Book a service

A booking section for your website over your price list: a visitor picks a service, sees the open times long enough for it, and sends a request that holds the slot for a day until you confirm. Requests land in an Appointments table, new or one you already have, with the service, its duration and its price filled in.

Use it when

Use it when a service business with a price list wants bookings from its site: the services are already Store products (the Prices preset), each with the minutes a visit takes, and the business confirms each request itself. A pressure washer, a groomer, a detailer, a cleaner. Add it from the site editor over the Products table; the Appointments table it needs is made with it.

Use something else when

A single kind of visit with one length, with no service to choose, is the Schedule panel's Blank schedule: it needs no price list. A quote that depends on the visit is the quote form. The platform superuser can choose Paid appointments to require Store payment or a deposit before confirmation; Store remains Soon for ordinary members. If the business has no price list yet, add Prices first; both service booking types bind to it.

How to add it

You need your price list first: see Use it when. Open My Sites and press your site to open it in the site editor. Then:

  1. Under the list in the site's sidebar, press Add item. It shows when you point there.
  2. Press Add to site.
  3. In Add to this site's sidebar, press Book a time. Add a schedule opens.
  4. Press Book a service.
  5. Press Review changes. First check that Data source under Your table is your Products table, and the Options, which say where requests go.
  6. Check what it adds, then press Apply.

You see Added, and the schedule opens with Not on a page yet under its name. To put it on a page, pick the page, check the Booking heading and press Save. Nothing goes live until you publish.

How to put it on a page

Before you start: add Book a service and open its schedule in the site's editor.

  1. In the schedule, choose the page where visitors should book.
  2. Check Booking heading, then press Save.
  3. Press Publish when you are ready for visitors to book on the live site.

Saving changes the draft only. Publishing makes those changes visible to visitors.

How to require a payment or deposit

Paid booking is platform-superuser only while Store remains Soon. The Paid appointments addition uses the same service booking arrangement and Appointments table; the ordinary Book a service default remains a free request.

  1. Open the schedule and choose Full payment or Deposit under Payment to book.
  2. Choose Services and prices and Store checkout from the existing business choices. The services need Ordering on and exact prices. Their Store products determine one-time or subscription billing.
  3. For Deposit, choose Deposit type and enter a Fixed amount in the displayed service currency (25.00 for $25.00 USD), or a whole Percentage. A fixed amount cannot exceed the service total; percentages round up to the next minor unit.
  4. Fill Cancellation and balance terms, enable Allow repeating visits if appropriate, press Save, then publish separately.

The slot stays held until its accepted payment deadline. The Appointments built-in automation confirms only when Store verifies the required net payment and the hold is still valid; failure or expiry releases the time. The visitor can use Reload this payment in the original browser tab to continue the same payment without another order or charge. A browser success alone is not confirmation.

A deposit is part payment against the original full service agreement, not a lower service price or a fully-paid order. A zero deposit or free service makes no provider charge now, but any remaining balance stays due. Open the appointment's Open Store order and payment actions link to collect a balance or request a refund. Cancelling or declining never does either automatically. Paid timing, service, version, staff and repeat changes require a new booking after explicit disposition of the old balance/refund. Late successful payment always needs explicit resolution/refund and never automatically reclaims a released slot. For repeating paid visits, a one-time product creates a separate unpaid order for the next occurrence; the visitor must pay that occurrence rather than reuse the first receipt or imply permission to charge a stored card. A subscription product accepts one native Store plan for the series and shows its first charge and renewal cadence, not a per-visit balance. Its invoice is managed by Store, not divided by the appointment deposit setting. Weekly visits can use monthly billing. The same Appointments built-in automation checks verified current coverage before continuing; stopping visits does not silently cancel or refund that plan.

What it adds or changes

Schedule and appointments together · publish your site separately

It brings these with it:

What it needs

It needs:

Settings

Setting What it does Default
Allow repeating visits Let visitors choose weekly, every two or four weeks, or monthly visits; confirm once to keep one next visit. No
Staff bookings Optional staff table binding. Leave empty for one shared calendar; bind Staff to offer anyone available or a named qualified person.
Where visits happen Optional: at your place, at the customer's address, or the visitor's choice, with travel minutes and an optional Store travel fee. Visiting customers needs serviceArea (the new table's Service address column). Leave empty for visits at your place.
Service address Optional: the appointments column holding the customer's address, checked against your Business service area. The new table's column is f_address.
Response workspace Where requests are kept: a new Appointments table made by this preset's table preset, or an existing table of this business that holds the schedule's columns, Service, Duration and Price among them.

How it works

It runs its own built-in automation, called Book a service. Tell staff about a new response: read a new response, choose the staff destinations and email its full details. Empty recipient groups send nobody.

Example

Clearwater Pressure Washing, a fictional business, has six services in Prices, each a one-, two- or three-hour visit. Its owner adds Book a service with a new Appointments table and puts the "Book a wash" section on the home page. A visitor picks Driveway (an hour, from $129), sees Tuesday's hourly slots, requests nine o'clock and reads "Request received for Tue, Nov 5, 9:00 AM. This is not a confirmed booking." The office sees the row in Requests with Driveway, 60 minutes and $129.00, calls back and confirms it.

Limits

Products without a duration are not offered. A product priced in another currency than the Appointments table's Price column is refused when the schedule is placed. The visitor is not emailed. Nothing is published by adding it. Payment requires the superuser-only Paid appointments configuration. External calendar sync is not included.