" in the name and "Cupcakes, slice, chocolates and lollies" in the note, rather than cramming both into the name. - The customer sees the unit beside the name and the line total on the right, so party bags at $7.70 each for eight guests read $7.70 × 8 and $61.60. 15. Terms (optional), terms the customer agrees to. Leave it blank to use your business-wide booking terms. Either way the customer ticks I agree before booking, and the booking records when they agreed and keeps the exact wording, shown on the booking's Forms card. Forms, underneath, lists the forms that go with this service, set on each form with Use with bookings (see Forms & workflows, 7a6). Change opens one, and Add a form opens New form, with the set-ups for your kind of business.

Go live, who sees it and its link

16. Go live, the last group in the drawer, and the one that decides who sees this at all:
    • Live: customers can book this. Turn it off to hide it from your booking page while you make changes. Everything above still saves.
    • By quote only (with Invoicing on). For work you price each time: it is left off your booking page, your own booking pages and the kiosk, and nobody can book it online, even with an old link. You put it on a quote, and the customer books it from there (Invoicing, 7c, Quote a booking). Your team can still book it with New booking. The services list marks it By quote, and the link switches below are not offered for it.
    • Hidden from my booking page, link only. It stays bookable, it is just left off the list, so only somebody holding the link is offered it. Use it for a private rate, a repeat client, or a one-off that would confuse a first-time visitor. This hides it, it does not lock it. The link is an ordinary address and anybody it reaches can book, so turn on Require my approval if you want the final say on each booking.
    • Take people straight here, and no further. With this on, somebody who opens that link gets this one and nothing else: no step back to your booking page, and none of your other services offered beside it. It is the one for a flyer or a poster aimed at a single event. The Back button inside the booking steps is untouched, so nobody gets stuck part way through.
      • It does not take the offering off your booking page, which is the thing people expect it to do. It changes where the link goes, not who sees it. Turn both on and you have the flyer setup: off your list, and the link leads nowhere else. While only this one is on, the panel says so and offers Take it off the list, which turns on the switch above without you going looking for it.
    • Share this booking link. The link opens this one on its own, skipping the "what would you like to book?" list. Copy puts it on the clipboard for an email, a message or a social post. Make a QR code turns the same link into a code: Download saves it as an image to drop into a flyer you are designing, and Print poster opens a ready-made sheet with your business name, what it is, the code and the address underneath, for a counter card or a window sign.
17. Use the Availability preview to sanity-check open times, then Save.

A4b. Faster, paste your whole price list and let AI set it up

You do not have to build each one by hand. On the "What can people book?" screen there is a box headed "Describe what you offer and we'll set it up". Type or paste your price list in plain English, however you would say it to a new staff member, and HappierBiz drafts the lot for you to check.

It reads and sets up, in one go:

• Several offerings at once (up to 12), one per thing you named. Price variants that are really separate bookings, small dog vs large dog, 30 min vs 60 min, come out as separate offerings.
• Prices, including Adult / Child / Concession ticket types on a class or event, and named packages on a group booking.
• Times, the set start times you offer ("we only start these at 9, 11, 1 and 3"), a class timetable ("Tue and Thu 6pm, Sat 10am"), and an event's dates.
• Paid extras ("+ $15 nail trim, $20 teeth clean") on the offering you described them against.
• Deposits, notice periods, approval, cancellation terms and the questions you want asked at booking.

Then you get a review list showing exactly what it read, with the times, extras and deposits spelled out on each row. Untick anything you do not want and press Save. They are saved turned off so you can check the detail first, unless you tick "Put them straight on my booking page". Nothing is saved until you press Save, and you can open any of them afterwards and fine-tune.

If your list is longer than it can read in one go, it says so and asks you to send it in two goes, rather than quietly setting up only part of it. It never invents a price, time or capacity you did not give: anything missing is called out in the note at the top of the review list, so you know what still needs your attention.

Drafting uses your business's shared monthly AI allowance (see AI assistant).

A4c. More than one booking page

Your booking page lists everything you offer. Sometimes one audience should see a shorter list: an event that gets a flyer, a corporate package, a wholesale price list, a term of classes. A booking page is that shorter list, at its own address.

What it is, and what it is not. A booking page has its own address, its own heading and its own introduction, and it lists only what you put on it. Your branding, terms, trading hours, deposits and reminders are your business's and are the same wherever somebody books. Only the heading and the list change.

It is not private either. Your full booking page is still public at its own address, and anybody who goes there sees everything. A booking page decides what a link offers, not what a visitor is allowed to see.

To make one, go to Bookings → Services and use New booking page, at the top under your booking link.

1. Name it. This is what you call it in the back office.
2. Address. It fills in from the name as you type, and you can type your own instead. A page called Corporate packages lives at /book/corporate-packages. Accents and apostrophes are dropped and "&" reads as "and", so Café & bakery becomes /book/cafe-and-bakery. Empty the box and it follows the name again. This is what goes on the flyer, so keep it short enough to read down the phone. Two pages cannot share an address; the second is refused with "... already uses /book/... Choose a different address."
3. Heading and Introduction, what a customer reads at the top. Leave the heading blank and we use the name.
4. What is on it. Tick the offerings this page lists. An offering can be on several pages, on one, or on none, and putting it on a page does not take it off your main booking page. An offering set to "Only for people I send the link to" can go on a booking page: that is exactly what the two are for together, a thing that is off your front page and on a flyer.
5. Live: this page works. Turn it off and the address answers with "this link is not available" rather than quietly showing your whole list.
6. Let people see everything else you offer. Off by default, because a page made for a flyer exists to keep the rest out of view. Turn it on and a link at the bottom takes them to your full booking page.

Then Share this page gives you the address, a Copy button and Make a QR code, the same as an individual offering: download the image for a flyer, or print the poster for a counter card.

Changing the address of a page you have already shared. Editing a page never moves its address when you rename it. If you type a new address yourself, the old one stops working the moment you save: it answers "this link is not available", and so does any QR code or flyer made for it. The drawer says so under the address before you save.

Booking from one. A customer who opens the address sees your heading and only what is on the page. Picking one takes them into the usual booking steps, and Back returns them to that page rather than to your full list.

A5. Examples

• Beginner (salon): an Appointment called "Cut & style", flat $55, 45 min, attached to the stylists, confirmation delivery, staff check-in.
• Real-world (venue): a Group booking "Kids' party" with two packages (Standard/Deluxe), a $110 deposit, an add-on "Extra pizza /person", a booking question "Allergies", and a QR ticket + staff check-in.
• Advanced (studio): a Class "Yoga" with recurring class times (Mon & Wed 9:30), Adult/Concession ticket types, full payment to book, and a kiosk for self check-in.

A6. Where it happens: your place, theirs, or online

Three switches, and they answer different questions. Confusing them is the usual mistake, so read all three.

1. "Do customers come to you?" (Settings → Booking & pricing, business-wide)

This decides whether your address is published to customers at all. With it on, your address, a map and a get-directions link appear on booking emails, the confirm page and the manage page. Turn it off and all of that disappears, which is what you want if you work from home, or only ever travel to people.

Your phone number is never hidden by this switch. A business that comes to you is exactly the one whose customer most needs a number to ring.

With it off, your address is left out of the small print at the bottom of booking emails too. They still carry your business name, and a reply reaches you. Marketing campaigns have their own footer, set in Marketing.

2. "We come to the customer" (Experiences → the offering → Where it happens)

This is per offering, not per business, and it says that this particular thing happens at the customer's place. Booking then asks for their address, and every message, calendar entry and job about it uses their address instead of yours. What they are asked, and everywhere the address goes, is in A6c.

