Features › Booking
Booking

A double booking
is not possible

That is not a matter of good will but of arithmetic. The system derives free slots from eleven inputs and offers only what can actually fit. The client chooses from what has already been checked.

Three ways to lose an appointment

None of them has anything to do with laziness. All of them have to do with the fact that a person cannot hold a schedule in their head.

Two clients, one chair

One booked by message, another by phone, a third is written in the notebook. One of them comes for nothing, and that gets remembered longer than any advert.

The client who calls at 10pm

You do not answer because you are closed. He does not call again tomorrow, he books with someone who takes bookings at night too. That is not a lost call, it is a lost client.

The gap you never saw

Forty minutes are left between two appointments and nobody can use them, because nothing you do fits into forty minutes. That is dead time you pay for every day.

All three are solved by the same thing: arithmetic done fresh every time, instead of memory. This is what that arithmetic looks like.

Eleven inputs into one calculation

When a client opens a day, the system does not read a list of appointments. It derives it again, out of all of this.

1
Working hoursPer weekday, for each staff member separately.
2
BreaksA break per day. A slot that would cut through it is not offered.
3
Days offAnnual leave and holidays, individually or as a range.
4
Special scheduleA day with different hours takes priority over the regular working hours.
5
Existing appointmentsEverything already booked, with its real occupied time.
6
Service phasesActive time, rest and finishing. This is the part that opens up slots.
7
Prep and cleanupTime before and after an appointment that nobody sees, but that has to exist.
8
WorkplacesChair, booth, room. The staff member is free, but there is no place.
9
Group capacityFor group services it counts how many seats are taken, not whether the slot is occupied.
10
Minimum noticeHow many hours before an appointment a booking is accepted at the earliest.
11
Furthest dateHow far ahead booking is possible at all.
The calculation steps in 15 minute increments, and for today it skips everything in the next hour, because an appointment in ten minutes is not an appointment, it is a problem. All of that happens while the client picks a date, in real time.

While the color sets, you are free

This is the only difference on this page that is measured in money, which is why it gets a section of its own.

In most plugins: the service is one block of 75 minutesResult: one client
Stylist busy for all 75 minutesincluding while just standing there
Here: the same service, three phasesResult: two clients in the same window
Active 20 minapplying color
Rest 40 mincolor sets, stylist FREE
Finish 15 minwash and blow dry
The client still sits for 75 minutes and her appointment still lasts 75 minutes, but the stylist is busy for only 35. During the rest phase the system is allowed to offer that person another client, and it does. The same goes for a treatment that needs to work in, a mask that sits, varnish that dries, color that takes. If your work has a waiting phase, this is the difference between one and two clients in the same window, every day, for every staff member.

Five steps, no account and no password

A client who has to create an account to book a haircut does not book a haircut.

1

Service

Cards with an image, duration and price. If you use categories, they become tabs. The price can also be text, for example “on request”.

2

Staff

With a photo and a short bio, or “anyone available”. Then the system merges the slots of everyone who provides that service and assigns the person itself.

3

Date and time

The calendar and the free slots on the same screen. Slots load as soon as a day is picked, in real time.

4

Details

Name, contact, a note. Plus your own custom fields per service: text, longer text, a dropdown or a checkbox. GDPR consent if you switch it on.

5

Confirmation

The booking reference, an add to calendar button, and payment if it is enabled. The email arrives immediately.

First form step: service cards with price and duration
Step 1: service cards, with category tabs if you use them.
Third form step: calendar and open slots
Step 3: the calendar and free slots, on the same screen.

Cases the form handles on its own

Each of them is the whole problem for some businesses, and irrelevant for others.

Workplaces and group services

The staff member is free, but the room is not. Or the other way round: there is room, but for seven people, not eight.

  • An appointment takes both the person and the place. If every chair is taken, the slot is not offered, even when the staff member has an empty hour.
  • The place is assigned automatically, the system picks the first free one. You do not pick a booth for every booking.
  • If you do not define workplaces, nothing gets blocked. A lawyer does not need a chair, and for him this part does not exist.
  • Group services count seats, not slots. Yoga at 6pm with a capacity of 12: the seventh person does not take the slot, he fills a seat. The client sees how many seats are left.
  • When the group fills up, the slot disappears from the offer, rather than taking people over capacity.
A padel court, a yoga room, a treatment booth and a salon chair are the same thing to the system: a resource that cannot be split in two.

Online services and time zones

The client in Vienna sees 3pm, you booked 3pm Belgrade time. One of the two of you will not show up.

