Each answer names the tab a setting sits on. To open a saved service, open Services, select Manage on the service, then Manage Service, and choose the tab.

Start with your core offerings, 5 to 15 services, and add more later. Too few and customers cannot find what they need. Too many is overwhelming, confusing and hard to manage. Aim for clear options that cover your main offerings:

Yes. Every setting except the service type can be changed at any time. Before You Publish sorts each change by the bookings it reaches:

Booked appointments keep their price, duration, team member and resource. Only new bookings use the new values. Changes listed under Applies to all appointments in Before You Publish, such as the automatic actions, reminders and the cancellation policy, also reach appointments already booked.

If you change a service's price from $100 to $110, every appointment already booked keeps the $100 price, and customers who booked at the old rate are not affected. Only appointments created after the change use the $110 rate. To change one booking, edit its price on the booking's invoice. To move many upcoming bookings to your current prices, use Update Existing Bookings in Pricing Assistant.

Only a service nothing has ever used. If a service has appointments, packages, courses or course templates, or another service names it as a prerequisite or pairs an add-on with it, archive it instead, or switch off its online booking. Switching off online booking keeps the history and reporting, hides the service from your booking page, lets your team still book it, and can be switched back on at any time. See How do I delete a service vs disable it?

These are two different actions with very different outcomes. Disabling hides the service from online booking and keeps everything else. Deleting removes it for good.

To disable a service:

The service is hidden from your booking page, and customers cannot see or book it online. Your team can still book it, all history, reporting and existing appointments are kept, and you can switch online booking back on at any time.

To archive or delete a service:

Permanently Delete is offered only when nothing has used the service. While appointments that are not yet paid or cancelled still use it, the link reads Archive Service and lists those appointments to resolve first. If an active package includes the service, Petboost asks you to resolve that first too. To archive or delete several services at once, see Archive or delete many services.

Tip: If in doubt, switch off online booking rather than delete. You lose nothing by switching it off, but deletion is permanent.

Online booking, under Self-Service Booking on the service's Booking Settings tab, is the only visibility control. With it on, the service appears on your booking page and customers can book it online, and your team can book it too. With it off, the service is hidden from your booking page and only your team can create appointments for it, which suits VIP services, internal-only services and services you are still developing.

A service with online booking off shows a grey Draft badge beside its name, and a green Published badge once it is on. Your team can book every service as soon as it is created: online booking only controls what customers see. Keep online booking off while you are still configuring a service, for staff-only or invite-only services, for seasonal services out of season, and for services that need a consultation before booking.

Yes.

Full steps: Change the order of services.

Yes. With online booking off, a service becomes internal-only.

What stays the same:

What changes: the service is hidden from your booking page, and customers cannot see or book it online.

Common uses are boarding with flexible handover times agreed one customer at a time, VIP or invite-only services, services that need a phone consultation before booking, services you are testing before you offer them to everyone, and seasonal services out of season. For a full walkthrough, see Internal-Only Services.

To start a new service from an existing one, such as the next size of the same groom, select Clone This Service on the service's summary, or Clone from another service on Basic Info when you create a service. To copy one section's settings onto services you already have, use Copy settings:

Only the ticked fields are overwritten. Copy settings is on every section except Notes Templates, Advanced and Appointments, so it can copy the base price and "from" pricing, the duration and buffer time, booking rules such as the notice period, team member and resource assignments, eligibility rules such as weight, age and breed, and the automatic actions. Multi-pet rates and stay rate tiers are not copied: set them on each service.

Copying suits size variants, such as Small, Medium, Large and X-Large of the same service, tier variants such as Bronze, Silver and Gold, a new service that shares most settings with an existing one, and seasonal services with minor changes. After copying, change what differs: the name, including the variant, such as "Full Groom (Large)", the price, the duration and the weight restriction.

An Initial service is a first-time service for new customers, such as an assessment or introduction. It usually takes longer and can be priced differently. A pet can book it once: while it holds an active booking of it, the booking form shows Already Booked on it, and a cancelled or declined first visit frees it again. An Initial service does not block anything by itself. A Regular or Stay service asks for it first when it names it under Service Prerequisite, and an Initial service cannot be booked as a recurring series.

A Regular service is a standard, repeatable service, booked again and again, with normal duration and pricing. Most services are Regular. Use Regular for 1:1 training. Do not use it for puppy school, scentwork or a group class, which are Courses.