Travel. When your business charges travel, by the kilometre or by zone (Settings → Invoicing & tax → Travel charges), each service also says whether travel is Charged on top of its price, Included in the price, or Not charged. A job from one of its bookings follows it: trips on a job whose service includes travel, or does not charge it, start as not charged, and each can be charged anyway. Not chosen yet, trips are charged. With Charge travel on online bookings on, a service charged on top works the travel out from the customer's address and shows it in the total before they book; its price on the booking page says plus travel. Charged by zone, the page also lists your zones with theirs marked and your note about travel (7k3). On the booking it has its own card, apart from the extras they added, and it is never on the Day plan or the door list. The customer's own booking page lists it above the total. See Invoicing, 7k2 and 7k3.

Both can be true at once, and that is the point: a groomer can run a salon and a mobile round, a physio can consult in clinic and visit. Each booking then says the right thing without anyone remembering to check.

3. "This happens online" (Experiences → the offering → Where it happens)

The appointment happens over video and there is no address involved. It runs in your own meeting room: Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Zoho Meeting, or any other secure link (one starting https://), on your own account, so it costs nothing extra here.

Set it up in two steps:

1. Settings → Connections → Video calls: paste the link to your meeting room and Save link. Not sure where your link is? Pick your app under Where to get your link for its steps, and Open takes you to it (the same steps are in A6a below). A link we recognise is named under the box ("Google Meet"). A link that is not a room, such as your app's home page or a calendar event, is refused with what to copy instead. This needs the settings permission.
2. On each service that happens by video, under Where it happens, turn on This happens online. The switch only appears once step 1 is done, so a business that never runs video calls never sees it.

Every online service uses the one link. Then:

• the booking page shows the service as Online, and nobody is asked for an address;
• a Join the call link appears in the confirmation, the reminders, the customer's booking page and their calendar entry, and names your service ("Join the call on Google Meet");
• Join the call is on the booking in your back office, on the Calendar, and in My work for whoever the booking is with;
• the day sheet says Online where it would name a room, and so does your team's New booking email;
• the wording follows: the reminder asks whether they can still make it, forms are asked for before we meet, the feedback request thanks them for booking with you, and your address is left out of the small print.

Changing or removing the link. Change in Connections takes effect for every booking already made, because the link is looked up when the customer clicks. Remove is refused while any service still happens online, and names them: their customers hold confirmations that say Join the call. Turn the switch off on those services first.

The link is a door, not a key. Customers never see your meeting link on your booking page. The link in their email points back at your own booking page, and the booking is re-checked at the moment somebody clicks it:

Keep your waiting room on. Every booking of the service goes to the same room, so a customer who has been in once could keep its address. With a waiting room you let each person in yourself. Google Meet does this for you: anyone not on your own calendar invite has to ask to join. In Zoom it is the Waiting Room setting, Teams calls it the lobby, and Zoho, Webex and Whereby lock the room. A6a says where each one is. Once your link is saved, Connections keeps your app's own notes under it.

What your customers need, by service. These are each service's own rules, and they change, so its own help pages have the final word:

• Google Meet opens in the browser on a computer, and on an iPhone, with no account and nothing to install. On a free Google account a one to one call can run for up to 24 hours; with three or more people it ends at 60 minutes.
• Zoom needs the Zoom app on a phone. On a computer it runs in the browser after the customer closes the prompt to open the app. A free Zoom account ends every call at 40 minutes, one to one included.
• Microsoft Teams needs the Teams app on a phone, and opens in Edge or Chrome on a computer. Guests wait in the lobby until you let them in.
• Zoho Meeting runs in the browser on a computer. Free meetings end at 60 minutes, and its personal room and remote control need a paid plan.
• Webex needs the Webex app on a phone. A free Webex account ends calls at 40 minutes.
• Whereby runs in the browser on a computer or a phone. A free Whereby account ends calls at 30 minutes, with up to four people.

Where a phone needs the app (Zoom, Teams and Webex), the customer's booking page says so, so they install it before the call rather than at the start of it.

When a customer cannot get in:

Why the address is its own field and not a booking question. An address asked as a question cannot be searched, exported, or carried onto a job as the place the work happens. Ask for it with this switch, never with a question.

A word on the address itself. We deliberately accept almost anything with a space in it, because Australian addresses include lot numbers, unnumbered rural properties and places people describe by name. A validator strict enough to be worth having would refuse a real customer at the last step of a booking, which costs far more than an untidy entry you can ring about.

A6a. Getting your meeting link from Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, Zoho, Webex or Whereby

Your meeting link is the address of a room in your own meeting app, and it has to stay the same for every appointment. Settings → Connections → Video calls shows these steps too: pick your app under Where to get your link, and its Open button takes you straight to it.

No meeting app yet? Google Meet is free with any Google account, and your customers need nothing installed on a computer or an iPhone.

Google Meet

1. Open Google Meet (meet.google.com), signed in to the Google account you use for the business.
2. Choose New meeting, then Create a meeting for later.
3. Copy the link it gives you and paste it into Your meeting link.

Customers ask to join and wait until you let them in. Join from the Google account that made the meeting, a few minutes early: on a personal Google account it is the only one that can let them in, and from any other account you would be asking to join your own meeting. (On a Google Workspace account, people you make co-hosts can let them in too.) The one link serves every booking from then on. A free Google account ends calls with three or more people at 60 minutes; one to one calls can run for up to 24 hours. A Meet link nobody uses for a year stops working: make a new one and Change it.

Zoom

1. Sign in to Zoom on the web (zoom.us) and open Meetings, then Personal Room.
2. Copy the invite link.
3. Paste it into Your meeting link.

Your Personal Room keeps the same link for good, which a meeting scheduled for one day does not. In the Personal Room's settings, keep Waiting Room ticked, and start the room signed in to that Zoom account: signed out, you would wait in your own waiting room with nobody to let you in. When you finish, choose End Meeting for All: if you only leave, Zoom hands the host's controls to whoever is still in the call, and in a room every customer shares, they could let the next one in. A free Zoom account ends every call at 40 minutes, one to one included. Copied the whole invitation instead of the link? Paste it anyway: the meeting link is taken out of it.

Microsoft Teams

1. In your Teams calendar, choose New, with Teams meeting turned on: without it the event has no join link. Any day and time will do.
2. Make it a series that repeats every year, with no end date: choose Series at the top of the new event (in the older calendar, open Does not repeat under the date, or Custom if every year is not offered). It then shows in your calendar once a year, not every day.
3. Save it, open it, and copy its join link: Share, then Copy join link. On free Teams, find it under Meet, Scheduled meetings, and choose Copy invite; the meeting link is taken out of the invitation when you paste it.
4. Paste it into Your meeting link.
5. In your calendar, open the meeting again (View event, then Edit series), choose Options, and under Meeting access set Who can bypass the lobby to Only organizers and co-organizers and Who can admit from the lobby to organizers and co-organizers, without presenters. Select Apply.

It has to repeat. Teams turns off a Meet now link 60 days after it was made, and a meeting that does not repeat 60 days after its date or its last use, while a meeting that repeats with no end date keeps its link until a year after it was last used. Its day and time make no difference: the link opens the same room whenever you and your customer join.

Every customer uses the same meeting, so who gets in matters. Never set Who can bypass the lobby to Everyone: anyone holding the link would walk straight into whichever appointment is on. Presenters can let people in from the lobby unless you change it, and when Who can present is Everyone, every customer joins as a presenter, so one still in a call could let the next one in. Leave Reject anyone who can't bypass the lobby off, or customers are turned away instead of waiting. On a personal Teams account, which has no co-organizers, pick the choices that let only you in and only you admit others. Join from the Teams account that made the meeting, or you will wait in the lobby too. The free version of Teams ends calls with three or more people at 60 minutes.

