Booking settings control how customers interact with your services: who can book, when they can book, whether bookings require approval, and how the service appears on your booking page. Proper configuration ensures smooth customer experience while protecting your business operations.

When a customer tries to book, Petboost evaluates multiple layers in order. All checks must pass for a slot to appear as available.

Each layer you configure filters out potential bookings. The more rules you add, the narrower your availability becomes.

Illustrative example (actual impact varies based on your specific setup):

This is how filtering works. The goal is to configure the right balance: enough rules to protect your business, not so many that customers can't book.

For help choosing the right level of rules, see The Booking Rules Spectrum.

Control whether customers can book this service online.

Enabled - Self-Service Booking:

Disabled - Manual Booking Only:

When to disable:

Configuration:

Control whether bookings are automatically confirmed or require your approval.

Instant Confirmation (Auto-Confirm):

Manual Approval (Pending Until Approved):

When to use manual approval:

Configuration:

Workflow for manual approval:

Configure whether service is provided at your location or customer's location.

On-Site Service (Default):

Mobile Service:

Configuration:

A service area is a list of suburbs. There is no postcode or radius setting. Petboost does not add a travel fee or travel time to a booking. Include travel costs in the service price. To hold time between visits, set Padding Before or Padding After on the Duration & Timing tab, under Advanced options.

Mobile service considerations:

Control how much notice customers must give when they book.

Booking Notice Period:

Examples:

Petboost has no maximum advance booking setting. Customers can book any future date that has availability.

Configuration:

To set the default for every service, go to Settings > Duration & Timing.

Control whether customers can choose which team member provides service.

Customer Can Choose:

Business Assigns:

Configuration:

Considerations:

Allow customer choice when:

Auto-assign when:

Control which pets can book this service based on criteria.

Weight Restrictions:

Example:

Age Restrictions:

Choose Days, Weeks or Months in Age unit. Petboost stores the age in days, for example 8 weeks is 56 days. Common conversions: 90 days = ~3 months, 180 days = ~6 months, 365 days = 1 year.

Example: preventing puppies from booking full groom services

Example: puppy-only service

Example: puppy class

How to configure age restrictions:

Age restrictions need a birthday on file.

Petboost works out the pet's age from the Birthday on the pet's profile. If a service has an age restriction and the pet has no birthday recorded, the pet cannot book that service until a birthday is added. The booking form asks the customer for it.

Recommended approach for groomers concerned about puppy age:

Breed Restrictions:

Two types of breed restrictions:

1. Included Breeds (Whitelist)

2. Excluded Breeds (Blacklist)

How to configure:

Common use cases:

Specialized grooming:

Safety restrictions:

Breed-specific training:

Best practices:

Important notes:

Animal type restrictions:

Use Eligible Animal Types to restrict the service to specific animal types, such as Dog or Cat. Leave it empty to accept all animals.

Require vaccination certificate:

You cannot choose which vaccines are required. The customer names each certificate when they upload it, for example C5 or Kennel Cough. To ask for particular vaccines, say so in the service description.

Configuration:

To set the default for all services, use Settings > Policies & Paperwork.

When to require:

Service visibility is controlled by the Enable Self-Service Booking toggle in the Booking Settings tab. There is no separate "active/inactive" or "service visibility" toggle.

Self-Service Booking ON (Published):

Self-Service Booking OFF (Draft):

When to hide services:

Configuration:

For a full guide on managing services without online booking, see Internal-Only Services.

Staff Services page: use Sort & Group to group by Category / Service Type and sort by Name, Price, Duration, Self-Service, or Custom. That preference is saved in your browser only and does not change the public booking page by itself.

Public booking page: To set the order customers see, open Sort & Group and choose Reorder. Drag the list into place, then tap Done. The same Reorder action is in Sort & Group on Packages and on Memberships > Plans.

To set category order, open Settings > Service Categories and drag the in-use list. The first global category is the one the page title and link preview lead with, unless you set your own Page title on Settings > Your Booking Page. If you have not set an order, Petboost leads with the category that has the most bookings.

Service Image:

Description:

Short Description:

Configuration:

Padding Before and Padding After hold the team member's or resource's time before and after each appointment, for example to clean a table. Padding does not limit how often the same customer can book. Set it on the service's Duration & Timing tab, under Advanced options > Appointment Padding.

