Booking and scheduling glossary · Booked

• Booking buffer: A booking buffer is padding added before or after an appointment that stays blocked on the calendar. It gives a shop time to clean down, reset a station, and take payment without the next client's slot starting early.
• No-show fee: A no-show fee is an amount charged when a client misses an appointment without cancelling in time. It compensates for a chair that stayed empty and is usually collected from a card held or a deposit taken at booking.
• Deposit: A deposit is a part-payment taken when an appointment is booked and set against the final price. It gives the client something to lose by not arriving.
• Destination charge: A destination charge is a card payment collected by a platform and passed to the business that earned it, minus a platform fee. The money lands in the shop's own account rather than the platform's.
• Application fee: An application fee is the amount a booking platform keeps from a payment it processes on a shop's behalf. It is charged on top of, or instead of, a subscription, and is taken automatically as each payment settles.
• Session capacity: Session capacity is the number of clients one appointment slot can hold. A one-to-one service has a capacity of one. A class or shared session has more, and stays bookable until every seat is taken.
• Waitlist: A waitlist records clients who want an appointment slot that is already full, so they can be offered it if someone cancels.
• Minimum notice: Minimum notice is the shortest gap allowed between booking an appointment and the appointment starting. Set to two hours, a client at 10am can book 12pm but not 11am, which stops bookings arriving faster than the shop can see them.
• Booking window: A booking window is how far into the future clients may book. A 60-day window means a client can take any open slot up to two months out and nothing beyond it.
• Double-booking: Double-booking is two appointments occupying the same staff member at the same time. It happens when availability is checked before a booking is written but nothing stops a second booking landing in the gap between the check and the write.
• Availability: Availability is the set of times a client can actually book. It is computed from opening hours, staff working hours, service duration, buffers, minimum notice, the booking window, time off, and appointments already taken.
• Cancellation policy: A cancellation policy states how much notice a client must give to cancel without charge, and what happens if they give less. It is only meaningful if the booking flow actually enforces it.
• Refund: A refund returns money already charged to a client's card. On a platform that splits payments, a refund must also reverse the transfer to the shop, otherwise the platform returns the money while the shop keeps its share.
• Service duration: Service duration is how long an appointment occupies a staff member. It sets how many slots the appointment consumes and, together with buffers, determines when the next client can be offered a time.
• Time-off block: A time-off block removes a window from the bookable calendar for one staff member or the whole shop. It stops new bookings in that window and leaves appointments already booked where they are.
• Holiday closure: A holiday closure marks one date as closed for the whole shop, overriding the normal weekly hours, so nothing can be booked that day.
• Split shift: A split shift is a working day in two parts with an unbookable gap between them, such as 9 to 12 and 2 to 6. It lets a shop stay open longer without one person working the whole day.