Cancellations, No-Shows and Fees

This page explains how to cancel an appointment, how deposit refund requests work, and how late-cancellation and no-show fees become invoices. This page summarizes the Booking, Cancellation & No-Show Policy (Booking, Cancellation and No-Show), which governs.

Cancelling an appointment

Requirements before you confirm a cancellation: select the true reason. The reason list is fixed

• Customer Request / Change of Plans
• Pet Illness / Veterinary Quarantine
• Illness
• Inclement Weather / Emergency
• Salon Staffing / Rescheduled by Salon
• Other

To cancel

1. Open the appointment and start the cancellation.
2. Select the true reason from the list. The reason is stored on the appointment and added to its notes in the form "Canceled: [reason]," and it becomes part of the permanent record.
3. Decide whether to request a deposit refund (see below).
4. Save the cancellation.

When the cancellation is saved, the customer receives a message in their portal Messages page notifying them of the cancellation, with the service, the dog's name, and the date and time. If a customer says no one told them the appointment was cancelled, check whether the notification was sent before you respond.

Deposit refund requests

The cancellation screen offers a deposit refund option. Checking it records "Deposit refund requested" in the cancellation reason. It does not issue a refund.

The refund itself is issued from Payments, by a person, as a separate action. The confirmation states this plainly: a deposit refund was requested and must be issued from Payments.

1. Record the refund request during cancellation.
2. Issue the refund from Payments the same day.
3. Confirm the refund was issued; do not leave the request open for the customer to discover days later.

Late-cancellation and no-show fees

When an appointment is marked as a no-show, or cancelled inside the location's cutoff window, a fee may become a real open invoice: numbered in the form INV-####, owed by the customer and visible on their customer record. The amounts and windows come only from your location's booking settings

• Late-cancel fee: the amount charged for a late cancellation.
• Cancellation cutoff: the window, in hours before the start time, inside which a cancellation counts as late.
• No-show fee: the amount charged for a no-show.

The fee amounts and cutoff hours are commercial terms configured for your location.

Rules that always apply

1. No configured rule means no fee. An unset or zero rule means no fee is charged. The system never substitutes a general default and never invents a fee. If your location has not configured these settings, do not tell customers a fee applies.
2. A fee is an invoice, never a silent card charge. The customer sees the invoice, may dispute it, and pays it through normal channels.
3. A held deposit applies first. If the salon holds a deposit for the appointment, the deposit changes to "applied" against the fee invoice. A deposit larger than the fee is not split; it remains held, and the invoice notes state this so staff can apply the balance manually.
4. Marking twice charges once. The fee invoice carries a marker tying it to the appointment. Marking the same appointment as a no-show twice finds the existing invoice and charges nothing further.

Two timing points

• A cancellation recorded after the appointment's start time is treated as a no-show, with the no-show fee, not as a late cancellation.
• If the location configured a fee but no cutoff window, the late-cancel fee applies to any cancellation before the start time.

Mistakes to avoid

• Customer disputes the cutoff. A customer disputing a late-cancel fee usually disputes timing: for example, stating they cancelled the day before. The invoice notes and the appointment's status history are the evidence. Check them before you concede or refuse.
• Refund requested but never issued. If the deposit refund option was selected at cancellation but no one issued the refund from Payments, close the loop the same day.