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

The staff New Appointment form does not list courses. Puppy school, scentwork, obedience, and other group programmes are enrolled on Courses.

If you have not published the run yet, select New then Publish New Course first.

Do not create a Regular service so the class appears in the Services picker. A vaccination requirement or a Who Can Book rule can block a specific pet at enrolment. They are not why the course is missing from this form.

On the public booking form, pet owners tap Courses, not Services. See Courses versus services.

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 Automatic Actions 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.

Open the appointment and click Undo check out, or click Undo Check Out on its Mission Control card. The appointment goes back to the status it held before check out: In Progress, Ready to Review (Completed), Confirmed or Payment Declined. Check out is available from all four, which is why the destination varies.

Petboost blocks the undo when the service has the automation on that would move the appointment forward again: auto-complete when it was In Progress, auto-finalise when it was Completed, auto-start when it was Confirmed. On the appointment page the Undo check out action is not offered while that automation is on. The status chip still lists the earlier status, and clicking it is rejected with the automation named, which is the same message the Scheduler and Mission Control cards show. Turn that automation off in service settings first.

If the booking never went through a check out, there is nothing to undo and Undo Check Out does not appear anywhere. That covers a payment recorded without a check out and then un-marked, and older bookings where Petboost has no record of the check out. Un-marking a payment on a booking that was checked out leaves the check out in place, so the undo still works.

Mission Control kanban only moves forward, so you cannot drag the card back. Undo Check In is a different action: it only works while the appointment is still In Progress (back to Confirmed).

No. One invoice takes one payment. See Split Payments. Collect the full amount with one method, or take a second payment as a separate sale on the customer profile.

Yes, for regular appointments (not stays, courses, or a reschedule). After they pick the first time in the pet owner booking form, they tap Book more dates and can add up to 9 extra dates (10 appointments in one checkout). Each date is a separate appointment, charged separately. They must be signed in.

Staff still use Bulk Create on the business booking form for many dates at once. That is a staff-only path. Do not send owners to Bulk Create.

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 Auto-Pay charges it. Auto-Pay charges the card on file at the next 15-minute check after the invoice is finalised.

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: Turn off Instant confirmation 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.

Export the appointment rows from Appointments Deep Dive, not from the calendar.

The file follows the filters you set on that table. See Export appointments as CSV.

Search methods:

For very old appointments:

Open calendar settings and choose a Colour Mode. Cards can follow Appointment Status, Service Category, Service, Team Member, or Resource.

If you colour by Team Member or Resource, set Calendar Colour (Optional) on that team member or resource summary card. If a colour is not set, the card uses slate.

Colour coding by status:

Select View Colour Key to see the key in the app.

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:

Drag Lock is on by default, which prevents accidental rescheduling (especially on busy calendars or touch screens). Turn it on or off in the view menu under Calendar Options. 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 Resources (rooms, kennels, vans), Services or Categories.

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

Petboost copies the visit into Google Calendar. It is one-way (Petboost to Google). Changes in Google Calendar do not update Petboost.

See Add an appointment to Google Calendar.

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 collect a cancellation fee (including when there is no card):

You do not need to waive the fee and raise a new invoice. You do not need to wait for them to add a card first.

How to retry a failed card charge:

To refund a cancellation fee you charged to a card, open the cancelled appointment, go to Invoice & Payment, and select Refund Cancellation Fee. Confirm with Yes, Refund Fee, or leave it with Keep Fee.

The full fee returns to the card it came off. The fee then drops out of your sales figures, and the activity log records that it was charged and refunded.

Refund Cancellation Fee appears only when the appointment is cancelled, the fee status is Charged, and the fee was taken by card. A fee you marked paid by cash, bank transfer or your own EFTPOS terminal is settled your own way, so the option is not offered.

The fee sits on its own payment, separate from the booking. Only the fee is returned.

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 Automatic Actions 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:

Payment links do not expire.

Note: When Petboost texts a new payment link, $0.30 is added to the Petboost booking fee. Resending the same link does not add it again, but each text uses an SMS credit. 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 → Automatic Actions 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:

Petboost creates the visits up to 12 months ahead when you save, and adds more each night

If the customer is away for a period and the series should resume afterwards, do not end the series. Open Cancel, choose Skip these dates, and set Stop at. That cancels the date range and leaves the series running after the end date. See How do I pause a recurring series?.

To stop an entire series so it does not generate again:

From the Recurring Series view (recommended)

From any appointment in the series

You can also open Manage Recurring Series on an appointment and set the series end date. Appointments after that date are removed.

Past and completed appointments are not affected. Ending a series cannot be undone. If the customer may return, pause with Skip these dates instead of ending the series.

Yes. For one customer, open Manage Pet or Manage Owner on their profile and select Cancel Future Appointments. The list shows the next 12 months. Tick the bookings to cancel, or use Select all and the weekday buttons, choose whether to notify the customer, then select Review cancellation and Cancel selected bookings. Manage Owner includes every pet on that account.

If you are on Mission Control and the owner has two or more upcoming bookings, open the appointment card menu on Pets, Workflow, Roster, Photos, or Attention Required, then select Cancel Future Appointments.

In-progress, completed, paid, and class bookings stay. Cancellation fees are not charged. Package credits on these bookings are kept. Recurring series end from the next booking, including visits after the 12-month list. If your plan cannot send booking messages, the booking is cancelled silently.

