Booking rules and your cancellation policy — StudioOps Help

StudioOps gives every studio a public booking page at studioops.uk/your-slug/book. The page shows your services, your available days and times, and lets a customer book themselves in.

This guide covers the rules that drive what a customer sees, what happens when they book or cancel, your cancellation-policy text + window, and how per-service deposit / full-payment-at-booking rules tie into both.

1. Working hours

Go to Hours. Set the days and times you're willing to take bookings.

Defaults are Monday to Saturday, 09:00–17:00. Adjust to your real working pattern — be honest, because customers can only book inside the windows you set here.

A few patterns:

Full-time studio: Mon–Sat 09:00–17:00. Keep Sunday closed.
Evenings only: Mon–Fri 18:00–21:00 plus Saturday daytime.
Two-shift days: 09:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:00 (closes for lunch).

You can also mark individual days as closed for holidays, illness, or family commitments. Customers see the day as unavailable; nothing else changes.

2. How customers see availability

When a customer picks a service on your booking page, StudioOps shows them:

The next available days (calendar view)
The available slots within each day (list view)

A slot is "available" if:

It's inside your working hours that day
It doesn't overlap with another booking
It doesn't overlap with a staff member's time-off block
It doesn't overlap with a busy slot from your Google Calendar (if connected — see Syncing Google Calendar)
The slot is long enough to fit the service duration

Customers can only book slots that are visible. They can't request something outside hours, and they can't double-book a slot already taken.

3. Slot duration

Slot duration comes from the service. A 60-minute service shows 60-minute slots; a 90-minute service shows 90-minute slots. The same hour of the day might be available for a 30-minute drop-off but not for a 90-minute fitting, if there's only an hour left before close.

4. Minimum lead time

You can set a minimum number of hours' notice required before a customer can book. Common values are 0 (book up to the minute), 4 hours, 24 hours, or 48 hours. There's a dedicated article — Setting your minimum booking lead time — that walks through the trade-offs.

5. When a customer books

The customer:

Picks a service
Picks a slot
Enters their name, email, and any notes
If the service has a payment rule (deposit or full-at-booking): pays via card or bank transfer first. The slot is held for 15 minutes during card checkout, or 24 hours during bank transfer.
If the service has no payment rule: confirms immediately.

StudioOps then:

Creates the appointment in your diary
Creates a customer record (or links to an existing one by email)
Sends a confirmation email to the customer
Sends you a notification (and a Telegram alert if you've connected Telegram)
Pushes the appointment to your Google Calendar (if connected)

The customer sees the confirmation come from your studio address — your-slug@studioops.uk. If they later reply to that email, the reply lands in your Messages tab (the dashboard bell icon flags new ones). New enquiries from a different customer landing on your booking page go to your Enquiries tab instead.

6. When a customer cancels

The booking confirmation email includes a link to the customer's private space at studioops.uk/me/.... From there they can:

See the appointment details
Cancel
Request to reschedule

The cancellation window

You can set a cancellation window in the booking-policy text (Settings → Booking page). The window is the minimum notice you require — e.g. "Cancellations must be made at least 24 hours in advance."

When a customer tries to cancel inside that window, the customer-space page shows your full cancellation-policy text and refuses the self-service cancel. The customer's options at that point are to message you directly (the page surfaces your contact email) or to no-show.

When they try to cancel outside the window, the cancel goes through cleanly:

The slot becomes available again in your diary
You get a notification
A cancellation email is sent to the customer
If they paid a deposit or full payment, the money is NOT auto-refunded (see Section 7 below)

Reschedules

Reschedule requests go to you — they're not self-service. The customer fills in their preferred new slot in the customer space; you see the request in the dashboard and approve or counter-offer. This is intentional: reschedules often need a conversation about availability, and a one-click self-serve reschedule risks the customer picking a slot that conflicts with prep time you haven't formally blocked.

7. Your cancellation policy

Two things to set up:

The policy text (what customers see)

In Settings → Booking page, set the cancellation policy text. This is rendered:

On the public booking page, before the customer confirms a slot
On the customer space (/me/<token>) when they try to cancel
(Optionally) in the cancellation email template

The text should be specific to what your studio actually does. Examples:

Cancellations more than 48 hours before the appointment are refunded in full. Cancellations within 48 hours forfeit the £50 deposit. No-shows forfeit the full balance.

24-hour notice required. Inside that window, please email me — I'll always try to help but can't promise.

Setting the policy here means customers see it before they book, after they book, and when they try to cancel. They can't credibly say they weren't told.

Refunds (manual)

There's no auto-refund mechanic — refunds are a judgment call. If a customer cancels inside the window, you decide whether to:

Refund the deposit anyway (good will)
Hold the deposit (policy enforcement)
Refund only a portion (split decisions)

For Square / Stripe deposits, issue the refund from the provider's dashboard; StudioOps will read the refund event and mark the invoice Refunded automatically.

For bank-transfer deposits, refund from your bank app then mark the invoice Refunded in StudioOps manually.

8. Per-service deposit and full-payment-at-booking rules

Each service in Settings → Services has a payment_rule field with three options:

No payment at booking — the slot is held the moment the customer confirms; no money changes hands until you raise an invoice later. Good for services where the price varies (custom alterations, anything quoted).
Deposit at booking — the customer pays a fixed deposit before the slot is confirmed. The remaining balance becomes an invoice you raise later. The slot is held for 15 minutes during card checkout / 24 hours during bank transfer; if they don't pay, the slot is released.
Full payment at booking — the customer pays the full service price before the slot is confirmed. Same hold-window mechanics as deposit.

The deposit / full-payment flows route through whichever card provider you've connected (Square or Stripe) for card customers, with bank transfer as an alternative.

A typical bridal-alterations pattern uses all three:

Consultation — No payment at booking. Free 30-minute slot to discuss the work.
First fitting — Deposit at booking. £50 deposit holds the slot; the full price (which depends on the work) is invoiced afterwards.
Pickup / final fitting — No payment at booking. The final balance was paid via invoice before pickup.

A typical nail-salon pattern uses fixed prices:

Manicure — Full payment at booking. £25 paid upfront, no further invoice needed.
Gel polish — Full payment at booking. £35 paid upfront.

You can mix and match per service.

9. No-shows

If a customer doesn't turn up, the appointment stays in your diary with its original status. There's no automatic no-show flag yet — you can move it to Cancelled manually, or leave it as a record.

A useful habit: add a brief note to the customer record after a no-show (using the timeline notes on the customer record), and follow up by email with a rebooking link if appropriate.

For deposits / full payments already taken, your cancellation-policy text governs whether you refund or keep the money. The decision is yours; the policy text is the customer-facing record of what you decided.