Zoho Meeting

1. Sign in to Zoho Meeting and open Meetings, then Personal Room.
2. Copy your room's link and paste it into Your meeting link.

Set the room to Always Locked, and start it signed in to Zoho, so customers wait until you let them in. Personal Room comes with Zoho Meeting Standard and above, not the free plan.

Webex

1. Sign in to Webex and open Meetings.
2. Copy your Personal Room link and paste it into Your meeting link.

Keep your Personal Room locked and start it signed in to Webex, so customers wait in the lobby until you let them in. A free Webex account ends calls at 40 minutes.

Whereby

1. Sign in to Whereby and open your room.
2. Copy the room's link and paste it into Your meeting link.

Lock the room with the padlock at its top left, and open it signed in to Whereby, so customers knock and you let them in. A free Whereby account ends calls at 30 minutes, with up to four people.

When the appointment is over. Nobody can come back in through Join the call once it has closed. Somebody who kept the meeting's own address can still open it, which is why every app above keeps them waiting until you let them in: with you gone, nobody can. End the meeting for everyone rather than just leaving, which in Zoom matters most (see above).

Another app. Use a link that opens the same room every time, not one made for a single meeting, turn on its waiting room, and join signed in to the account that made the link.

Personal or business account? Either works, and the steps are the same. Three things change with the kind of account:

• How long a call can run. The free plans cut calls short: Zoom and Webex at 40 minutes, Whereby at 30, Teams (free) and Google Meet (free) at 60 once three or more people are in it. A business or paid plan lifts the limit.
• Who can let customers in. In every app it is the account that made the link, so join from that account. A business account can share the job: Google Workspace co-hosts, Teams co-organizers and presenters.
• Whether outsiders may join at all. A business account has its own settings, and they can turn away everybody outside the business: in Microsoft 365, the Teams setting that lets people join without signing in (anonymous join); in Google Workspace, who can join meetings your organisation creates; in Zoom, "Only authenticated users can join"; in Webex, "Guests can't join". All of these let customers in unless somebody has changed them. To be sure, open your link in a private window: you should reach the waiting room or lobby without being asked to sign in, which is exactly what a customer sees.

Teams has two versions with different addresses: a personal (free) account makes links starting teams.live.com, a work account teams.microsoft.com. Both work here.

What the box refuses, and why. It checks what you paste and says what to copy instead:

Tidied for you, and shown before you save: a whole invitation pasted in (its meeting link is kept), a link your email wrapped to scan it (Outlook's Safe Links, a Google redirect), and the extra details after a Google Meet room, which only describe whoever copied it. A Zoom link without its passcode is saved with a note: if your room has a passcode, customers would be asked for it, so copy the invite link, which carries it.

A6b. What the emails say, by where it happens

Each booking's emails and pages say what fits where it happens, with nothing to set up. Customers who come to you read the wording they always have.

The switch on each reminder carries the same words, so on an online service it reads Ask them to confirm they can make it. To say where in your own wording, use {place} (see A7 and Settings, Email templates).

Your team's New booking and New booking request emails say where too: the customer's address with a link for directions and how to get in, or Online. A booking at your place adds nothing, because your team works there.

A6c. When you go to the customer: their address

Turn on We come to the customer for an offering, under Where it happens in its editor, and booking asks for Your address in four boxes: street address, suburb, state and postcode. All four are needed, because without them nobody can be sent. A phone can fill all four in one tap, and a lot number, a unit or a property's name all go in the street box. When you book for them yourself, the same boxes read Their address.

A returning customer can have it filled in from their saved details (E6), and when you book for them, picking them in New booking fills it in for anyone who can see your customers.

Under the address is an optional note, Anything we need to get in? (a gate code, a dog in the yard, where to park). Switch off Ask "Anything we need to get in?", under We come to the customer, and only the address is asked.

Where their address goes

• every message about the booking says "We come to you" with their address, and never sends them directions to your shop (the wording is in A6b);
• your address is left out of the small print on their emails, even with "Do customers come to you?" on;
• your team's New booking email names their address, with a link for directions, and how to get in, so whoever is going knows where;
• the Add to calendar entry is pinned to their address, not yours, and so is the entry in your team's own calendar app (see Work from your phone);
• the booking shows Address under the customer's phone in its details, with a tap for directions, and Getting in when they left a note;
• the address and the note are carried onto the job and the customer's site, so whoever is driving there has both on their phone;
• the customer's own record gets the address, under Address and billing, when it has none yet. A booking changes an address already there only when the customer, after their code, or a team member who can manage customers leaves Save this as my address ticked (E6), so a visit to somebody else's house does not move them.

Ask once

There is no need for an address question of your own under Booking questions. Customers would be asked for the same address twice, and only Your address reaches the emails, the calendar, the job and their record. The editor marks a question of your own that asks for an address on an offering that comes to the customer: remove it there.

A7. Reminders before the day

Set per offering, under Cancellation & reminders, because a latte art class and a child's birthday party do not want the same paragraph or the same notice.

You can send two. Each has its own lead time and its own wording. A timeline at the top of the card draws the sequence your customer actually gets, in the order they get it, so you can see it before they do. The second one is off until you switch it on.

Ask them to confirm they are coming is a separate switch on each reminder. With it on, the email carries a Yes, I'll be there button. It opens a page showing their booking with a Confirm I'm coming button, and the booking sits in awaiting confirmation until they press that. With it off, the email just tells them it is on.

On a service that happens at the customer's place or online, the question, the switch and both buttons use words that fit: it still suits and I can make it (the table in A6b). The preview under your own words shows the question your customers will actually be asked.

Why two taps, not one. Some email security filters, common on work addresses, open every link in a message before the customer reads it. A link that confirmed on its own would mark bookings confirmed that nobody had answered, so the page asks first.

You are told when they confirm. Owners and managers get a line in the bell and an email, whether the customer confirmed from the reminder or with Confirm I'm coming on their booking page. When several confirm close together, the first email goes straight away and the rest arrive as one email an hour later, so a busy morning does not fill your inbox. Change who hears about it in Settings → Notifications. A request you have not approved yet cannot be confirmed, and neither can one you declined. A function might ask for final numbers three days out, then send a plain see you tomorrow at 2pm the day before.

You can switch the confirm on for both, and that is a chase: ask, then ask again if nobody replied.

Nobody is ever asked twice about the same booking. Once a customer has confirmed, any later reminder still goes out, it just arrives without the button and without the question. Being asked to confirm a second time reads as though their reply went missing, which is worse than not asking at all.

Only one email can go out at a time. If a booking is inside both windows at once, because it was made late or because a sweep ran late, you get the nearer one only. That is the message written for that moment: we're on at 2pm tomorrow is true, let us know your final numbers three days out is not.

Your own words on each reminder replace our paragraph. Leave the box empty and we use ours; Go back to ours puts ours back, with one press of undo if you change your mind. Either way the day, the place, what is owed and the cancellation terms follow in the table underneath, because those are facts we compute rather than wording anybody types.

{place} fills in as your business name, the customer's own address on a service you travel to, or the word online on a call. See you at {place} reads well for the first two; on an online service write see you online instead, and the preview shows what it will say.

Switching the second one on affects bookings you already have. Anything already closer than its lead time gets it on the next sweep, within the hour.

Moving a booking re-arms both, so the customer is reminded about the new time, and their confirmation tick clears because they have not agreed to the new time yet.

A8. Dropped off, rather than booked at a time

Some work is not done at a time the customer sits through. A car is left at the workshop at 8am and collected at 4pm; a dog is dropped at the groomer, a bike at the shop, a dress at the tailor. For these, the customer picks a day and a drop-off time, and the work is planned through the day by your team.

