Booking and Managing Appointments
Use this page to book an appointment, move it along as the customer is served, and set up repeat bookings.
Quick steps
To book an appointment:
- Click Scheduling in the top navigation, then click Book Appointment.
- Pick the Service. Pick the Assigned Staff, or leave it on Any available.
- Pick an Existing Customer, or type the customer's Name (plus phone and email if you have them).
- Set the Start Time. The End Time and Price ($) fill in from the service.
- To book a regular customer for every week, every 2 weeks or every month, set Repeat and Until under Recurring.
- Click Book Appointment. It is saved as Pending.
On the day:
- On the Appointments list, click Confirm on a pending booking. The customer is emailed a confirmation.
- When the customer arrives, click Start. When you're done, click Complete.
- If they don't come, click No-show. If the booking is called off, click Cancel.
Appointments live in the admin only. Ring up the service at the register as a normal sale.
Common questions
It says "Staff member already has an appointment during this time." That person is already booked then. Pick another time or another staff member, or cancel the booking that's in the way.
How do I change the time of a booking? Click Edit, change the Start Time, then click Update Appointment. The customer isn't emailed about the change, so let them know yourself.
A date is missing from a repeating series. The staff member was already booked that day, so it was skipped. The message after booking lists the skipped dates. Book them by hand at another time.
What's the difference between Cancel and No-show? Cancel is for a booking called off ahead of time, and emails the customer. No-show is for a customer who didn't turn up. Both free the staff member's time.
More detail: the Appointments page
The Appointments page is your appointment book. It lists every booking for a day or a week, with the customer, service, staff member, status and price.
Open it from Scheduling in the top navigation. You need at least one active service first. See Services and Staff Hours.
The Appointments Page
The heading shows how many active appointments you have today and how many are upcoming.
Buttons at the top
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Book Appointment | Opens the booking form. |
| Manage Services | Opens your Services. |
| Staff Hours | Opens Staff Availability. |
Moving around
- Day shows one day. Week shows Monday to Sunday, with a Date column.
- The arrows go back or forward a day (or a week). Today jumps back to today.
- All Staff is a filter. Pick a staff member to see only their appointments.
The list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Time | Start and end time and the length in minutes. The coloured dot is the service's colour. |
| Customer | Name and phone number. |
| Service | The service booked. |
| Staff | Who it's booked with, or Unassigned. |
| Status | Where the appointment is up to. See Statuses. |
| Price | The price for this appointment. |
| Actions | The next step, plus Edit, Cancel and No-show. |
Below the list are four totals for what's shown: Total, Upcoming (pending and confirmed), Completed and Revenue. Revenue adds up the price of the appointments in the list, leaving out cancelled ones and no-shows.
More detail: every booking field, and what stops a booking
Booking an Appointment
- Click Book Appointment.
- Under Service & Staff, pick the Service. Pick the Assigned Staff, or leave it on Any available to leave the appointment unassigned.
- Under Customer, pick an Existing Customer to fill in their name, phone and email, or type them in. Name is required.
- Under Date & Time, set the Start Time. The End Time fills in from the service's duration. Change it if this booking needs more or less time.
- Price ($) fills in from the service if you leave it blank. Type a price to charge something different for this booking.
- Add any Notes, such as special requests.
- To repeat the booking, see Repeating Appointments.
- Click Book Appointment.
The appointment is saved as Pending and the page jumps to its day.
If the customer has an email address, they're sent an email right away. While the booking is Pending, it tells them their request was received and that they'll hear again once it's confirmed. See Online Booking and Reminders.
What stops a booking
| Message | Why |
|---|---|
| Staff member already has an appointment during this time | The assigned staff member already has an appointment that overlaps. Cancelled and no-show appointments don't count. |
| Starts at cannot be in the past | New appointments can't start in the past. |
| Ends at must be after start time | The end time is before the start time. |
More detail: statuses, editing and cancelling
Statuses
| Status | Meaning | Next step on the list |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Booked but not confirmed yet. New bookings start here. | Confirm |
| Confirmed | You've confirmed it with the customer. | Start |
| In Progress | The customer is being served. | Complete |
| Completed | Done. | None |
| Cancelled | Called off by you or the customer. | None |
| No Show | The customer didn't come. | None |
While an appointment is pending, confirmed or in progress, the list also shows:
- Edit to change any detail.
- Cancel to cancel it. You're asked Cancel this appointment? first. If the customer has an email address, they're sent a cancellation email.
- No-show to mark that the customer didn't come. You're asked Mark as no-show? first.
Cancelled and no-show appointments free up the staff member's time for other bookings.
When you click Confirm on a pending appointment, the customer (if they have an email address) is sent an Appointment Confirmed email. If you book an appointment with its status already set to Confirmed, that email goes out when you book it instead.
Editing an appointment
Click Edit to change the service, staff, customer details, times, price or notes. The edit page also has a Status dropdown, which you can use to set any status directly. Click Update Appointment to save.
Changing the time from the admin doesn't email the customer, so let them know yourself. Setting the status to Cancelled from the dropdown also doesn't send the cancellation email. Use the Cancel action on the list if you want the customer emailed.
Completed, cancelled and no-show appointments can't be edited from the list.
More detail: repeating appointments
Repeating Appointments
For a customer who comes in regularly, one booking can create the whole series. This is only available when you first book the appointment.
- In the Recurring section of the booking form, set Repeat to Every week, Every 2 weeks or Every month.
- Set Until to the last date. It must be at least a week away and no more than a year away.
- Click Book Appointment.
Brother POS books each repeat at the same time of day, with the same service, staff, customer, price and notes. Every repeat starts as Pending.
- If Until is left blank, only the first appointment is booked.
- If the staff member is already booked at one of the repeat times, that date is skipped. After you book, a message lists the dates that were skipped, so you can book them at another time.
- Each repeat is its own appointment. Editing or cancelling one doesn't change the others.
- If the customer has an email address, they get one email for the whole series, listing the other dates booked.
More detail: troubleshooting and best practices
Troubleshooting
"Staff member already has an appointment during this time." Pick another time or another staff member, or cancel the booking that's in the way.
A repeating series is missing a date. The staff member was already booked that day. The message after booking lists these dates. Book them by hand at another time.
Appointments don't show at the register. Appointments are managed in the admin only. Ring up the service at the register as a normal sale.
Best Practices
- Confirm pending bookings, especially ones made online, so everyone can see which are settled.
- Use Start and Complete as customers arrive and leave, so the day's list shows where everyone is.
- Mark No-show rather than cancelling when a customer doesn't come, so you can tell the two apart.