There is no per-service limit. The number of bookings at the same time comes from Pets at a Time on each team member and resource, and from Spots used on the service's Team & Resources tab, under Advanced options.

Initial Launch:

Manage capacity:

Control quality:

Maximize convenience:

When you create an appointment with Magic Availability Check on, select See Availability Reasons under the calendar to see exactly what's affecting availability. This tool shows you which layer is blocking or limiting slots.

Where: Create appointment → Magic Availability Check on → See Availability Reasons

Work through this diagnostic checklist layer by layer:

Team member and resource are separate layers. Read the service Team & Resources tab for that service: Require team member and Require resource can both be on.

If an overnight stay has a team member on it, and that stay service does not require a team member, that stay is attached to the person unnecessarily. Clear the team member box on the stay and save. The stay stays booked. Daytime services that require that person can then book. Do not add another person.

If the person is full on a service that does require them, raise Pets at a Time on that team member, or take the occupying booking off their name.

If the space is full or blocked, raise Pets at a Time on that resource, or remove Blocked Times. Do not add another resource unless you have another space. Do not treat a team-member block as a resource problem, or the other way around.

These are the most frequent issues we see:

Cause: Team member AND resource both have capacity, and the lower one wins.

Example:

Fix: Align capacities, or remove the resource requirement if it's not needed.

Cause: Too many rules stacked, each filtering out slots.

Fix: Audit your rules using The Booking Rules Spectrum. For each rule, ask: "What real problem does this solve?" Remove rules that don't solve actual problems.

Cause: Often a working hours override or leave period that just started.

Fix: Check team member and resource overrides for today's date.

Cause: Eligibility restrictions filtering out certain pets.

Common culprits:

Fix: Review eligibility settings and consider creating service variants instead of restrictions (e.g., "Small Dog Groom" and "Large Dog Groom" rather than one service with weight restrictions).

Cause: Race condition (someone else booked it) OR eligibility check that happens at checkout.

Fix: If it's eligibility, the message will explain. If it's capacity, slots may have been taken while customer was on the page.

Cause: Booking notice period set too high.

Fix: Reduce to 1-4 hours for services where same-day booking is acceptable.

Check:

Use the Availability Troubleshooter - When you create an appointment with Magic Availability Check on, select See Availability Reasons to see exactly what's blocking the slot.

Check:

Solutions:

Q: Should I use instant confirmation or manual approval?
A: Instant confirmation for 95% of services. Use manual approval only if you truly need to review each booking.

Q: How do I prevent same-day bookings?
A: Set minimum advance notice (e.g., 24 hours) in booking settings.

Q: Can I hide a service temporarily without deleting it?
A: Yes, disable self-service booking in the Booking Settings tab. The service will be hidden from customers but staff can still book it manually. See Internal-Only Services.

Q: How do I limit bookings based on pet size?
A: Use weight restrictions in Who Can Book tab, or create size-specific service variants.

Q: Can customers book multiple pets in one appointment?
A: Depends on multi-pet booking settings (account-level configuration). Service configuration controls single-pet eligibility.

Q: What if customer books wrong service for their pet?
A: Eligibility restrictions prevent mismatches. If customer bypasses somehow, you can cancel/reschedule manually.

Q: How do I stop young puppies from being booked into full groom services?
A: Set a minimum age on your full groom services. Go to Services → [Service] → Who Can Book tab → Advanced options → Age Restrictions and set a Minimum Age (e.g., 180 days for 6 months). Then create dedicated puppy services (e.g., "Puppy's First Tidy") with a Maximum Age. A pet with no birthday recorded cannot book these services until one is added.

Q: How do I require customers to enter their pet's birthday or address when booking?
A: To require the pet's birthday, turn on Require pet birthday in Settings > Policies & Paperwork, under Advanced options. To require the customer's address, open Settings > Fields & Forms, select Pet Owner Fields, and turn on Required to book for Street address.

Q: Do age restrictions work if the customer hasn't entered their pet's birthday?
A: No. A pet with no birthday recorded cannot book a service that has an age restriction. The booking form asks the customer to add the birthday first.

Q: Can I require customers to call before booking certain services?
A: Yes, disable self-service booking and include phone number in service description.