To set it up, open the service (Bookings → Services), and under Time & capacity → How it's booked choose Dropped off. Appointments only. Then:

1. Work time (minutes): how long the work usually takes. A daily limit counted in hours adds this up for the day (A9).
2. Drop-off times: every so many minutes, or exact times on the days you choose, the same way set start times work. Keep them inside your opening hours.
3. Ready to collect from (optional): the time it is usually ready that day. The confirmation and the customer's booking page say so.
4. Drop-offs at each time (optional): how many may arrive at the same time, to keep a queue off the counter at opening. Blank means no limit at each time.

What changes once it is a drop-off:

• The booking page lists Drop-off times, and many customers can choose the same one. How many a day is a daily limit (A9).
• Emails, the customer's booking page and your bookings list say Drop off where other bookings say When, and Ready to collect when you set it.
• Customers are not shown the work time. On your booking page the service reads Ready from its collection time, such as Ready from 4:30pm, or Drop off when you have not set one. The work time is for planning your day.
• It is not booked with a person or a room, so nobody's diary is held. Turn on Work behind the booking → Each booking creates a job and each drop-off opens a job, and you put the work into someone's day on the Schedule tab of Jobs.
• The calendar shows each drop-off for a few minutes at its drop-off time, which is when it arrives.

Automotive set-ups start with their example services as drop-offs that open a job, with drop-off times from 9am and collection from 4:30pm. Machinery repairs set-ups start with a workshop drop-off and two services done where the machine is (We come to the customer), each opening a job. Change any of it on the service.

A9. Daily limits, how much you take each day

A daily limit caps how much is booked on one day, across the services you pick: four cars a day at a workshop, eight dogs at a groomer, three parties at a play centre. Once a day is full it is no longer offered online. Your team sees it marked full and can still book it.

Where: Settings → [your booking word] & pricing → Daily limits. Managers and owners only.

1. Choose Add a daily limit.
2. Name it in your own words (only your team sees it).
3. Count each day by: your bookings (each counts one), the people each booking brings (shown in your own word, such as dogs or guests: a booking for two dogs counts two), or Hours of work (each booking counts its length, a drop-off its work time).
4. Up to, each day: the number. Hours can be in quarters (7.5).
5. Different on some days (optional): a number for any weekday. A blank day takes the usual number; 0 takes nothing that day.
6. Which [your services word] count: all of them, including ones you add later, or only the ones you pick. Classes and events never count, because each run already has its own number of places.
7. Count scheduled jobs that didn't come from a booking (shown when Jobs is on): a repair from a quote, or a job taken by phone, counts as one a day, or its scheduled hours. A job opened from a booking is that booking, so it is never counted twice.
8. Save limit.

If the card says Couldn't load your daily limits, nothing has been lost: refresh the page. Nothing can be added until it loads, so a limit is never set up twice.

You can have several. A service must fit every limit it is in: a workshop might take 4 a day across all its services, and only 2 of those while they wait. Pause a limit with its switch, change it with Edit, or Remove it. Bookings already made stay as they are either way.

What counts on a day: every booking that is on, including requests waiting for your OK and a checkout still being paid for. Cancelled and declined bookings do not. A stay sold by the night or the day counts on every one of its nights, so a kennel can take twenty dogs a night.

What customers see: a full day is not offered on the booking page, and a booking for one is refused with That day is fully booked. With a limit in people or hours, a booking that would not fit is told how much room is left.

What your team sees:

• New booking draws a full day dashed (Full, you can still book it here) and says which limit is full under the times. The booking goes in.
• Calendar shows each day's fill, such as Workshop 3 of 4 jobs, in amber once it is full.
• Moving a booking onto a full day goes ahead and says so.
• The AI assistant says on its card, before you confirm, when a booking would go onto a full day.
• Each service lists the limits it counts towards under Daily limits, with a link back to change them.

B. Staff, spaces & equipment (staff, spaces & equipment)

B1. Overview

Staff, spaces & equipment are the bookable things an experience consumes, staff, spaces (rooms/areas) and equipment. They control availability and prevent double-booking.

B2. Required permissions

• Manage spaces & equipment (resources.manage).

B3. Navigation path

Bookings, then Staff, spaces & equipment

B4. Step-by-step, add a space, staff member or piece of equipment

1. Choose the kind to add: staff, space or equipment.
2. For staff, pick the team member (add them in Team → Staff list first); optionally give them a colour. A staff entry linked to a team member can take its availability from the roster. Adding someone on the Staff list can do this step for you: tick Customers can book them there and choose what they are booked for.
3. For space/equipment, give it a name (e.g. Party room, Kayak #3).
4. Set capacity and the capacity mode (e.g. people, or simultaneous bookings).
5. Set Hours, leave Custom hours off to use your venue's opening hours, or turn it on to give it its own hours.
6. Set Active (available for bookings) and Save.

B5. Example

A gym adds two staff trainers (roster-driven) and one space "Studio A" (capacity 12). A class experience attached to Studio A can't be over-booked past 12.

C. Bookings, the live list

C1. Overview

The Bookings screen is your working diary: every upcoming reservation, who owes money, your history, and incoming requests to approve.

C2. Required permissions

• View bookings (bookings.view) to see it; Create bookings (bookings.create), Edit bookings (bookings.edit), Delete / cancel bookings (bookings.delete) and Approve booking requests (bookings.approve) for the corresponding actions. Marking a balance paid uses Take / charge payments (payments.charge).

C3. Navigation path

Bookings

C4. What you'll see

• A summary band: Today, Upcoming, Balance due, Requests, and a Next booking chip.
• Six tabs:
  • Upcoming, an agenda grouped by day (reads like a diary even at 30+/day).
  • Past, searchable history (by name, phone or email, with a date range), loaded a page at a time. Tick Show cancelled to include cancellations, each marked with a Cancelled tag. The tick box says how many there are.
  • Balance due, everyone who owes, oldest first.
  • Pending approval, incoming approval requests and custom enquiries.
  • Waitlist shows the join-the-queue waitlist for full sessions, where you see who's waiting and manage the queue.
  • Insights shows booking trends and figures (visible when the payments/money module is on).
• A New booking button.
• Each row shows the customer, date & time, party size (your attendee word), and Deposit / Balance pills (Paid / Deposit / Pending / Unpaid). A booking for a service that takes no deposit reads No deposit, and one with nothing to pay reads Free. A ✓ confirmed flag shows when the customer has confirmed, and ⏳ awaiting confirmation when they were asked and have not replied. Once the booking's start time goes by, that flips to a quiet didn't confirm, because there is no longer anything to chase. A booking recorded as a no-show carries a red No-show tag instead.
• Selecting a booking opens its drawer: payment, the details, status, who turned up, and any work logged against it. When an invoice or quote has been raised for the booking, an Invoices & quotes card lists each one with its status and total, and selecting a number opens that document in Invoicing. A booking that was paid through the booking flow and never invoiced shows no card, which is the normal case. The card needs the invoicing permission.
• An Emails card lists the emails sent about the booking, newest first: its confirmation, reminders, changes, cancellation, and deposit, balance and fee emails, each marked Delivered, Sent, Didn't arrive or Not sent with the reason. Emails sent before this card was added are not on it; the customer's record lists those by their address.

Chasing a confirmation

Open the booking and look at Status → Coming. It tells you where the confirmation stands, in plain words: Not asked yet, Asked 3 hours ago, no reply yet, or ✓ Confirmed 2 days ago.