On Services you create four types: Initial, Regular, Stay and Add-on. The three most often confused are:

An Initial service gates a Regular or Stay service that names it under Service Prerequisite: until the pet meets it, the pet cannot book that service. This is tracked per pet, not per customer. For example, a Daycare Assessment must be completed before a pet can book Full Day Daycare.

Regular services are your core appointment types. They can be booked repeatedly and support fixed or "from" pricing, multi-pet rates and recurring bookings.

Add-on services cannot be booked on their own. Customers see them in the booking form after they choose a main service.

The other types:

For full details, see the Service Types Guide.

No. Those are courses.

Do not use New > New Service on Services. A Regular service created by hand is not a course, and the New Appointment form does not list courses.

Use a Regular service for a single appointment, including 1:1 training. See Courses versus services.

Use add-ons for optional extras that cannot be booked alone. Customers add them in the booking form after they choose a main service.

Good add-ons:

These should be Regular services instead:

If you want an extra both ways, standalone and as an extra, create two services. Keep the existing Add-on, for example Nail Clip, so it still appears during a groom. Create a new Regular service, for example Drop in Nail Clip, with the same price, duration, category and online booking setting, and publish it. Clients can book the Regular on its own and still add the Add-on while they are there. The service type cannot be changed after you create the service, so do not try to convert the Add-on into a Regular.

See the Add-Ons Guide for set-up steps.

After choosing a main service, such as a Full Groom, customers see the add-ons that go with it and tap to add them. The price updates as they do. They get two chances:

On a stay booking the heading reads Upgrade Their Stay.

If a business hides prices until review, an add-on whose price is hidden shows no price before Review & Terms, and the total appears there. See Hide prices or services before booking.

On the calendar, appointments with add-ons show the add-ons icon, and the calendar's Has Add-ons filter shows only those. Mission Control cards name each add-on. Open the appointment and select the Add-ons badge to see each pet's add-ons.

Yes, until the invoice is paid, for example when a customer asks for something extra at drop-off.

You can also select Manage, then Edit, on the booking and change its extras there.

Work through these checks in order:

An add-on takes its team member and resource from the main service, so it offers only Optional and Not used under Team & Resources and never needs its own team member to appear.

If the issue persists after all these checks, contact Petboost support with the add-on's name, the main services it should appear with, and a screenshot of the add-on's tabs.

Stay is for overnight or multi-day services, such as boarding by the night or extended daycare over several days. Its duration is measured in days, not hours, and it brings:

Stay services are built for overnight boarding and multi-day stays. They handle check-in and check-out times, nightly or daily pricing, capacity across every night of the stay, and optional transport.

The Pricing Mode, which you can change later on the service's Pricing & Payments tab, is one of:

Any mode can add Extended Stay Discounts, so longer stays cost less. If you do not pick a mode, the service uses Duration-based. See the Service Pricing Guide.

Then set the check-in and check-out windows:

New Stay, for your team, pre-fills the windows, and they stay editable. Windows do not add a late fee. See Stay Check-in and Check-out Windows.

For capacity, assign the pens or rooms the stay uses as resources on its Team & Resources tab. When a pet books a multi-night stay, Petboost checks capacity for every night, and if any single night is full, the booking cannot go ahead. A stay uses resources, not team members.

Create add-ons for boarding extras, such as medication administration, an extra playtime session, a groom on departure day, photo or video updates, or a special diet meal. For first-time boarders, create a Boarding Trial Night Initial service and make it the prerequisite of your longer stays.

Individual services are standalone appointments booked and paid for one at a time. Packages are prepaid bundles of credits sold at a volume discount.

Use individual services for new customers trying your services, one-off or infrequent appointments, and services whose price changes each visit. Use packages for regular customers who book the same service again and again, when you want to encourage commitment and repeat bookings, to have the money before the services are delivered, and to reward loyal customers with a volume discount.

With Yes - publish for purchasing, customers can buy the package on your booking page at any hour. Each purchase shows as a card of stamps, one per credit, and each booking of a covered service spends one credit per pet. Credits are held on the owner's account, so eligible pets in the same family share them. For full details, see Getting Started with Packages.

For complete pricing documentation, including stay pricing examples, see the Service Pricing Guide.

Use a fixed price when the service cost is consistent, delivery is standardised and customers expect a set price, such as group classes, standard walks and daycare.

