Answers to frequently asked questions about appointments, booking, payments, and scheduling in Petboost.

No! Customers don't need to create an account before booking. The process is designed to get them to availability as fast as possible:

Full details come AFTER time selection:

The philosophy: Fast to availability, details after commitment. This dramatically reduces booking abandonment.

For returning customers:

Magic Schedule (recommended):

Quick Force:

Recommendation: Use Magic Schedule for 90% of bookings, Quick Force only when necessary.

Yes! Multi-pet appointments are fully supported with significant benefits.

Benefits of unified appointments:

How it works:

Each pet can have:

Yes! Petboost supports multi-pet, multi-service bookings in a single transaction. This is particularly popular for grooming + daycare businesses where customers might book one dog for grooming and another for daycare. You can configure whether pets are scheduled simultaneously (same time, multiple team members) or sequentially (back-to-back, same team member) based on your resource availability.

Petboost detects duplicate bookings and offers options:

When you create an appointment for a customer who already has a booking on the same date, you'll see a dialog showing:

Adding to existing booking:

This is particularly useful for:

Two methods:

Method 1: From Duplicate Detection

When Petboost detects an existing booking for the same customer/date:

Method 2: Edit Existing Appointment

Magic Schedule:

Quick Force:

Use Quick Force when:

This depends on whether you want to send appointment details manually or set up automatic reminders:

Option 1: Automatic Reminders (Recommended)

Petboost can send reminders automatically before each appointment:

Option 2: Share Upcoming Appointments Manually

To send a customer their upcoming schedule right now:

Option 3: Customer Self-Service Portal

Customers can view all their upcoming appointments at any time through their Petboost portal. Share the portal link with them and they can check their own schedule whenever they like.

Best practice: Enable automatic reminders so customers always know what is coming up, and point them to the portal for a full view of their future bookings.

This can happen in two scenarios:

Scenario 1: The booking arrived as PENDING (manual approval enabled)

If you use manual approval, the booking is waiting for your review:

Scenario 2: The booking was auto-confirmed (instant booking enabled)

If instant booking is on, Magic Schedule should prevent conflicts. If a conflict still occurred:

To prevent this in future:

Petboost appointments move through these statuses:

Standard flow: Pending --> Confirmed --> In Progress --> Completed --> Ready to Pay --> Paid

With Pro Automations enabled, most of these transitions happen automatically. See the full Appointment Statuses Guide for detailed explanations of each status, what it means for your business and your customers, and which statuses can be automated.

These are three distinct actions with very different outcomes:

Key points:

When in doubt, cancel or archive. Only delete when you genuinely need the data removed.

See Un-cancel & Appointment Recovery for the full recovery guide.

If you need to complete an appointment without collecting payment (e.g., complimentary service, service issue, or goodwill gesture):

Alternatively, to zero out the invoice before finalising:

When to use each approach:

Important: If Auto-Pay is enabled, void or zero the invoice before the 30-minute auto-pay window to prevent the card on file from being charged automatically.

Appointment status changes to "Cancelled". The full cancellation history (who cancelled, when, why, and any refund details) is recorded in the Activity Log.

Changed your mind? Use the "Un-cancel Appointment" button to rebook with all details pre-filled. See Un-cancel & Appointment Recovery.

Yes! Customers can book through:

You have full control over:

If you want total control: Enable "Require Manual Approval" on sensitive services so every booking arrives as Pending for your review before confirmation.

Prevention:

If a double-booking happens:

Common causes of double-bookings:

Best practice: Use Magic Schedule for the vast majority of bookings. Reserve Quick Force for emergencies and walk-ins where you can visually confirm availability on the calendar.

Search methods:

For very old appointments:

Colour coding by status:

Additional indicators:

What blocking time does:

For recurring blocks (e.g., daily lunch break):

To remove a block: Click the blocked time card on the calendar and select Delete to free the time slot back up for bookings.

Drag-and-drop reschedules the appointment to the new time slot:

Important considerations:

Drag Lock feature:

If you want to prevent accidental rescheduling (especially on busy calendars or touch screens), toggle Drag Lock ON in the top toolbar. When enabled:

Best practice: Keep Drag Lock ON during busy periods and disable it only when you intentionally need to reschedule by dragging.

Use the Group By feature to see each team member's schedule in a separate column:

This is especially useful for:

To filter to specific team members:

Other grouping options: You can also group by Resource (rooms/kennels/vans), Service, Category, Customer, or Pet.

Tip: Use Timeline Day or Timeline Week for the clearest side-by-side column display. This mimics traditional grooming schedule boards.

Yes! There are several ways to print or export your schedule:

Method 1: Print from Calendar (Quick)

Method 2: Print Individual Appointment Sheets

Tips for best print results:

Blocked times appear on your calendar by design -- they are visual indicators showing your team when time is unavailable. The grey blocked-time cards help staff see at a glance when breaks, meetings, or maintenance periods are scheduled.