• Before anyone has been asked, it also says when the automatic reminder is due, for example "The automatic reminder goes out Wed, 19 August 2026", which is the lead time set on that offering under Cancellation & reminders. ⚠️ Awaiting confirmation follows the reminders that ask. An offering whose reminders have the confirm button switched off never parks a booking there, because nobody was asked for an answer.
• Ask them to confirm sends that reminder now instead of waiting. ⚠️ It is the same email, so the automatic one will not then go out as well.
• Send another reminder appears once they have been asked and have not replied. It sends the same email again, with the same confirm link.
• There is a short pause between sends, so a double tap cannot email somebody twice. The line above the button always says when they were last asked.
• Mark as confirmed records a yes they gave you another way, on the phone or in a message. The line then reads ✓ Confirmed just now. It tells nobody, and the Activity log shows who marked it. You need permission to edit bookings.
• Who still has to confirm is on your dashboard and in the morning email, not on the bell: only the customer can clear it, so it would sit there after you had read it. The bell tells you when somebody confirms or cancels.
• Once the start time has passed, the button goes away and the line reads Asked 2 days ago, they never replied. Asking someone to confirm an appointment that has already started reads as a mistake, so we do not offer it.

Recording who turned up

Once a booking's start time has passed, its drawer grows a Turned up card with two buttons: They came and No-show. It writes the same record as the Check-in screen, so use whichever is closer to hand, and either mark can be corrected in one tap (the opposite button stays).

• Marking a no-show applies your late-cancellation policy, exactly as it does at the door: if your policy charges a set fee, you are told the amount before anything happens, and only then is the saved card charged or a payment link emailed. Undoing the mark does not undo the money.
• These marks are what feed the No-shows figure in Insights. A booking nobody marks either way is counted in neither direction, and Insights says how many were left unmarked.
• You need check-in access to record it (the same permission as the Check-in screen). Without it the card only shows what was recorded.
• When it cannot be sent, the reason is printed instead of the button: the booking is cancelled, it has already been and gone, it still needs approving, or there is no email address on it.

Nothing happens to a booking that is never confirmed. It keeps its place in the diary, on the run sheet and on the day's lists. Confirming is how the customer tells you they are coming, not a condition of the booking existing, so an unconfirmed booking is a prompt to chase rather than a booking at risk. The only thing that releases a slot on its own is money: an abandoned checkout, or a deposit deadline you have set (see the deposit deadline section).

C5. Step-by-step tasks

Create a booking (staff-made)

1. Select New booking.
2. Pick the customer (a regular's saved details fill in for you), then what they are booking. From there it is the same form your customers use on your booking page: package, headcount, date, time, their details, every question you ask online, extras. The email is optional; the phone number is not.
3. Select Book it in. It is approved and confirmed on the spot, with nothing paid yet, and appears under Upcoming. A blocked-out day or time is still offered to you here, drawn dashed with the reason, because a block only stops customers booking online.

Open and manage a booking

Select any row to open the detail drawer, which shows Payment, booking details (name, contact, attendee count, theme), every question you asked with the customer's answer, and status. From there, each of the following.

Take a payment

Available when you can charge payments and anything is owing. This is how you record money handed over in person, and you can do it as many times as it takes:

• How much is pre-filled with what is still owing, and you can change it. Take a deposit now and the rest later, or three instalments on a big job.
• How they paid is your own list of methods.
• When it arrived defaults to today and can be back-dated, so cash taken on Tuesday and entered on Thursday still lands in Tuesday's books. It cannot be a future date.
• Note is free text, for a cheque number or a bank reference. Each payment emails the customer a receipt saying what they paid and what is still to pay, and the Payment card keeps the running list. ⚠️ It records a payment you have already taken. It does not charge anyone's card, so it works with no saved card and no internet at the counter. ⚠️ You cannot record more than is owing. If you take too much, record the correct amount and refund the difference.

Change what’s booked, a customer wants different numbers, extras or choices

For the call that says there are three more coming, that they want the balloons after all, that a platter should come off, or that they would rather have pizzas than sausage rolls. Open the booking and press Change numbers or extras under Change what’s booked. Set the new head count, tick or untick the extras, and change any choice from the booking form, then press Save and tell the customer. The new total shows before you save.

• Take off sits beside each extra on the booking’s Extras card. It opens the same box with that extra already unticked, so you see the new total first.

• Choices from the booking form ("Pick 3 platters", a theme) show as one line of what is on the booking. Press Change beside one to swap or take off a choice. Swapping one that the package includes costs nothing. A choice you charge for is priced as it was at checkout: the included ones come off the dearest, and the total moves by the difference. You are not held to the pick count your booking form asks customers for, so two platters or five is fine, and the box says so. A required question cannot be left empty, and only your own options can be chosen. Anything the customer typed themselves is kept.

• Set the price by hand when the price is agreed rather than worked out: a friend's rate, a price agreed on the phone, or nothing at all because you will bill it on the job's invoice instead. Type the new total and, if you like, why. The reason is kept in your activity and shown on the booking, never sent to the customer. The extras still on the booking are the lowest it can go: take them off as well to go lower. At $0 the booking reads Free, drops off Owed to you, and is never chased. Setting a price needs Take / charge payments.

• Email the customer the new details is ticked to start with. Untick it to change the booking without emailing them.

• From a receipt or invoice. A receipt or invoice for a booking cannot be edited, because it follows the booking. Change what’s booked on it opens the booking with this box ready. On Money, a booking’s balance has Open the booking.

• Only the change is priced. The total moves by what the new head count and extras cost at your current prices, and the outstanding balance follows, so an automatic balance charge takes the new figure and not the old one. Anything else in the price stays exactly as it was: a paid pick beyond a question's allowance (a fourth platter, say), a second service, or a price you agreed by hand.

• The package they picked is kept. Its price for the new head count is used. If the booking's package can't be told any more (it was renamed since, for example), a new head count is refused and says why, and you can still change the extras on their own.

• Going down is safe. If the new total is less than what has already been paid, nothing is charged and the app tells you the amount you owe back, so a reduction cannot leave a refund nobody noticed.

• The customer is emailed what was taken off, what was added, any choice that changed, the new numbers, the new total, what they have already paid and what is left, including the day the rest comes off their card where that applies. If their card was declined for the balance, the email asks them to pay with its button instead, and the declined line on your bell for the old amount comes down. The next attempt is for the new amount, and you are told if that one is declined too.

• The booking stays open after you save, showing the new balance.

• When the dogs set the number (or whatever a client brings), the screen shows them by name instead. Add or take one off under Dogs on the booking; the screen says when the two differ, and saving matches the price. A customer asking for a change sees them by name too, with a link to message you.

• Once it is paid in full it stops offering to change it, and says so: anything added after final payment belongs on its own invoice. Same for a cancelled booking, and for a ticketed offering, where the price comes from the ticket types.

• Needs Edit bookings.

Reschedule a booking

Pick a new date, today included. For experience-based bookings you choose from available time slots, starting at the time slot happening now, whatever the service's Min notice (the booking window is for customers, A4); otherwise enter a time. So at 8am, with a cancellation at 8, the 1pm client can be moved into the 8:00. The customer is emailed the new time, told in words if they are now with somebody else, and given a one-tap link to put the new time in their calendar (with a reminder to delete the old entry, since we cannot change an entry already in their phone). Their confirmation tick clears and both reminders are re-armed for the new time, apart from any that would go out within the hour, which the move email stands in for (a client moved at 7:45 into 8:00 is not sent a reminder minutes later). The message after the move says whether they were emailed; a booking with no email address says so, so you know to ring them.

Change who it's with

To give a booking to a colleague, or a party to the other room, at the same day and time: open the booking and select Change who it's with under With (or Change where it is for a room, Change what it uses for equipment). A booking nobody has been given yet says Not chosen and offers Choose who it's with.