Use a "from" price, with Display as "from" price on the service's Pricing & Payments tab, when the final cost depends on what you find during the service, such as the pet's size, coat condition or the time the service takes, and you need the flexibility to adjust it. Grooming, training and complex services are typical.

The recommended option is a separate service for each size:

Separate services give clear pricing, an accurate duration for each size and better eligibility control. The other option is one service with a "from" price, such as Full Groom from $130.00 with a 2h duration, adjusted on each booking. That means fewer services to manage and more flexibility.

Use separate services when price and duration differ a lot. You can then set a weight restriction on each size so only pets of the right size can book, such as 0 to 10kg on Full Groom (Small) and 10.01 to 20kg on Full Groom (Medium). To set up the sizes quickly, create the first one, then create each other size with Clone This Service on its summary and change the name, price, duration and weight restriction. See Price each size as its own service.

Create a separate service for each tier, with clear naming and a clear difference in value:

Set-up tips:

Put the tiers in one service category, so customers can compare them on your booking page.

Yes. Use Pricing Assistant, which is on the settings menu of Services.

Full steps for the other wizards: Pricing Assistant.

Bulk Update writes the same values onto every service you select.

If the selected services already share one type, the dialog opens on Fields. You can also open Bulk Update Services from the settings menu on Services.

Its fields come from Basic Info, Pricing & Payments, Duration & Timing, Team Members & Resources, Booking Settings, including online booking, Automatic Actions, Notifications, Policies & Paperwork, Fields & Forms and Eligibility & Restrictions. Multi-pet rates and stay rate tiers are not included. To raise or lower prices by an amount or a percentage, use Pricing Assistant. To rename services, see Can I change service names in bulk?

Filter the list by category first to select related services quickly, and review the changes before you confirm, because they apply to every selected service. A price change reaches new bookings only: booked appointments keep their confirmed price. For different values on each service, edit the services one at a time or use Bulk Edit Grid.

Yes, with Bulk Edit Grid on a desktop or laptop. Bulk Update cannot change names.

Full steps: Edit many services in a grid. To set the same field on many services (not names), see Update many services at once.

Yes. Petboost offers a deposit and card on file with pre-authorisation, and you choose which one applies to each service.

A deposit is set as a business default under Deposits on Settings > 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. There are three modes:

The amount paid up front reduces the balance owed, so only the remainder is charged at the end, or at check-in when the service takes Pay on Arrival.

When the pet owner books online, Petboost takes the deposit at that moment. They must have a card on file and the charge must succeed, or the booking is refused.

When you create the booking yourself, the form asks Choose how to take the deposit before you create it. Card on File is already selected when they have one, and that charges the card as you create the booking. Choose Secure Payment Link, or Request card when they have no card and a mobile number, and the booking stays Pending with the deposit still due. Nothing is marked paid until they pay the link or you take the deposit. Cash, Bank Transfer and Other EFTPOS mark the deposit paid as you create it.

A booking already at Pending shows a blue Deposit due banner:

When the owner books several dates in one pass, Petboost takes the deposit for each date, not one deposit for the set. Recurring bookings do not take a deposit.

If you decline the booking request, the deposit is refunded in full. If the customer cancels later than your cancellation period allows, you keep your cancellation fee out of the deposit already paid and the rest is refunded: the fee percentage of the deposit, or the fixed amount up to the whole deposit. Holiday, weekday and attribute pricing charged with the deposit count towards it. A booking fee passed on to the customer is refunded in full. Refunds are issued automatically, and the customer is refunded in full. Banks still take 5-10 business days to show the money back on their card, and Stripe does not return its own processing fee on the original charge to you.

Card on file with pre-authorisation charges nothing up front:

Use a deposit when you need money committed before the appointment: peak-season boarding, high-value grooming, new customers with no history, or slots you cannot refill at short notice. Use Pre-pay in Full when the entire booking amount needs protecting. Use pre-authorisation when your concern is no-shows rather than cash up front: nothing is charged, so a cancellation releases the hold in 30 minutes to 24 hours instead of a 5-10 business day refund.

Only one applies to a booking. If a deposit is taken, Petboost does not also pre-authorise the balance on top of it. For high-value or boarding bookings, combine either with a longer cancellation period, such as 72 hours or more, to protect you against last-minute cancellations.