However, customers do NOT see blocked times when booking online. The booking engine treats blocked periods as unavailable and will not offer those time slots to customers.

If you are seeing unexpected availability during blocked times, check these common causes:

To verify what customers see: Use Simulation Mode to view the booking experience as a specific customer and confirm that blocked times are hidden.

Customization options:

Reset View button restores defaults

Common causes:

Resolution steps:

When cancelling an appointment with a cancellation fee policy, the charge may fail if:

How to identify failed cancellation fees:

How to retry a failed cancellation fee:

Note: Ensure customer has a valid payment method on file before retrying. If no card is available, contact customer to add payment method.

Full payment lifecycle:

Pre-Authorisation Details:

When is the customer actually charged?

After you mark the appointment complete and the invoice is finalised. For businesses using Pro Automations with Auto-Pay, this happens automatically.

For Cash payments:

For Bank Transfer payments:

Important: Always select the correct payment method BEFORE processing. Once an invoice shows payment method as "Cash" or "Bank Transfer", the card on file won't be auto-charged.

Customer receives refund in 3-5 business days

You can resend payment requests depending on the payment method:

For Bank Transfer payments:

For Payment Link (SMS):

For downloading/printing invoices:

When to resend:

Note: SMS payment links incur standard SMS charges ($0.30). Email bank transfer requests are free.

This is normal terminology variation - both refer to the same action.

In Petboost:

The process is the same:

For boarding/daycare:

Both actions are clearly marked in the appointment workflow, regardless of which spelling is displayed.

Yes, but requires un-finalizing:

Note: Cannot edit after payment collected (must refund and recreate)

Automated workflows that reduce manual tasks:

Enable per service in Service settings → Pro Automations tab

Best for:

Two methods:

Method 1: Percentage discount

Method 2: Fixed amount

Where to apply:

Discount stacking:

Single unified appointment (recommended):

Benefits:

Yes! Petboost supports multi-pet, multi-service bookings in a single online transaction.

Example scenarios:

Configuration options:

Configure sibling pet gap settings in Services → Booking Settings.

Check these requirements:

If the total appears doubled: Check your rate-per-pet setting. The rate should be the price per individual pet, not the total for all pets. For example, if you want 2 dogs to cost $150 total, the per-pet rate should be $75 (not $150).

To verify the discount is working:

System generates all future appointments instantly

To cancel or stop an entire recurring series at once:

Method 1: End the series (recommended)

Method 2: Delete all future appointments

Method 3: Set an end date

Important notes:

To cancel just a few specific dates (rather than the whole series), cancel each one individually by opening the appointment, clicking Cancel, and selecting "This appointment only."

You can change the date, time, team member, or other details for one occurrence without affecting the rest of the series:

The rescheduled appointment keeps its link to the series but now has custom values. The rest of the series continues on its original schedule.

Customer notifications: The customer is notified of the reschedule for that specific appointment. Future appointments in the series are not affected.

Alternatively, use drag-and-drop:

To reschedule ALL future appointments in a series (e.g., the customer wants to change from 9am to 11am every week going forward), use "Manage Recurring Series" --> "Edit All Future Appointments" instead.

Yes!

That appointment updates while the rest of the series remains unchanged. The modified appointment stays linked to the series but carries its own custom values.

Three options:

Option 1: From the Recurring Series Timeline (recommended)

This is the safest approach because you can see all series for the pet at once and avoid accidentally leaving dormant duplicates behind.

Option 2: Set end date

Option 3: Delete all future

Important: When stopping a series, always use the Recurring Series Timeline to verify no other duplicate series exist for the same pet and days. Duplicate series that are not formally ended can cause cancelled appointments to reappear. See Recurring Series Timeline for full details.

No - pattern is immutable

What you CAN change:

What you CANNOT change:

To change pattern: Delete old series, create new one

To skip individual occurrences:

The series continues: Future appointments remain scheduled. Only the selected occurrence is cancelled.

For extended breaks:

By design: Petboost generates recurring appointments 2-3 months in advance to ensure your calendar shows upcoming bookings.

Benefits:

More appointments appear automatically as time progresses. No action needed.

Yes!

Past/completed appointments remain unchanged.

Stay Appointments:

Regular Appointments:

Yes! Petboost gives you complete flexibility with check-in and check-out times for stays:

How it works:

Example:

This is NOT a rigid time slot system. If Emma agrees to a 10:47am handover with a customer, you simply set that exact time in the booking.

Perfect for:

Where to adjust:

Not currently. Petboost does not yet support enforcing exact check-in/check-out times during customer self-service booking.

What you CAN do:

Why we designed it this way:

For V1, we recognised that customers are typically the time-constrained party when booking boarding. They are often planning around travel schedules far in advance and may need drop-off/pickup outside regular business hours. The review-and-approve workflow gives you control while accommodating their needs.