• Everyone set up for that service is listed, with whether they are free then. Free shows as Free then. Anyone who is not says why, in the same words the booking page goes by: isn't working that day (their roster or approved leave), isn't working at that time, or has something else at 2:30pm. The first person free is picked for you.
• You can still give it to somebody who is busy, for example someone who has agreed to come in. The button then says Move to Sam anyway. The one thing that cannot be overridden is two bookings that each take a person one at a time landing on top of each other: that person is shown but cannot be picked.
• The customer is emailed that their booking is now with someone else, by default when they chose that person themselves, and the tick box lets you decide either way. A booking that has already started is changed for the record only, and the customer is not emailed.
• The people are told. The person it now belongs to and the person it left each get a notification (see Notifications), and your team is told as for any change.
• If somebody else changed it while you had it open, nothing is saved and you are asked to open it again, so two people cannot quietly undo each other.
• The time does not change, so the customer's confirmation and reminders stand. To change the time as well, use Reschedule, or drag it in the Calendar.
• Needs Edit bookings.

Put a team on a booking

A booking is with one person, room or piece of equipment. Its team is everybody else working it: a party's host, the mechanic on a car that was dropped off, a cleaning crew, a second instructor.

Open the booking and select Add to the team under Team. Everyone on your team directory is listed with whether they are free for the booking's time, and why not when they are not: not rostered or on leave that day, outside their hours, or something else at that time (a booking with them, another team, a job). Select Add, or Add anyway for somebody who is busy. The list stays open, so a whole crew can be added at once; select Done when you have finished. To take somebody off, select the × beside their name.

• It holds their time. Somebody on a team is busy for the booking's hours, so customers cannot book them online then, the same as when they are out on a job.
• They can see it. It shows in their column of the Calendar's Staff day view, marked Team (with Jobs on, Staff day is the Schedule board, and the booking sits in their column there, marked Team), on their My work page under their bookings, and in their calendar app if they use the calendar feed.
• They are told. Each person put on or taken off a team gets a notification. When the booking moves to a new time or is cancelled, everyone on its team is told as well (see Notifications).
• A team does not change the price, and the customer is not emailed about it.
• Needs Edit bookings to change. Anyone who can see bookings can see who is on the team.

Change how long it runs

A booking takes its length from what was booked. When a note on the form says the job is bigger, or the work runs over on the day, open the booking and select Change under How long, pick the new length, and select Save length. The list goes in quarter hours. For any other time, such as twenty minutes over, choose Another finish time at the bottom of the list and enter the time it finished. A request waiting for your approval can be lengthened before you approve it. On the Calendar you can also drag the bottom edge of the booking in the Staff day view (not with Jobs on, where Staff day is the Schedule board and a booking opens on a press).

• The extra time is held. Nothing else can be booked into it online.
• It will not double book. If the longer time runs into another booking or a job for the same person or room, it is refused and says which, so you can move that one first or choose a shorter length.
• Some things it goes ahead with and tells you. Running past closing time, into blocked out time or over a daily limit is your call, so it is saved and says so.
• What it does to the price depends on how the service is priced.
  • Priced by the hour (or another unit of time): the price follows the length, up or down, to the minute. Twenty minutes over a $55 an hour booking adds $18.33, not another hour. It can't go below the fewest hours or past the most your booking page takes. The new total shows before you save.
  • A set price stays as booked unless you tick Charge for the extra time. The amount starts at the booking's own price for its length, worked out for the time added, and you can change it. A shorter booking offers Take the time off the price the same way.
  • What is still to pay moves with the total, and the invoice for the booking shows the length it ran for. A booking made from a quote keeps the quote's lines, and its service's line follows too: Decluttering session, 6 hours at $390 becomes 5 hours at $325 on its receipts and invoices. Wording you typed yourself on that line is kept, and only the amount moves.
  • Paid in full: the booking's price never changes. Extra time goes on a draft invoice of its own, ready for you to check and send. It asks for the extra time in full: what was paid for the booking is never taken off it. A shorter booking keeps its price, so refund any difference under Payments. Raising that invoice needs Create / send invoices; without it, your team is told the extra time still needs billing. A second extension goes on the same draft, and parts used on its job join it when you take payment at the end (see Getting paid at the end of a booking). To have it emailed when the work is finished, switch on Email the booking's draft invoices when its job is marked done in the Jobs Settings; the booking then says which job's Done sends it.
• With Jobs on, its visit is the same time. Changing the length of the visit the booking put on the Schedule (or Change on it in the job, or Adjust on My work) changes the booking in exactly this way.
• If you bill from time logged in Jobs, leave the price as it is: Log work on the booking already starts at its new length.
• The customer is emailed the new finish time, and the new total when it changed, with a link to update their calendar. Untick the box first if you would rather ring them. Your team is told either way.
• Classes and events run to their session's times, and drop-offs and stays booked by the night have no length to change, so they have no Change.
• Needs Edit bookings.

Cancel a booking

Cancels with an optional reason. The slot is freed and the customer notified, including a note to delete the calendar entry if they saved one.

• Invitations, if invitations are on and the service booked uses them, manage the booking's invite/RSVP from here; a service with Guest invitations off shows no card (see the Invitations & day plan module).

Approve a request

1. Open the Pending approval tab.
2. Tap a customer's name to open their booking first, with its dogs or children, their alerts and the forms answered so far. A booking held for your OK by an answer or a date that has run out shows why there, and in the email that told you about it.
3. Choose Approve or Decline, on the list or at the foot of the open booking. The customer is notified; approved experience-bookings become live, and approved enquiries can be sent a deposit link.

If an approved deposit is never paid. By default nothing happens: the booking keeps its time until somebody cancels it by hand. To put a deadline on it, open Settings, find the Bookings card, and under Unpaid deposits choose how many days the customer gets. The clock starts when the payment link is emailed, not when the booking was made, so a booking you never asked to pay is never affected. Before the deadline we send one reminder; if it passes we cancel the booking, put the time back on sale, tell the customer plainly that nothing was charged, and let you and anyone on the waitlist know. Changing this only affects bookings approved from that point on, never ones already in the diary. While a deadline is running, the booking's Payment panel shows the date it expires.

Find a past booking

1. Open the Past tab.
2. Type a name, phone or email and/or set a From/To date range.
3. To include ones that were cancelled or declined, tick Show cancelled. They appear with a Cancelled tag, including any whose date has not passed yet, because a cancellation is history whenever it was booked for.
4. Use Load more to page through results.

C6. Examples

• Beginner: take a phone booking with New booking, then Take a payment for whatever they hand over. If that is only the deposit, record just the deposit; the rest stays owing and shows in Balance due.
• Big job paid in instalments: for something like a large renovation, raise an invoice for it (Finance → Invoicing) and record each instalment against that. You get proper progress claims, credit notes, overdue chasing and a tax invoice the customer can pay online.
• Real-world: each morning, work the Balance due tab oldest-first to chase outstanding balances before the booking date.
• Advanced: a customer asks to move their function, open the booking, Reschedule to a date with open slots; the system frees the old slot, re-checks availability and notifies them.

D. Check-in, the door, on the day

D1. Overview

Check-in is the live door list for today (and other days). It tracks each arrival through three states, Expected → On-site → Left, plus No-show for someone who never turned up, and offers faster modes for busy doors: a continuous QR scanner and a self-service kiosk.

Arrival times on this screen are shown on your business's clock, whatever timezone the device you are reading it on happens to be in.

Privacy note (set by your business). HappierBiz deliberately does not record who collects a child; if you need to note something, use the free-text notes. The kiosk shows only first name + last initial for privacy.