Yes. Deposits and pre-authorisation are both set per service, so one service can require payment up front while the rest do not.

To give a service its own deposit:

The badge beside the setting shows whether the service is Following business or has its Own value, and opens to show the business default without leaving the service.

To pre-authorise a service's bookings:

How this suits different services:

See also: No-Show Protection and Upfront Payments

Yes. You set three kinds of date-based rate and Petboost charges them automatically:

All three are set in one place, Holiday & weekend rates on Settings > Pricing & Payments. A service's Pricing & Payments tab shows which rates it is charged.

Each rate is a percentage or a fixed amount, carries a label in your own words, and can apply to every service or only the services you select. Stay services can be selected. Stays charge the rate per night, and the checkout night is never charged.

While they book, pet owners see the marked dates on Regular and Stay date pickers, the rate wording under the grid (and your label when you advertise it), and the named lines plus the same total on the stay date step and at review.

You do not need a separate seasonal service, a manual price change or an add-on to charge these rates. See Holiday and weekday pricing and Business hours.

For prepaid bundles, use Packages. For example, next to a Single Training Session at $85.00, sell a 5-session training package at $400.00, saving $25, and a 10-session package at $750.00, saving $100. See How do I set up service packages vs individual services?

For a one-off discount, change the price or the Discount on the service line of the booking's invoice. For money off that customers type when they book online, or a deal that applies by itself on chosen days, create a code under Discount codes in the sidebar under What you sell. Discount codes are being switched on business by business. If you do not see Discount codes there, ask us in chat.

The duration should include the hands-on service time, minor variations and typical delays, and the time spent within the appointment. Leave out setup and clean-up, which buffer time covers, extreme cases, and travel time unless it is a mobile service. Think of the duration as the average service time plus a small margin, and of buffer time as the setup before plus the clean-up after. A groom with a 1h 30m duration and 15 minutes of buffer time blocks 1h 45m on the calendar.

Set buffer time under Buffer Time on the service's Duration & Timing tab, set as Buffer Time Before and Buffer Time After.

A Full Groom with a 2-hour duration, 15 minutes of Buffer Time Before and 15 minutes of Buffer Time After blocks 2h 30m on the calendar, and the customer sees 2 hours.

Buffer time adds a gap before or after each appointment for setup, clean-up or the change-over. Customers do not see it, and it prevents back-to-back scheduling conflicts.

Petboost adds the buffer time to the calendar block. With 15 minutes before, a 2-hour service and 15 minutes after, the calendar blocks 2h 30m and the customer sees "2 hours".

Tip: If your appointments often run over time, increase Buffer Time After rather than the service duration. Time reporting stays accurate and the schedule stays realistic.

Common causes are a service duration set too short, too little buffer time, unexpected complications and a team member running behind. To fix it:

Set how much notice customers must give with Booking Notice Period.

A shorter notice period brings more bookings with less preparation time. A longer one brings fewer bookings and better planning.

Booking Notice Period controls how much lead time a customer must give when they book, which stops last-minute bookings you cannot fit in.

To prevent same-day bookings entirely, set the notice to 24 hours: a customer booking at 9am on Monday can book for Tuesday at the earliest. To allow same-day bookings with reasonable lead time, set it to 2 to 4 hours: a customer booking at 9am can book for 11am or 1pm the same day.

This setting applies per service, so you can allow same-day bookings for dog walking with 2 hours' notice while requiring 48 hours' notice for grooming.

Tip: If last-minute bookings disrupt your schedule, increase the notice period. If you lose bookings because customers want shorter lead times, reduce it.

No. Under Team Members on the service's Team & Resources tab, each service is Required, Optional or Not used. Assign team members when the service needs specific skills or certification, when managing staff capacity matters, or when you track individual performance. Choose Optional or Not used when any team member can perform the service, when flexibility matters more than tracking, or for self-service scenarios. With Not used, availability is not checked against your team.

With Required, every appointment for the service must have an assigned team member or resource: Petboost will not create the appointment without one. With Optional, the appointment form does not show Team Member or Resources, and the booking goes ahead without one. On a stay, Room/Kennel still shows, marked Optional. Not used means the service does not involve team members or resources at all.

Yes. Assign the qualified team members and choose Required, so only they can deliver the service.

What this means:

Use it when only certified groomers can do breed-specific styling, only trained staff can give medication during boarding, only senior trainers can handle behaviour modification sessions, or only staff with a working-with-children check can deliver puppy school.

