The booking notice period, booking interval and appointment buffer time are on Duration & Timing, the choices that decide how your days fill up are on Booking Engine, and whether a card is required to book is on Pricing & Payments. This guide covers those settings too. Booking Settings ends with How Petboost picks the times it offers, a collapsed section that explains, with your own settings, who takes a booking, which start times are offered and how many pets a team member can take at once.

Tip: Each service keeps its own copy of most of these settings. Online booking is the exception: it covers the whole business. Where services differ from the business setting, a badge beside the setting says how many use their own setting. Open it and select Set all to to bring them into line. When you publish a change, Also update services in Before You Publish does the same for the services ticked there. Services still holding the old value start ticked.

Turn online booking off when you want to take every booking yourself, such as during a high-demand period that needs manual approval, for VIP or complex work that needs a consultation first, or while you manage capacity yourself.

To turn it back on, switch Online booking on and publish. Turning it back on does not mean re-publishing each service. To see what customers get while it is off, select Preview when off under Online booking.

With Online booking on, customers see available times, book online and change a booking they already have. With it off:

Online booking needs a Pro, Flex or Max plan.

A new service starts with its own Online booking off, so it is not on your booking page until you switch it on. Turning on Online booking for the business does not switch services on. While it is on, Booking Settings shows a warning under Online booking when any service is still off, for example Pet owners can't book 4 of your 12 services online. The same warning appears on Let customers book online in your setup checklist, and the Service list check in the Account Health Check flags it too.

To switch several services on at once:

Each ticked service changes straight away, without Publish Changes. Only its own Online booking switch changes: prices, times, team, rules and existing bookings stay as they are, and no one is sent a message. Petboost switches the services on one at a time. If one fails, it stops there, marks that service Failed with the reason, and leaves it and the services after it ticked so you can try again.

If you switched Online booking on for the business and have not published it yet, customers can book these services once you publish.

Add-ons, packages and course lessons are not counted. A course lesson is switched on from its course. To take a service off again, open it and switch off Online booking on its Booking Settings tab.

Instant confirmation suits most businesses and saves admin work. Turn it off when you want to review each online booking before it is confirmed, such as for services that need special preparation, VIP or sensitive appointments, capacity you manage yourself, or a busy period when you need control.

With Instant confirmation on, a booking is confirmed as soon as the customer makes it and the customer gets their confirmation straight away. With it off, a booking made online stays Pending until you approve it. Pending bookings wait under Requests to accept on Mission Control, and the customer is told once you confirm the booking.

To approve only new clients' bookings and confirm returning clients straight away, leave Instant confirmation on and switch on Approve new clients' bookings under New clients. See Set rules for new clients.

Turn this on when customers ask for a particular team member. Leave it off to keep the booking flow simpler for customers who have no preference.

With it on, customers see the team members who can do the service, choose one, then see only that team member's available times. Customer choice builds relationships, and some team members may get booked more than others.

With it off, customers see available times without team member names, and each time already has a team member behind it. Petboost works it out in this order:

Trap: Automatic assignment does not know who you want to get more work. To favour a team member, or send pets back to the person they saw last, set up Choose who gets Anyone bookings.

Customers book online one visit at a time: the booking page has no option to repeat a booking. A signed-in customer can add up to nine more dates under Booking more than once?, and each date becomes its own appointment, charged separately.

To give a regular customer a standing series, your team creates it from the appointment form: choose Recurring in the Create selector.

Customers must add a payment card to book online unless you allow booking without one. Allow booking without card is off by default.

With a card required, the customer must add a valid payment card to book. A deposit, if the service takes one, is charged at booking. Otherwise the card is not charged until the appointment. A required card reduces no-shows and lets Automatic Actions, such as pre-holding funds and auto-pay, work.

With Allow booking without card on, customers can book without adding a card and you collect payment later, in person or by bank transfer. The risk of a no-show is higher.

To ask only new clients for a card and the deposit, switch on Deposit and card from new clients only under New clients on Booking Engine. See Set rules for new clients.

