Your reschedule, cancellation and no-show policy

Your policy tells customers how late they can change or cancel a booking, and what happens if they leave it too late. You set it once, and BeNotely shows your customers the words you chose wherever they look.

Where to find it

Go to Settings, open Policies, and find Reschedule, cancellation and no-show policy.

Start from a preset

Pick one to begin:

• Relaxed: changes up to 2 hours before.
• Standard: changes up to 24 hours before. What most businesses run.
• Strict: changes up to 48 hours before.

A preset just fills in the fields below it. Change any field and the card shows Custom. That's fine; it means the policy is yours.

The two windows

Customers can reschedule online until is how many hours before the appointment a customer can still move it themselves, from the link in their confirmation email. You can choose Any time before the appointment here if you'd rather people move a visit than vanish. A move made after your free cancellation window has closed still counts as late: the booking can't be cancelled free afterwards, so a last-minute move is never a way around the fee.

Customers can cancel free until is how many hours before the appointment a customer can still cancel without consequence. A cancellation after this is a late cancellation.

The two can be the same, which is the usual choice. They can also differ. Some businesses would rather a customer move a visit than drop it, so they allow rescheduling closer in than cancelling.

After the free cancellation window closes

Choose what a customer can do once the window has passed:

• Customers need to contact you. Their booking page shows your number and asks them to get in touch. You record the cancellation from the booking. This is the default.
• Customers can still cancel online. Before they confirm, they're told it counts as a late cancellation.

A late cancellation is recorded on the customer's visit history and counts in your No-shows report. If you take a deposit, it's kept. If you hold a card on file, you can charge the missed-visit fee, always your decision. If you take payment in person, nothing is charged; the record is still kept.

What customers will read

The bottom of the card shows the exact text customers see on your booking page, on your terms page, in their confirmation email and on their booking link. Change a setting and the words change with it.

Your house rules (lateness, patch tests, children, parking) are on the same card and appear underneath the policy. If you need customers to explicitly agree, switch on Ask customers to tick agreement before booking: they must tick "I have read and agree" before confirming, and each booking records when they did.

Every booking keeps its own policy

When a customer books, the policy at that moment is saved with the booking. If you change your settings later, bookings already made keep the deadlines their customers agreed to. The new policy applies to new bookings.

Fees

Fees are the paid half of the policy, and they live on the same card. With a card on file, the Fees section sets what can be charged, as percentages of the booking or as fixed amounts (your choice, one unit for the whole schedule):

• a late cancellation percentage for a cancel inside your free window, with up to two deeper tiers for shorter notice (for example 25% with less than 24 hours' notice, 50% with less than 12, 100% with less than 6);
• a separate no-show percentage.

The presets fill these in too (Standard is 50% for a late cancel and 100% for a no-show). Customers see the schedule, in dollars for their booking, before they confirm. When you record a no-show or a late cancellation, the dialog suggests the tier the notice landed in; you can charge that, less, or nothing, and never more than the maximum they agreed to.

Until a card on file backs your policy, the Fees section tells you what's needed: a card on file, a deposit (refunded inside the free window, kept after), or nothing yet, with a link to where to switch it on. See set up deposits and the card on file missed-visit fee.

A service that should be different

Most services should simply follow your policy. For the ones that shouldn't, open the service in Services and find Deposit and fees:

• Follow policy is where every service starts.
• None asks for no deposit and no card for this service, even when your policy takes one. Use it for consultations and cheap extras where asking for a card would lose the booking.
• Custom lets this service be secured its own way, whatever your business-wide setting: by a deposit (a percent of its price, a fixed amount, or the whole price) or by a card on file (its own fee amounts against your policy's notice tiers). A card-on-file business can ask a deposit on the one service it buys product for; a deposit business can hold a card for a service instead.

A booking with several services adds them up: deposits add to what's due now, card-secured services add to one fee schedule, and a booking that mixes both takes the deposit and keeps the same card on file. The customer sees one amount due now and one schedule in dollars before they confirm. The policy card lists which services have their own rules.

A worked example

A studio wants: free up to 24 hours; 25% with 12 to 24 hours' notice; 50% with 6 to 12 hours; the full price with less than 6 hours or a no-show. On the card that is:

• Customers can cancel free until: 24 hours before
• Cancel with less than 24 hours' notice: 25%
• Less than 12 hours' notice: 50%
• Less than 6 hours' notice: 100%
• No-show: 100%

A customer who cancels 18 hours out lands in the 25% row; 9 hours out, the 50% row; 3 hours out, 100%. Notice is measured from the moment they cancel to the appointment start.

Caveats and tips

• Boundaries. "Less than 12 hours" means exactly that: 11 hours 59 minutes is the 50% row, 12 hours on the dot is still the 25% row.
• Rescheduling closer in than cancelling. Letting people move a visit at 4 hours' notice while cancelling closes at 24 is fine, and often kinder. A move made outside the free cancellation window keeps the late status: the new time can't be cancelled free, and a later cancellation is priced on the notice they gave when they moved. Customers are warned before they move. If a customer phones and you move it for them outside the window, the move dialog asks who asked; "The customer" keeps the same late status, "We did" doesn't. The first late move is the one that counts: once a booking is marked as moved late, later moves don't ask again (the booking shows "moved outside the free cancellation window"), and a cancellation is priced on the notice given at that first move. The customer's "new time confirmed" email says so at the time, including what it means for their deposit or card.
• Online or by phone, the money is the same. "Customers can still cancel online" lets them record a late cancellation themselves (they're told it counts as late first) and the charge decision lands on your dashboard; "need to contact you" means they phone and you record it. Pick whichever suits how you work.
• You decide every charge. The dialog suggests the row the notice landed in; you can charge it, charge less, or waive it. You can never charge more than the most the customer agreed to when they booked.
• Deposits are simpler. If you take a deposit rather than a card on file, a late cancel or no-show keeps the deposit and that's the whole fee; the tiers apply to card on file.
• Start gentle. A policy you enforce calmly every time beats a strict one you feel bad about. Standard (24 hours, 50% late, 100% no-show) is where most businesses land.