To enable manual review:

Future enhancement: Enforcing specific time windows is on our roadmap for businesses that require strict handover schedules.

If your boarding works on a flexible handover model (staff coordinates directly with each customer rather than fixed windows), here's the recommended setup:

Option 1: Manual Approval with Review (Recommended)

Option 2: Internal-Only Boarding (For Complex Boarding)

Option 3: Online Booking with Post-Booking Adjustment

All options give you:

⚠️ Note: Petboost does not currently support enforcing specific check-in/check-out windows during self-service booking. The PENDING → CONFIRMED workflow is your control mechanism for reviewing customer-requested times.

You don't need a separate invoicing system - even internal bookings use Petboost's full payment workflow.

Yes!

Check-In:

Check-Out:

During creation:

After creation:

Options:

Similar to team assignment:

Auto-assign option available if flexible

In Service settings:

Example: "Customers can book 2 hours to 90 days in advance"

Yes! Multiple methods:

1. Customer selection (per service):

2. Eligibility requirements:

3. Manual approval:

No -- the booking engine only shows customers time slots where all requirements are met. Customers cannot book during times when:

However, there are situations where bookings may appear during "unavailable" times:

To diagnose unexpected availability: Use the Availability Troubleshooter to see exactly what the booking engine considers when offering time slots.

Use the Minimum Advance Notice setting to prevent last-minute bookings:

Example: Setting minimum advance notice to 24 hours effectively blocks all same-day bookings. A customer trying to book at 9am for a 2pm slot today would be told no availability.

This applies to customer self-service booking only. Staff can always create same-day appointments using Quick Force mode, regardless of the notice period setting.

To also limit how far ahead customers can book:

This is typically caused by a resource or capacity conflict, not a system limitation. Petboost fully supports booking multiple services on the same day for the same pet or different pets. Here are the most common reasons the booking engine may not show availability:

To diagnose: Run Magic Schedule for each service individually. If one works but not the other, the Availability Troubleshooter will show you exactly which requirement is failing for the second service.

Result: All customer bookings for this service start as "Pending" status, giving you the opportunity to review, approve, decline, or adjust before confirming.

Same process as facility appointments:

Mobile services show address on calendar

Use Timeline view:

Best practices:

Quick fixes to try:

If using mobile:

Still not working? Contact support via the Help button or email [email protected]

Use the Availability Troubleshooter - Click "Why these results?" after checking availability to see exactly what the booking engine considered.

Common causes & solutions:

Pro tip: The troubleshooter shows red badges on exactly which requirement failed, with direct links to fix the issue.

Check these common issues:

To test as customer:

Likely causes:

To verify:

Common requirements:

Solution: Check pet profile and service eligibility settings

Common causes:

Explanation:

If truly missing:

This is caused by duplicate recurring series. When multiple series target the same day for the same pet, cancelling an appointment from one series allows another dormant series to fill the gap overnight.

How to fix:

See the full guide: Recurring Series Timeline for a detailed explanation of why this happens and how to resolve it.

This is normal in some cases (e.g. different days have different walkers or service types), but can also indicate duplicate series that need tidying up.

To review and clean up:

When multiple series are intentional:

When multiple series indicate a problem:

Possible causes:

For more details on what happens when you drag an appointment, see What happens when I drag-and-drop an appointment? in the Calendar & Views section above.

Standard workflow:

With full automation enabled: Steps 3-8 happen automatically!

Prevention (set these up before no-shows happen):

When a no-show occurs:

If the cancellation fee charge fails (e.g., expired card, insufficient funds):

Recommended escalation policy:

Customer notes: Always add an internal note recording the no-show so future staff are aware of the customer's history.

Start conservative, expand gradually:

Phase 1: Instant Confirmation + Pre-Hold Funds

Phase 2: Add Auto-Start + Auto-Complete

Phase 3: Full automation (all 6)

Never automate:

Daily:

Weekly:

Monthly:

Yes! Petboost makes it easy to rebook cancelled appointments:

This creates a new appointment with the cancelled appointment's data. The original cancelled appointment remains in your records for audit purposes.

Perfect for:

See Un-cancel & Appointment Recovery for the complete guide.

Hard Delete permanently removes an appointment from your system:

Requirements:

Warning: This action cannot be undone. For record-keeping, consider Archive instead.

Key difference: Cancel changes status and triggers customer notifications. Archive simply hides from your calendar view. Both retain the full appointment data for your records and reporting.

For a more detailed comparison including how to undo each action, see What's the difference between cancelling and deleting an appointment? above.

To unarchive: Search for the appointment, open it, and select Unarchive from the More Actions menu.

No. Un-cancel creates a new appointment. If package credits were forfeited during the original cancellation, you'll need to manually adjust the package balance in the customer's profile.

Still have questions?

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