To leave who delivers the service open, choose Optional or Not used. The appointment form does not ask for a team member.

Make each table a resource that takes one pet at a time, and require a table on your grooming services.

Petboost then prevents overbooking on its own: with three tables, at most 3 grooming appointments run at the same time, one per table. See Create a resource.

Yes, for most services. Online booking lets customers book at any hour and cuts phone calls and admin. Keep it off when:

Use Instant confirmation, on the service's Booking Settings tab under Online booking, for most services. Use manual approval only for complex services that need special preparation, when you need to check the customer's or pet's suitability, for high-demand slots you manage by hand, and for VIP services.

Manual approval adds admin, slows the customer's confirmation and needs a timely review of every request, and customers left waiting may book elsewhere.

Switch off Online booking on the service's Booking Settings tab.

The service is hidden from your booking page and customers cannot see or book it online. Your team can still book it, and you can switch it back on when you are ready. Use it for seasonal services out of season, services being revised or tested, staff training periods, services that are temporarily unavailable, and VIP or invite-only offerings.

There is no separate active, inactive or deactivate switch: online booking is the only visibility control for a service. See Internal-Only Services for managing services without online booking.

When a pet is booked, Petboost checks its weight and stops the booking if the pet is outside the range, so customers see only the services their pet is eligible for. A pet with no weight recorded may be blocked too.

Yes.

The customer must upload proof before booking, and bookings without valid certificates are refused. Petboost checks each certificate's label and dates, not the document itself, and it does not check which vaccines a certificate covers.

It suits boarding, daycare and group classes, where you would always require it, and grooming, where it is recommended.

The recommended option is breed rules on the service's Who Can Book tab: allow only specific breeds under Included Breeds, or block breeds under Excluded Breeds, and Petboost enforces them at booking. To add a long list at once, build it in the Breed Browser and paste it into the breed field. For two or three breeds, pick them in the field one at a time.

Other options:

Multi-pet discounts use a rate per pet for each pet count. When a customer books several pets for the same service, Petboost finds the matching rate and applies it to every pet:

Trap: The rate you set is the price per pet, not the total. Total = rate per pet x number of pets.

That is a Full Groom with a $100 base price and rates of $85 for 2 pets and $75 for 3 or more.

One pet pays the Base Price. Each rate shows its saving as a percentage and an amount, and the rate applies automatically when the pets are booked. With no rates set, Add Multi-Pet Rates adds a suggested 2-pet and 3-pet rate in one go.

Multi-pet discounts suit grooming (standard grooms and baths), dog walking with several dogs together, training sessions and daycare on the same day. They are not recommended for boarding, where each pet takes its own space and resources, for specialised one-on-one services, for medical services, or for services where each pet needs full individual attention.

Yes. The multi-pet rate is the price per pet before package credits. A pet whose visit uses a package credit pays with the credit instead, so that service line costs $0.

Yes. Each service has its own multi-pet rates:

For complete stay pricing documentation with examples, see the Service Pricing Guide.

Each Stay service bills by one Pricing Mode on Pricing & Payments.

For Duration-based, a stay from Monday 10:00 to Saturday 18:00 is 128 hours: 5 full 24-hour periods and 8 spillover hours. Tiers apply to those periods if you set them. If you do not pick a mode, the service uses Duration-based.

Extended Stay Discounts work on every mode. They give longer stays a lower rate ("stay longer, save more"), counting 24-hour periods on Duration-based, nights on Number of nights and calendar days on Number of days. For example, "2-7 days @ $73/day" and "7-14 days @ $63/day".

Short-Stay & Spillover Rates work on Duration-based only. They apply to stays under 24 hours, or to the hours left over after full periods. For example, "4-8 hours @ $55" and "8-12 hours @ $65".

When a stay reaches a tier's minimum length, that tier's rate unlocks and applies to all the full 24-hour periods.

A 5-day stay unlocks the 2-7 days tier at $73/day, so the customer pays 5 x $73 = $365, not $117 for the first 2 days plus $73 for the rest.

The same tiers work on Number of nights and Number of days, counting nights or calendar days. A same-day visit on Number of nights always uses Daycare rate (same-day stays) or Rate per night, never a tier.