Requiring a card is not the same as taking a deposit. Deposits are not set here: the business default is under Deposits on Pricing & Payments, each service can override it on its own Pricing & Payments tab, and one customer can override both on the Settings & Overrides tab of their profile. See Deposits and pre-authorisation.

Tip: Require a card to reduce no-shows and to let automatic payments run.

Set a notice period so customers cannot book a start time too soon for you to prepare.

With 4 hours set, customers cannot book an appointment that starts within the next 4 hours. These are common settings:

Tip: Until you set a notice period, Start with recommended settings suggests 24 hours' notice. Select Apply recommended to use it, or I will configure manually.

The notice period sets how soon a customer can book. To set how far ahead a new client can book, switch on Limit how far ahead new clients can book under New clients on Booking Engine. Returning clients have no maximum. See Set rules for new clients.

The booking interval sets the start times customers are offered.

With 30 minutes, customers can book start times such as 9:00 AM, 9:30 AM and 10:00 AM, and never 9:15 AM or 9:45 AM. Petboost fills the gaps from the service durations and your buffer time. If an appointment ends at 11:10 AM and you have a 15-minute interval with 30 minutes of buffer time after, the next start offered is 11:45 AM: the end time plus the buffer time, rounded up to the next interval mark. The page works out the same example from your own settings.

15 or 30 minutes suits most pet service businesses.

Trap: A session that does not start on your interval can only start at the next interval mark, and a service that no longer fits the time left is not offered online. When that happens, the page lists the sessions that will have limited availability at your interval. Choose a smaller interval, or move those sessions onto the interval in Schedules & Sessions.

Buffer time blocks time either side of each appointment, for setting up before and cleaning up after.

Each can be No buffer time, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours or 3 hours. A 45-minute appointment with 15 minutes of buffer time before and 15 minutes after blocks 1 hour and 15 minutes on the calendar. Both values are the default for new services, and a service can set its own buffer time on its Duration & Timing tab.

Let online stays change rooms is off by default and shows only if you sell stays. With it on, an online stay that no single room holds can still be booked, with the fewest room moves. You see the moves on the booking. The pet owner is never shown a room, and the price stays the same.

See Move a pet to another room during a stay.

Choose which day your weeks start on.

The day you choose starts the week in Schedules & Sessions, on the working hours of team members and resources, and in the week view on Mission Control when it is grouped by weekday. The Appointments calendar starts its week on Monday either way.

By default a new customer sees your times after giving their mobile and their pet's details. They give their name and email after they pick a time, and add a required vaccination record on Review & Terms. Require an account before showing services moves sign-up ahead of your services.

With it on:

It also has a cost:

To switch it on:

Hide prices or services before booking compares it with the switches that hide prices only.

Ask new clients is being switched on business by business. If Booking Settings shows Require an account before showing services as On or Off with Change on Fields & Forms, you choose it on Fields & Forms instead, field by field. See Choose what new clients give before your times.

Mobile and pick-up businesses usually need the pet owner's home address before a booking is confirmed. You can require it for the whole business, and a service can keep its own setting.

When services differ from the business setting, the Street address row shows how many use their own setting. A customer booking online is then asked for their address before the booking can be confirmed.

Block a customer who repeatedly no-shows or cancels at the last minute, who needs a consultation before booking, or who is under a temporary restriction during a dispute or payment issue. Online booking stays on for everyone else.

When a blocked customer tries to book online, they see Online booking isn't available with and your business name, with buttons to contact you. They can still log in to their portal and keep access to past appointment photos and history. You can still create appointments for them yourself, and every other customer keeps booking as normal.

To unblock them, open Manage Owner again and select Enable Online Booking.

The collapsed section at the foot of Booking Settings explains how Petboost finds the times it offers customers, using your own booking interval, buffer time and notice period. Nothing in it is a setting. It has three parts: Who does the booking, Which start times it offers and How many pets at once.