Select several cards on the Scheduler and choose Cancel or No-show when the bookings are not all for one customer. For a recurring series only, use Skip these dates or End series (all future).

There is no Superadmin bulk-cancel screen for business owners. See Cancel many appointments at once and Cancel a customer's future appointments. For the Scheduler steps, see Select several appointments.

To cancel one visit only, open that appointment, select Cancel, and choose Cancel single.

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. change time, team member, or which days of the week), use Edit all future visits from the appointment menu, or Manage Recurring Series → Edit This and All Future. See Can I change the recurring pattern after creation? for changing days.

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.

Pause a series by cancelling a date range in the middle of it. There is no separate Pause button.

Appointments in that window are cancelled. The same series keeps generating after Stop at.

Always set Stop at. If you leave it empty, the series ends from Start from onwards, the same as End series (all future).

Separate weekdays are often separate series. Skipping Tuesday does not skip Thursday. On the business cancel screen, open Review other series only if you also need those weekdays cancelled for the same dates.

Pet owners with self-service cancellations allowed see the same three Cancel options. Ask them to use Skip these dates with Stop at set, not End series (all future).

The full comparison of Cancel single, Skip these dates, and End series (all future) is in Pause or cancel a recurring series.

If you want the series to resume later, do not end it. Use Skip these dates instead. See How do I pause a recurring series?.

Three options to stop it for good:

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.

Yes - for all future visits in the series

You can change which days a weekly series runs on, the time, team member, end date, and pricing for all upcoming visits. Past or completed visits stay as they were.

To change which days the series runs on (e.g. Monday/Wednesday/Thursday to Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday):

Petboost ends the old series from that point and creates a new one with the updated days. Future visits on removed days are archived; new days are added to the schedule.

What you CAN also change (all future visits):

What you CANNOT change on an existing series:

To change frequency type (e.g. weekly to fortnightly): use Edit all future visits and pick a different frequency under How often, or end the old series and create a new one.

To skip one week, or any date window, cancel a range. Do not end the series.

The series continues after Stop at. To skip a single visit only, choose Cancel single instead.

See How do I pause a recurring series? for the difference between pausing, cancelling one visit, and ending the series.

By design: Petboost creates recurring appointments up to 12 months in advance when you save the series, and adds more each night, so your calendar shows upcoming bookings.

Benefits:

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

Yes!

Past/completed appointments remain unchanged.

If you create or edit a series that lands on cancelled dates, Petboost opens Previously cancelled dates.

If those dates should stay empty, choose Keep cancelled dates cancelled (when editing) or Leave these dates out of the booking (when creating).

See Rebook previously cancelled dates.

Stay Appointments:

Regular Appointments:

Yes. On the Stay service open Duration & Timing → Check-in & Check-out Windows.

To lock pet owners to one minute, set From and Until to the same time (for example both 16:00). To allow a band, set different From and Until times (for example 16:00 to 17:00).

Staff New Stay pre-fills those times and stays editable. Windows do not add an early or late fee.

See Stay Check-in and Check-out Windows.

Yes, for pet owners. Set Check-in or Check-out From and Until to the same time. The booking-form picker locks to that minute.

A window (different From and Until) disables times outside the band.

Staff can still pick any time on New Stay. Manual approval on Booking Settings is optional review, not a substitute for windows.

See Stay Check-in and Check-out Windows.

If you agree times per booking and do not want a public window:

If owners should book online inside a band, leave Self-Service Booking on and set Check-in & Check-out Windows on Duration & Timing.

Optional: turn on manual approval on Booking Settings so new owner bookings arrive as PENDING.

Payments, the calendar, and mid-stay add-ons still work. See Internal-only services.

A Stay can take two kinds of extra service. An add-on has no time slot and stays on the Stay invoice. An appointment during the stay has its own time, team, room, and invoice.

If the extra does not need a time slot:

If the extra needs a time slot, team member, or room:

If you start from New Appointment, pick a Regular service on a date inside the stay, then select Book during this stay.

If the existing row is a Stay, do not use Add to that visit. Stay and Regular cannot share one appointment.

See Stay appointments for the same two paths.

Yes!

Check-In:

Check-Out:

During creation:

After creation:

Options:

Similar to team assignment:

Auto-assign option available if flexible

In Service settings:

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

Example: A 2-hour notice period stops customers booking a slot that starts within the next 2 hours.

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 Booking Notice Period 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 with Quick Force Create, regardless of the notice period setting.

Petboost has no setting that limits 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

View appointment → Add Item / Add-ons puts a charge on the invoice. It does not create a time slot or a trip stop.

To book it on the calendar or on Trips:

A nail trim or other extra with no time can stay an add-on. A pickup, taxi, or other timed mobile service belongs in Services.

Yes. That is a service display setting, not a session name.

Open the service → Duration & Timing → Times customers see (previously Service Windows). Under Customers see, select A message instead of a time and type the Wording. Leave session Show on booking page off, or 9:00 AM comes back as a badge.

See How do I show Morning or Afternoon instead of clock times?.

Yes. Trips Booster is a paid add-on that turns a day of mobile appointments into a sequenced run. Businesses on Pro, Flex or Max activate it themselves, and it is included on Enterprise.

In Trips:

To activate it, go to Settings, then Trips Booster. Planning or reordering a run sends your customers nothing, and reminders use the booked time. See Getting started with Trips.

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 - Select See Availability Reasons under the calendar 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, or they have no card:

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.

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