Spillover rates price the hours left after the full 24-hour periods. A stay of 6 days and 8 hours charges the 6 full days at the per-day tier rate, such as $73/day x 6 = $438, and the 8 remaining hours at the spillover rate, such as "4-8h @ $55", for a total of $493.

Without spillover rates, those 8 hours would be charged at the full daily rate of $73.

To keep Duration-based but charge one flat daily rate, set the base price and skip Extended Stay Discounts, or add one tier that covers all durations.

The service is on Duration-based, the default. That mode bills hours, not midnights.

Same night count, different hours, and Duration-based charges the difference. Switch Pricing Mode to Number of nights if every one-night stay should cost the same.

If spillover hours fall between tier boundaries, such as when you have 0-8h and 12-24h but not 8-12h, the hours in the gap use the per-day rate instead. Make your spillover tiers cover the whole 0 to 24 hour range with no gaps.

Tier Configuration Needs Attention appears when a tier crosses the 24-hour boundary, such as a minimum of 12h and a maximum of 2d. Such tiers cause wrong prices. Select Fix Automatically to split the tier into proper short-stay and per-day tiers, or delete the tiers and create them again correctly.

Only when Pricing Mode is Duration-based, where extra hours can add a spillover charge or another 24-hour period.

Number of nights does not add a charge when someone arrives early or leaves late. Check-in and check-out windows restrict the times pet owners can pick, and they do not add a fee. To charge more, add an invoice line or an add-on.

With Number of nights: "We charge $X per night, counted from each midnight you stay."

With Duration-based: "We charge per 24-hour period from check-in. Remaining hours use our partial-day rate."

For more detail, add a pricing table to the service description, create a Boarding Rates page on your website, or include your rates in confirmation emails.

Generate with AI, beside Description and Short Description in the create wizard and beside Short Description and Full Description on a saved service's Basic Info, opens Grazi with a draft written from the service name. The short description is up to 90 characters and the full one up to 250. On a field that already has text, the button reads Improve with AI and rewrites what is there.

Enter the service name first, because the draft is written from it and from nothing else. The draft gives you a consistent starting point to review.

Yes. The draft is a starting point. Review and personalise it, add details only your business knows, and adjust the tone to match your brand before you save.

A Value Feature Label is a short badge, up to 50 characters, shown under the price when a customer opens the service on your Showcase page. Common labels are Most Popular, Best Value, Premium, New, Limited Time and Customer Favourite. It is under Service Features on the service's Basic Info tab, with Advanced options on.

Use labels sparingly, on one or two services per category, and honestly: do not mark everything Most Popular. Keep them up to date and match them to real customer demand.

Examples: "Complete bath with premium shampoo", "Professional blow dry and brush out", "Nail trim and ear cleaning".

Yes, from YouTube or Vimeo.

The video shows when a customer opens the service on your Showcase page.

With the Video Booster power-up, the field reads Service Video and you can choose Upload a video instead of Link a video. See Video Booster.

Keep videos under 2 minutes, show your real services rather than stock footage, and add captions for people watching without sound.

Require Prerequisite Service makes a pet meet another service, such as an Initial assessment, before it can book this one. Use it when your business needs a first-time assessment before ongoing services.

For example, with an Initial Grooming Consultation and a Regular Grooming service that requires it, a new pet must book the consultation before regular grooming. See Service prerequisites for every option.

In the booking form, a service the pet cannot book yet carries a blue Prerequisite First badge, and its detail names the service to book first, such as 'Grooming Consultation' needs to be completed first. The service that unlocks it sits at the front of the list. The customer books that service first, and once the pet meets the prerequisite, the regular service can be booked.

It applies to every pet that has not met the prerequisite, new or existing. It is checked per pet:

Automatic actions move a booking through its statuses without anyone touching it. There are five:

Pre-hold funds is a money setting on Pricing & Payments, not an automatic action: it holds the funds on the card on file 72 hours before the appointment without charging them.

It depends on the service:

Yes. Each service has its own Automatic Actions tab.

Instant confirmation for one service is on its Booking Settings tab, under Online booking.

Your team can still act at any stage: start, complete, finalise or charge an appointment by hand, for example when a customer asks for special pricing, the service took longer than expected, there is a payment method issue or the booking needs a manual review. For one customer, the Payment Automation section of the Settings & Overrides tab on their profile can override Pre-Hold Funds, Auto-Pay Invoices, Deposit and Pay on Arrival.