  • For online services the form detects the browser's time zone and shows slots in the client's time, clearly marked as his time.
  • A different zone name does not mean a different time. Zagreb and Belgrade are different zones with the same time, and the form adds no warning there. The real difference is checked, not the name.
  • The client's zone is stored with the booking, so his local time shows in the email too.
  • The service carries a meeting link, which goes into the confirmation and into the reminder.
  • For in person services none of this is shown. Anyone working only with local clients will not even notice this part.
Consultations, language lessons and online therapy: here the wrong hour is the same thing as a no-show.
Confirmation screen with the booking number and a calendar button
Confirmation: booking reference, add to calendar, meeting link for online services.

A series of appointments, and changes without you

Physiotherapy ten times. A lesson every week. A check up every month. That is not ten bookings, it is one decision.

  • Repeat: weekly, every two weeks, every three, every four, or monthly. Up to 12 appointments in a row.
  • The system checks each date in advance and shows which is free and which is not, before the series is created. A taken date is skipped, the rest of the run stays.
  • The client cancels or reschedules himself through the link in the email, with no account and no call to you. He can cancel the whole series too.
  • A deadline you set, 24 hours before the appointment by default. After that the link says changes are no longer possible and points to the phone, instead of someone canceling on you at 7am.
  • Canceling frees the slot immediately and triggers the notice to whoever is on the waiting list.
Rescheduling is the most common reason a client calls you. This takes it off your phone without him losing the appointment.

What happens when two people click the same slot in the same second

Rarely, but it happens. And that is exactly the moment that shows whether a system is serious.

  • The slot the client saw is not a booking, it is a state from a few seconds ago. That is why the calculation is run again just before the write, on the server.
  • If the slot got taken meanwhile, the second client gets a clear message that it is no longer available and picks another. You do not end up with two bookings on one place.
  • The same check applies to the rules: minimum notice and furthest date are verified on the server too, not only in the browser. Working around it through the browser does not get through.
  • Every appointment in a series is checked individually before the write, so a series cannot run over someone else's booking.
This is the only part of the system a user never sees, and the only one he notices instantly when it is missing.

What the form does not do

Better now than after buying.

  • No SMS from the plugin. Reminders go by email. SMS, WhatsApp and Viber are handled through a Zapier connection.
  • There are no client accounts. The client creates no profile and has no password. He changes his appointment through the link in the email. That is deliberate, because an account lowers the number of completed bookings.
  • There are no shifts beyond working hours per day. Working hours, a break, days off and a special schedule for a single day. Weekly rotations are not supported.
  • There is no import of existing appointments. What is in Google Calendar stays there. You start from the day you switch the plugin on.
  • There is no SMS from the form itself. The confirmation goes by email. SMS, WhatsApp and Viber are handled through Zapier or Make, because the outgoing data carries the client's phone number.
If any of these is a dealbreaker for you, say so. The roadmap is built out of messages like that, not out of assumptions.

Which package includes booking

Every paid one, in full. Free exists so you can see how it works, not so you can run a business on it.

The booking engine

Free1 service, 1 staff member
SingleEverything, 1 site
BusinessEverything, multiple sites
AgencyEverything, for client sites
See pricing →

Questions people actually ask

No. He leaves a name and contact details and that is it, no password and no profile. He later changes or cancels the appointment through the link in the email. That is a deliberate decision: every extra step while booking lowers the number of people who make it to the end, and an account is the most expensive step of all.

No, and this is the most useful thing on this page. A service is split into active time, rest and finishing. The staff member is busy only during the active and finishing parts, and during the rest phase the system is allowed to offer him another client. The client's appointment still lasts as long as it lasts, but your day takes more people.

No. Before a booking is written, the server recalculates whether the slot is still free. If someone was faster, the second person gets a message that the slot is no longer available and picks a new one. The same is checked for every appointment in a series.

Yes, you set how many hours ahead a booking is accepted at the earliest and how many days ahead booking is possible at all. Independently of that, for today the system never offers slots within the next hour. Both rules are verified on the server too, so they cannot be worked around through the browser.

He does it himself, through the link in the email, and picks a new slot from the same list of free ones. You decide until when that is possible, by default up to 24 hours before. After the deadline the link says changes are no longer possible and tells him to call you. A canceled slot becomes free immediately and triggers the notice to whoever is waiting on the list.

What goes with this

A booked appointment is the beginning, not the end.

An appointment booked at 11pm is an appointment you would otherwise have lost

The form works when you do not, and offers only what can actually fit. The license is paid once.

See pricing → All features