Set Up Booking Rules

Set Up Booking Rules

On this page, you can set the rules for booking appointments at your location: how close to the appointment, how far in advance, what information you need from customers, and when reminders are sent. You'll find it in the menu under Settings → Appointments & booking → Booking rules (/manager/settings/booking).

The rules apply to the location selected at the top of the dashboard. Only the reminders apply to all your locations.

You save all settings at once. As soon as you make a change, the “You have unsaved changes” bar appears at the bottom with options to Save or Discard. Nothing changes unless you save. Next to the title, a small help icon (“How your slot grid works”) explains the three rules that determine which start times are offered.

Enabling and Disabling Online Booking

At the very top is the toggle “24/7 online booking” with the text “Customers can book appointments through your public page”. When turned off, the booking process is immediately hidden; existing appointments remain unaffected. The toggle affects the booking page, the public page, widgets, and the Google profile. It saves its state independently—not via the bar at the bottom—and then displays “Online booking is on” or “Online booking is off”.

If online booking is turned off, the rules below don't apply until you turn it back on. Your team can still make bookings at the front desk, at the register, and in the dashboard.

When online booking is turned off

Block “When online booking is off” determines what your shared pages display for “Service,” “Combination,” and “Offer” instead of “Book appointment”. There are three options: Call (opens the phone app with your first active phone number), WhatsApp (opens a chat with your WhatsApp number), and Email (opens the visitor's email app with your location's email address, which is then visible on the page). As long as you don't select anything, the call and WhatsApp options will be displayed where you've set them up, and your email will only appear if both are missing. If a number is missing, “Not set up yet” will appear there with the link “Add it under Address & contact”. A preview “What visitors see” shows the bar at the bottom of the shared page.

Booking Period

Section “Booking window” answers: How close to the appointment and how far in advance can someone book online? A summary at the top shows, for example, “Customers can book as early as 2 hours in advance and as far as 1 year in advance, in 15-minute increments.” It updates automatically before you save.

• Minimum advance notice: The earliest time customers can book. Options: 5 min., 15 min., 30 min., 1 hr., 2 hr., 3 hr., 4 hr., 8 hr. This applies only to online booking. Your team can book at the counter, in the point-of-sale app, and in the dashboard without this restriction.
• Maximum booking window: How far in advance bookings can be made, both online and by your team. Options: 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year. Dates beyond that will not appear as bookable anywhere.
• Online cancellation: The deadline by which customers can cancel or reschedule their appointment themselves via the link in the confirmation email. Options: 2 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, or “Anytime”. After that, only you can make changes. Your team can cancel at any time.

Information Required at the Time of Booking

In section “What a booking has to carry”, you decide what information you need from a customer. The online booking form will prompt for this information. At the front desk, a new customer is created only with this information, and if something is missing for an existing customer, the booking system will display a notification instead of blocking the booking.

• Name is always requested.
• Set Email, Phone, and Address to “Required”, “Optional”, or “Do not ask”, respectively. Anyone who creates an account online always provides an email address. For bookings without an account and at the counter, your settings apply. The address is only useful if you send invoices or drive to customers.
• Under Online, the setting is “Booking without an account”: Customers can book using their name and contact information without creating a password. If this setting is off, booking is only possible with an account (log in or register).
• Under At the counter, the setting is “Walk-in customers”: This applies to appointments that your team creates at the checkout or in the dashboard, with a name on the appointment and no customer record. If the toggle is off, every appointment requires a customer record. Walk-in customers have neither an email address nor a phone number. Bookings are still processed, and the booking shows what's missing. An address is never required for walk-in customers. The public booking page is not affected by this.

Whatever you uncheck appears as “Not asked for: …” in the preview. These rules also determine the required fields in the form “Create new customer” (see “Create, search for, and view customer files”).

Prices

The toggle “Show prices to customers” controls whether prices appear on your public page and during the booking process. When prices are hidden, customers see services without prices and submit an inquiry instead.

Time Slots

The “Time slots” section contains two rules for start times:

• Base interval: The interval between the offered start times. Options: 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes. A smaller interval means more options, but also more short gaps throughout the day.
• Continuous slots: “On” means that after each appointment, the next one starts immediately, and the next start time is the end of the previous one. “Off” means a service only starts in increments of its own duration, regardless of your schedule grid.

If you've set a buffer for services that doesn't fit into a new grid, Terminz will warn you when saving (“Your buffer doesn't fit the new steps”) and will only round it up once you save the buffer yourself. Use “Save anyway” to apply the new grid.

Reserve Time When Booking

In section “Hold a time while booking”, enable “Hold the chosen time”: Anyone who taps a time slot is briefly assigned that slot until the booking is complete—on the booking page, in the Appointment Wizard, and at checkout. In Held for, select 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes. If the booking isn't completed by then, the time slot becomes available again and must be selected anew. By default, the reservation feature is turned off. In that case, two people will see the same available time slot, and whoever submits first gets it.

Outside of business hours

In section “Outside opening hours”, you specify how far in advance or after closing time your team is allowed to schedule appointments. Customers never see these times. For How far can it go?, you can choose Off, 15 min., 30 min., 1 hr., or 2 hr. For “Off”, your team will only see times within business hours. You can set the business hours themselves under Settings → Location → Business Hours & Closed Days.

Reminders

Section “Reminders” determines when customers receive a reminder before their appointment. Booking confirmations are sent out regardless of this setting. “Applies to all your locations, not just this one.”

• Send appointment reminders: Toggle switch.
• Reminder timing: 2 hours before, 12 hours before, 24 hours before, or 48 hours before.
• Channels: “Reminder by email”. If reminders are on but email is off, it says “Reminders are on, but email is off. No reminder will be sent.”

Reset to Default

In the top right corner, Reset to defaults resets the page. Before doing so, Terminz shows what will be reset and what will remain, and asks for confirmation (“This cannot be undone”):

• Booking period: 2-hour lead time, 1 year in advance, 24-hour cancellation window.
• Contact information during booking: all fields are optional; guests and walk-ins are allowed.
• Show prices: on.
• Grid: 15-minute intervals, consecutive start times enabled.
• Reserve selected time: off (15 minutes if you turn it back on).
• Outside business hours: up to 30 minutes.
• Reminders: on, 24 hours in advance, via email, for all your locations.

The online booking toggle remains as is. Any unsaved changes on the page will be lost when you reset.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is a time slot missing even though the calendar looks available? Usually because of the minimum lead time, the booking period, the grid, or a buffer. Your team will see such times in the calendar with a note and can still book them after confirmation. Vacation, holidays, closures, and other appointments always remain blocked.

Where do I set “Phone required”? Here, in section “What a booking has to carry”.

Where do I change the business hours? Under Settings → Location → Business Hours & Closed Days, not here.

Can I send reminders via text message? On this page, the only available channel is email.