No. Auto-pay invoices needs the customer to have a card on file. Without one, take payment another way, such as a payment link the customer pays on their phone.

Ask customers to store a card when they book, and use Pre-hold funds to check the card before the appointment.

Each automatic action is recorded against the appointment. An automatic step only acts on a booking in the status it moves from, so it skips one your team has already started by hand or that was cancelled.

A declined Auto-pay invoices charge leaves the invoice unpaid, with the booking on Payment Declined, and Mission Control shows it for attention. Retry with Retry Charging Card in the invoice's Manage menu, or take payment another way. Your team can complete any step by hand.

Duration shown to customers replaces how the duration is shown to customers. By default it shows as it is, such as "2h", "1h 30m" or "Full Day". With your own wording it can read "Approximately 2 hours", "2-3 hours depending on coat condition" or "Half day (4-5 hours)". Use it for services whose length varies, to set expectations, or for friendlier wording.

Customers see a clock time unless the service uses A message instead of a time, or the session has a label with Show on booking page on. That session label replaces the start time for that session.

Do not select A window. That shows a clock window.

A session Label with Show on booking page on replaces the start time for that session, and it wins over this service message. Leave it off when every session of the service should use the same wording. See Setting up your sessions.

A message instead of a time changes what customers see. It does not change how many slots exist. To offer one start per run, turn on Fixed start times on the session.

If the customer books this service with another service on the same booking, the time list follows the first service on the slot. A message instead of a time on the second service does not hide the first service's times.

These sit on the service, under Customers see in How the time reads on Duration & Timing. They change the booking page and reminders. They do not change capacity.

Staff still see the scheduled times when they open the appointment.

No. One service carries one window, and Petboost applies it to each booking's own time.

A Group Dog Walking service set to show a window from the booked time to 45 minutes after it prints 8:00-8:45am on an 8:00 booking, 10:30-11:15am on a 10:30 booking, and 2-2:45pm on a 2:00 booking. Create separate services when the price, duration or staffing differs, not to get different windows.

Changing the times on a service applies to new bookings. Visits already booked keep the time the customer was told until you update them.

The update applies what is published, so publish your changes first. Paid and prepaid bookings keep their current wording. Customers are not messaged. They see the new wording in the app and in their next reminder.

Yes, when Show on booking page is on. The session Label replaces the start time. Customers see Drop-off from 9am, not 9:00 AM. It also wins over a service A message instead of a time.

Leave Show on booking page off to keep the clock, or to let the service message show on its own.

Fixed start times still books the session start. With Show on booking page on, customers see the label.

The time list follows the first service on that slot.

If daycare is first and a mobile pickup is second, customers still see the daycare start times even when the pickup uses A message instead of a time.

To hide clocks on a pickup-only booking, set A message instead of a time on the pickup service. For a combined booking, set A message instead of a time on the first service as well, or accept that the first service's times will show.

Yes. A message instead of a time on How the time reads hides the duration badge and the clock. Price and other service details stay visible.

Staff still see the scheduled times and duration on the appointment.

A confirmation or reminder shows the booked minute or the window for that side, never both.

If you have not typed custom window labels, Petboost uses these defaults:

If the words do not match how you talk about that service, set a custom Wording under How the time reads on the service's Duration & Timing tab.

A service with a Fixed Start Time on Duration & Timing can only start at that time. Each service has one fixed start time.

A group class that always starts at 9:00 AM, not 9:15 or 9:30, is the usual case. For several start times a day, create a separate service for each.

This still shows a clock unless A message instead of a time is also on.

Fixed start times on a session, under Schedules & Sessions, is a different control. It pins bookings to the session start, and it also still shows a clock unless the service uses A message instead of a time.

Use a Fixed Start Time on each session service.

Customers then see only that start time. Online booking must be on for them to book it. For more than one block a day, create a separate service for each:

If customers should see "Morning" instead of 8:00 AM, add A message instead of a time on How the time reads after the fixed start is set.

A mobile service's area is a list of suburbs, not a distance in kilometres.

Only customers in those suburbs can book. A mobile service with no suburbs listed is not restricted. Suburbs have clear boundaries customers already know, so there is no confusion about whether a distance is close enough.

Petboost does not calculate a travel fee from distance. Build the travel into the price instead:

The slot list is not the same as a successful booking. If a time appears and the booking then does not go through, check the set-up of that service, in this order:

See Team & Resource Assignment.

