By default, when a client books through your booking site, the job goes straight onto your calendar and they get a confirmation text right away. Booking Approval lets you review each online request first and decide whether to take it.
It's off until you turn it on, so if you like how booking works today, nothing changes.
Turning It On
Open the Business tab and go to Settings.
Tap Job Preferences.
Switch on Require approval for online bookings.
Booking Approval and Require Payment Card can't both be on. If you ask for a card at booking, the approval switch is greyed out, and the other way round. Choose the one that fits how you take bookings.
What Your Client Sees
With approval on, a client who books online sees a final screen saying their request was received and is waiting for your approval, not that they're booked. They also get a text saying the request was received. They won't get a booking confirmation until you approve.
The time they asked for is held while you decide, so nobody else can book over it.
Approving or Declining a Request
Requested jobs show with a Requested label on your dashboard and calendar, so they're easy to spot.
Open the job.
Above the team assignment, tap Approve or Decline.
Approve turns the request into a booked job. The client gets the normal booking confirmation text, exactly as if approval had never been needed.
Decline marks the job as Declined. The client gets a text letting them know, and the time opens back up on your booking site.
You can also change the status from the dropdown on the job, the same way you'd mark a job Completed.
If You Forget to Answer
A request stays Requested until you act on it. If it's still waiting inside the last 24 hours before its scheduled time, you get one text asking you to approve or decline. The time stays held until you do.
Cancelled, No-show and Declined
Along with approval, jobs now have three statuses for things that didn't go to plan:
Status | When to use it |
Cancelled | The job isn't happening. Use it for a job you or the client called off. |
No-show | You turned up and the client didn't. |
Declined | An online request you turned down. Set automatically when you tap Decline. |
Set Cancelled or No-show from the status dropdown on the job. All three show up in Insights → Job Status Distribution so you can see how many bookings fall through and why.
Good to Know
Only online bookings wait for approval. Jobs you create in the app, jobs from accepted estimates, and subscription visits are booked immediately.
Approval is available on every plan.
Declined and Cancelled are separate labels so your reports tell the difference between a request you turned down and a booked job that fell through.