Petboost finds the team members assigned to the service, or every team member when none are assigned, and works out each one's free times from their working hours, existing bookings and capacity. When several team members are free at the same time, Petboost picks one for that time, in the order under Choose who gets Anyone bookings. With Customers choose their team member off, customers never see a name. With it on, they choose the person first and see only that person's times.

Start times fall on your booking interval, each booking blocks your buffer time before and after it on the calendar, and nothing is offered sooner than your notice period. The part ends with an example worked out from your settings: the next start offered after a booking that ends at 11:10 AM. With a 15-minute interval and 30 minutes of buffer time after, that is 11:45 AM. You change these on Duration & Timing.

Which times customers see online on Booking Engine then decides which of those start times a customer sees: all of them, only the ones that keep the day tight, or only the next one in each session. See Booking Engine. Your team can still book any time.

Pets at a time is how many pets from different households a team member can work on at the same time. Most groomers set it to 1. Same-family booking is a higher limit that applies only when all the pets belong to the same owner, so siblings can be booked together while pets from different families stay limited.

For example, Sarah has Pets at a time set to 1 and a same-family limit of 3. She can groom 3 dogs from the Mitchell family at once, but not a Mitchell dog and a dog from another family at the same time.

Pets at a time is not a daily total. For a ceiling on how many different pets come in on one day, use the Daily pet limit on Booking Engine, or the one on a team member's or resource's Capacity page.

A team member's Pets at a Time and Same-family limit are on their Capacity tab. A session can set its own Pets at a time and Same-family booking in the session editor, from the team member's Working Hours or from Schedules & Sessions. How much of that capacity each booking of a service uses is Spots used, under Places Used Per Booking in Advanced options on the service's Team & Resources tab.

Petboost pools the free times of every eligible team member. When a customer picks a time, the team member who was free at that time is assigned. The customer chooses the time, and the time decides the team member.

Not unless you ask it to. By default, the team members free at a time take turns across the day's times. To spread bookings by share or by day, set up Choose who gets Anyone bookings.

Yes.

Customers cannot start or change a booking. The booking page still opens with a contact banner, and your public page stays up for search engines without services, packages, memberships or courses. Your team can still create and change bookings, and customers can still cancel where your rules allow.

No. When a customer moves a booking online, Petboost checks the new time against the times your booking page offers at that moment, with their own booking taken out of the way. If the new time is no longer offered, for example another booking has taken it, the team member is not working then, or it is sooner than your notice period, the change is refused with Sorry, this slot is no longer available and the booking stays where it was. Your team can still move a booking to any time.

Yes. A new customer booking online sees an optional question on the last step, How did you hear about your business name, with Google, Instagram, Facebook, A friend, Walked past and Other. There is nothing to switch on, and returning customers are not asked. Their answer is kept beside the link or site the booking came from and never replaces it. Where clients come from on the Marketing Ideas tab reads the customer's own answer first. See Marketing Ideas.

Yes.

A blocked customer is told online booking is not available with your business, and can still use their portal.

Customers must add a valid payment card before they book online. A deposit, if the service takes one, is charged at booking. Otherwise the card is not charged until the appointment. Requiring a card is not the same as taking a deposit: set a deposit under Deposits on Pricing & Payments, then override it per service if you need to. See Deposits and pre-authorisation.

Use instant confirmation unless you need to review each booking yourself before it is confirmed.

Yes. Leave Instant confirmation on and switch on Approve new clients' bookings under New clients on Booking Engine. A customer counts as new until their first visit with you is checked out, at any of your locations. See Set rules for new clients.

15 or 30 minutes suits most businesses. Use 5 minutes only if you need 5-minute precision.

Best Fit groups pets close together when it can, and always offers alternatives when a tight grouping is not possible. All Pets Together starts every pet at exactly the same time, which needs enough team capacity for all of them at once. If capacity is too low, customers may see no available times at all.

It is a higher limit that applies only when all the pets being booked belong to the same owner. A groomer with Pets at a time set to 1 and a same-family limit of 3 can handle 3 dogs from one family at once, but only 1 dog at a time from different families.

How much capacity each booking uses is Spots used on the service's Team & Resources tab.