On the appointment, Add Item and the invoice's Add-ons put a charge on the invoice. They do not create a time slot or a trip stop.

To book the service on the calendar or on Trips, select Manage, then Edit, on the appointment, or start a new booking, and add it in Services for.

An add-on adds time only when Add extra time with this add-on is on, and that time stays on the main service. A mobile pickup, taxi or other service that needs its own stop belongs in Services for, not in the invoice's extras.

Yes, for in-person payments. Petboost does not connect to a bank terminal, so take the payment on your terminal and record it as Other EFTPOS. Petboost charges no fee on those payments. Online booking, card on file and no-show protection still need Stripe.

The payment options with no fee are:

Without Stripe you give up charging automatically after the service, card payments reaching your accounting software through its Stripe bank feed, such as Xero's, so reconciliation and entry become manual, and Pre-hold funds for no-show protection.

Weigh Stripe's processing fee (1.65% + $0.30) and the booking fee (1.4% on Pro, 1.4% on Flex, 1.2% on Max) against the time you spend on bookkeeping. From 1 October 2026, card surcharging is banned in Australia on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard debit, prepaid and credit cards. See Build fees into your prices and Payment Settings.

There are two separate fees:

Pass platform fee to customer, under Fee Configuration on Settings > Pricing & Payments, controls whether the booking fee is added to card invoices. When the switch is off, the fee comes out of your payout. Stripe's card processing fee always comes out of the payment: card surcharging is banned in Australia from 1 October 2026.

From 1 October 2026, card surcharging is banned in Australia on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard debit, prepaid and credit cards. Most businesses build their processing costs into their service prices. See Build fees into your prices.

The payment methods on a booking's invoice are:

Afterpay and Zip stay off until you turn Afterpay and Zip on under Pricing & Payments and switch both on under Payment methods in your Stripe Dashboard. They then appear on a payment link of $1 or more, Afterpay on links up to $4,000. Stripe sets the Afterpay and Zip Pay rates and takes them from your payout on top of the booking fee. Your Stripe Dashboard shows the current rates. A saved card, the card reader and a pre-auth stay card. PayPal and EFTPOS machines from other providers are not supported. Record those payments as Other EFTPOS. For the steps for each method, see Payment Processing.

Each service carries its own change and cancellation policy.

Cancelling with at least the notice period costs nothing. Inside the notice period, the customer can no longer cancel online and must contact you. When your team cancels a booking inside the notice period, the cancel form offers Charge Cancellation Fee or Waive Cancellation Fee, with the charge selected. A no-show is charged the same fee. The fee is charged to the card on file, or waits on the invoice when there is no card. When an appointment has several services, the larger fee and the longest notice period apply.

A 50% fee with 24 hours' notice is a common starting point.

It fails when there is no card on file, when the card is declined or expired, when there are insufficient funds, or on a processing error. Mission Control lists cancelled appointments with a pending or failed fee for attention, and the cancelled appointment shows Cancellation Fee Outstanding with the reason.

If you cannot collect it, select Unable to collect? Write off fee, and the fee no longer shows as outstanding.

Tip: Require a card on file at booking to prevent this. Leave Allow booking without card off on Settings > Pricing & Payments.

Yes. Your team can waive a fee case by case when they cancel the booking.

The fee's status then reads Waived. For a fee already outstanding on a cancelled booking, select Unable to collect? Write off fee instead. Record why in the booking's notes, such as "Medical emergency, waived per manager approval".

Tip: Write a policy for when your team can waive fees, so it is applied consistently.

Yes. Petboost applies one cancellation fee, a percentage or a fixed amount, to both late cancellations, inside the notice period, and no-shows.

A 50% fee is a balanced approach: customers pay something but not the full price. A 100% fee is a stronger deterrent, charging the full price for late cancellations and no-shows.

Tip: To charge 100% for no-shows but less for late cancellations, set the percentage to 100% and adjust the invoice for the late cancellations where you want to be lenient.

Check these:

To prevent it:

If it happens, contact the customer to reschedule, cancel and rebook the correct service, and adjust the price if needed.

If services run long, increase the service duration, add more buffer time, find the bottlenecks and train the team on efficiency.

If services finish early, reduce the duration slightly, keep buffer time for flexibility, and use the extra time for quality or add-ons.