D2. Required permissions

• Use day-of check-in (checkin.use).

D3. Navigation path

Bookings → Check-in (with Scan tickets and Self check-in buttons in its header).

D4. What you'll see

• A search box, an experience selector (including All experiences), and filter chips: Everyone, Not arrived, On-site now, Left, No-shows.
• A live list of attendees, each with Check in / Check out / Undo controls, a No-show button before they arrive, a red badge for anything not to be missed and an amber one for a staff flag, and, once they are on site, a headcount stepper for recording how many of the party actually came in.
• A summary of on-site now (with the live head count), to arrive, and left.
• A walk-in form to add someone who turns up without a booking: their name, what they are here for, and how many people.
• The list refreshes automatically so multiple staff can work the door together.
• If your business requires a waiver (set the text in Settings → Check-in), anyone whose waiver isn't recorded as signed shows a flag at the door. It's a prompt, not a block, staff can tick it off or check them in anyway.

D5. Step-by-step

Staff check-in (default):

1. Open Bookings → Check-in. Pick the experience or All experiences.
2. As people arrive, select Check in on their row (they move to On-site).
3. Adjust the headcount if the number differs from the booking.
4. When they leave, select Check out. Use Undo to correct a mistake.
5. For someone with no booking, use Walk-in: type their name, choose what they are here for, and set how many people. They are added as arrived, counted on the door, and saved as a customer.
6. If someone never turns up, select No-show. If your late-cancellation policy charges a set fee, the app tells you the amount and whether their card will be debited before you confirm.

Scan mode (ticketed events):

1. From Check-in, choose Scan tickets.
2. Allow camera access. Point the camera at each ticket's QR, valid tickets check in automatically (with a beep), with duplicate-scan protection and a running session count.
3. If the camera will not play, or a ticket is too damaged to scan, choose Won't scan? Type the reference and enter the reference from their ticket, email or text. The result is the same as a scan.

Kiosk mode (classes/gyms):

1. From Check-in, choose Self check-in and set it on a tablet at the door.
2. Customers tap their own name to check in; a full-screen success message confirms. The kiosk shows expected arrivals only, with privacy-safe names.
3. Choose Exit kiosk (staff) to leave kiosk mode.

D6. Examples

• Beginner (party venue): open Check-in for today's party and tap Arrive as guests come in; correct the headcount to the kids who actually showed.
• Real-world (event): put Check-in into Scan mode at the entrance and scan each QR ticket as people arrive.
• Advanced (gym): run the Kiosk on a wall tablet so members self-check-in to the 6am class, freeing staff for the floor.

E. Money rules, deposits and late cancellations

These settings decide when the rest of the money is taken, and what happens when a customer does not pay or cancels at the last minute. The deposit deadline and the late-cancel fee are off or free by default, and the balance is not charged automatically until you choose that, so nothing is ever taken or cancelled until you say so.

E1. The deposit deadline (auto-cancel an unpaid deposit)

When you approve a booking that needs a deposit, the pay link is emailed and the customer's spot is held. Without a deadline, an unpaid deposit holds that spot forever and only a person noticing frees it up.

Set a number of days and the booking releases itself instead.

• Where: the booking settings for your business. Off by default, and it stays off until you set a number.
• The clock starts when the pay link is emailed, not when you approve. If we could not send the request (no email address, no deposit set, Stripe not connected), the clock never starts and the booking is never cancelled. A customer is never punished for a message we failed to send.
• The deadline is fixed at that moment. Turning the setting on later cannot reach backwards and cancel a pile of older bookings.
• Nobody is cancelled without warning. One reminder goes out before the deadline with the exact date and time the spot will be released.
• Longest you can set: 90 days.

E2. Collecting the balance (when the rest of the money is taken)

The experience decides how much is paid up front. When the rest is taken is a whole-business rule, so it is set once and applies to every experience.

• Where: Settings → [your booking word] & pricing → Collecting the balance. The experience editor shows you what the current setting will do, under the deposit amount, so you do not have to remember it.
• Four choices:
  • I'll charge it (one-click), the default. The card is saved at booking and nothing happens until you press the button in Payments.
  • Auto, days before. Set a number of days and the saved card is charged that many days before the booking, without asking you first.
  • Auto, on the day. The saved card is charged on the day itself.
  • Auto, after it finishes. Set Days after it finishes: 1, the default, charges the saved card the day after; 0 charges it once the booking's finish time has passed that day. It is charged what the booking comes to then, so a session you shorten or lengthen on the day, or extras you add, are charged as changed. Use it when the price depends on how the job goes, such as work booked or quoted by the hour.
• It only applies where money is actually outstanding, so an experience set to Pay in full or to Nothing is unaffected.
• The same number decides when the balance is chased. A customer is never emailed asking for money before the day it is owed. Charged after it finishes, the balance is owed from the day after, so nobody is chased on the day of the work itself.
• Exactly the remainder is taken, and nothing else. The amount is the booking's total less what has already been collected, worked out when the deposit lands and never re-derived from a price list afterwards. A late cancellation fee is a separate charge and is never added to it, and a cancelled booking is never charged.

What the customer is told, and when:

If the card is declined. The customer is emailed at once, before you are told, so your email says they have been. On their booking page they can pay with any card, including the same one once their bank allows it. The saved card is tried again each day. Up to the booking day a refusal emails them again, never more than once a day; after the booking day they are emailed once a week while it is unpaid. Stripe does not email them about a declined charge, so this email is how they find out. They are not emailed when they were paying on their booking page themselves, because they are taken straight on to pay another way, or when Stripe could not say whether the charge went through: then you are asked to check Stripe first, so nobody is asked to pay twice.

Receipts are filed under Finance → Invoicing → Receipts, where you can open, print or re-send any of them.

E3. Cancellation cut-off and late fees

Each experience has a cut-off, in hours before the start. Inside it, a cancellation counts as late.

• Cut-off: 24 hours by default.
• What a late cancel costs: nothing, or they forfeit the deposit (the default), or a fee you set. The fee is the total including any deposit already paid, not on top of it.
• How the fee is collected: by default the customer is emailed a pay link. You can instead have the saved card charged automatically.
• Late reschedules follow the same policy by default. Otherwise somebody facing a fee could move the booking to next month and cancel that for free, leaving you with the empty chair and no fee. Businesses that do not charge for late cancels are unaffected, because for them a late move is still free.
• The customer is shown the policy before they confirm, so a fee is never a surprise.

When a customer cancels online. They can, from their own booking page, while Customers can cancel is on for the experience and the booking has not yet happened.

• Before the cut-off, every card payment on the booking is refunded automatically to the card it came from, and their cancellation email says how much. Money taken another way (cash, your own card terminal, a bank transfer) is not refunded by the app; return it yourself.
• Inside the cut-off, losing the deposit: the deposit is kept and anything paid above it is refunded to the card.
• Inside the cut-off, with a fee: what they have paid counts towards it. Any shortfall is charged to the saved card or sent as a pay link, as you chose, and anything paid above the fee is refunded.
• If an automatic refund cannot be completed, the booking is still cancelled and you are told, with the amount, to refund it yourself.

E4. Letting customers ask to change numbers or extras

A customer can ask, from their own booking page, to change how many people are coming, which extras they want, or the choices they made on the booking form, and you approve or decline each ask. Nothing about the booking or its money changes until you approve. A change to their choices is held to the pick count your form asks for, as it was when they booked.

Turning it on. It is off until you switch it on, one experience at a time. Open the experience and turn on Let customers ask to change numbers or extras under Booking rules. It is not offered on ticketed experiences, because their price comes from the ticket types.

What the customer sees. Their booking page gets a Numbers and extras section. They set the new number, tick the extras they want, and see the new total before they send it. That total is worked out the same way as your own Change panel, so it is the figure an approval would charge.

The deadline. Every change has to be asked for and approved by the end of the day before the final payment is due, which comes from your rule in E2. Charged automatically two days before a Saturday party, the last day is the Wednesday. With nothing left to pay, it is the day before the booking. The customer is shown the exact day, and so are you.

After that, or once a booking is paid in full, the customer can't ask online any more. Their page tells them so and gives them a button to message you, and your phone number if you have one set.

When one comes in. You get a notification straight away, and an email. The email follows the same rule as leave requests: the first in any hour arrives on its own, and any more in that hour arrive together in one email when the hour is up, listing only the ones still waiting. The request waits in two places: the Pending approval tab on Bookings, under Changes to approve, and at the top of that booking's drawer. Each shows exactly what changes (for example "Guests: 10 → 13" and "Fruit platter, added"), the new total and the day you have to decide by. View booking opens the booking itself, so you can see what is on it and what has been paid before you decide.

• Approve makes the change the same way the Change panel does. The numbers, the extras, the total and the balance update, the automatic charge takes the new amount, and the customer is emailed the new details. If there is no longer room for the extra people that day, it is refused and stays waiting, so you can decline it with a reason instead.
• Decline leaves the booking as it was. Add a reason if you like; the customer sees it in their email.
• Fewer people. Going down needs your approval too. If your price includes a set number (a package for up to 8, say), fewer than that is still charged at that number, and the customer is told so before they send it. If a change brings the total below what has already been paid, you are told how much is owed back; how you return it is up to you.

Not decided in time. If a change is still waiting when the deadline passes, it doesn't go ahead. The booking stays as it was, the customer is emailed to say so, and you get a notification, so it is not news when they ring.

One at a time. A customer can have one change waiting. If they send another before you decide, it replaces the first, so you only ever read the latest ask. They can also take a waiting change back themselves.

The word for the people is your own: the Call attendees box in Settings → [your booking word] & pricing. Businesses are given their industry's word when they sign up (guests, members, clients, patients), and you can change it at any time.

The emails. "Change request received", "Change not approved" and "Change not decided in time" can be reworded under Email templates, like the rest of your booking emails. The figures and the deadline are always filled in by the app.

E5. Your account, a page for each customer

Your account is a page where a customer sees what they have with you: their upcoming and past bookings, the dogs, children or others you keep details for, their own details, the agreements they have signed, and the invoices and quotes you have sent them.

Turning it on. It is off until you switch it on, under Your account, for customers in Settings → [your booking word] & pricing. Once it is on, your booking page shows a Your account link at the top, and every booking's own page links to it.

How customers open it. They type their email and are sent a six digit code, with a one-tap link in the same email. Only an address you already hold is sent anything, and the page answers the same way whichever address is typed, so it never shows who your customers are. A code works for 10 minutes. The page stays open for two hours in that browser tab, and Sign out closes it at once.

What it looks like. It opens with their name and a row of figures: what is coming up, what is still to do, how many of each kind of record you keep for them, and the amount owing across their invoices. Each invoice shows its total, what has been paid and what is left to pay, and a quote shows its total. Every amount is worked out the same way as the invoice's own page, payments recorded against a booking or a quote's deposit included, so the two always agree. Below that, To do lists what needs them now: a form a booking still needs, details due for an update, a quote waiting for an answer, an invoice to pay, a membership payment that did not go through. Each booking shows its date, whether it is booked or waiting for you to confirm it, its reference, who it is for, and how many of its forms are still to fill in. A membership shows its plan, whether it is active and when it renews, with a link to their member card. Each dog, child or other record has a card with its name, the first short answer from its form (a breed, for example) and a picture, when they uploaded one on a form about it. A certificate is never used as the picture. The page is in your colours and your words, and anything you do not use, such as records or invoices, is simply not there.

What they can do there.

• Open a booking, to change, cancel or pay it, as from the booking's own page.
• Add one of their own, when you keep a form of details for that kind (Add a dog, in your word for it). They give its name and the form opens for them to fill in. A name already on their account is refused.
• Bring the details you keep up to date at any time with Update. It opens the same form they fill in before a visit, with their answers already in it, and the same rules apply: an answer you marked as needing your OK waits for you.
• Have a signed agreement emailed to them again.
• Open an invoice or a quote, which shows the amount and how to pay.
• Call you, or get directions when you show your address to customers.

What they never see. Staff only questions, the alerts on a dog or child, and anything about anyone outside their household. A household shares its household details and the dogs or children kept for it; each person's own details stay their own.

On a demonstration workspace no code is sent, so the page cannot be opened.

E6. Booked before? Their saved details

A returning customer doesn't have to type everything again. Booked before? is the first thing on the details step, above everything else.

1. They press Booked before? Everything else greys out, leaving one box.
2. They type their mobile number or email and press Email me a code. They are found by the mobile number or email on their customer record, and a six digit code goes to the email you hold for them. HappierBiz sends no texts, so the box says the code comes by email, and once sent it reads Check your email.
3. They type the code and press Use code. Their name, email, phone and, when you go to them (A6c), their address fill in, along with their saved dogs or children where you keep them. An agreement on the booking page that they have already signed, and that is still current, shows as Signed on the date instead of asking again (Forms & workflows, 7a6).

The page says the same thing whether or not the number or email is on your records, so nobody can use it to check who your customers are. Someone who isn't on your records gets no code: No code? Fill in your details instead, under the code box, or Cancel, puts the page back to fill in as normal, with the number or email they typed already in its box. That is all a new customer ever does.

• Nothing shows for a number or an email alone. The code goes only to a customer you already hold, by email, and the page says the same thing whatever is typed, so nobody can use it to find out who your customers are or where they live. A code works for 10 minutes.
• They can change anything filled in, such as a new phone number or a new address, before they book. Their record takes its phone from their newest booking.
• Moved house? When they change a saved address, Save this as my address appears, already ticked. Left ticked, the new address replaces the one on their record. Unticked, it is used for this booking only, which suits a visit to somebody else's house.
• When you book for them, picking them in New booking fills in their saved address too, for anyone who can see your customers. Change it and Save this as their address appears, for anyone who can manage customers.
• A customer with no email on their record can't get a code. They fill in the form as normal.
• On a demonstration workspace no code is sent.

Common mistakes (all of Bookings)

• Taking online bookings before setting up Experiences, there's nothing to book until at least one experience is Live.
• An experience with no spaces or equipment attached, availability can't be worked out; attach the staff/space it uses.
• Marking an experience Live while still drafting it, untick Live until it's ready.
• Choosing "ticket" delivery but "staff" check-in (or vice-versa), that's fine and common, but make sure the door method matches how you actually run it.
• Editing a booking expecting the customer to know, reschedule/cancel notify them, but manual field edits may not.
• Switching a space or an experience off to close one day. That closes it for every future date, and nothing reminds you to switch it back on, so it quietly stops earning. Use Calendar → Block out for a single date, a run of dates, or part of a day.
• Blocking out time and expecting it to cancel bookings. It stops new ones. Anything already booked in that window is still going ahead, and the app tells you how many when you block. Cancel those yourself if that is what you meant.

Troubleshooting

Error messages

The Bookings screens use inline toasts (e.g. "Booking created", "Booking cancelled, the customer has been notified.", "Moved to …"). Action failures return a short message in the same toast (e.g. a reschedule clash), read it and adjust. Camera-unavailable on Scan shows a graceful fallback explaining the device has no usable camera.

Related: Calendar · Payments · Invitations & day plan · Customers