Cancellations, reschedules and no-shows

A booking has five states: pending, confirmed, cancelled, completed and no-show. Most of what follows is about who can move a booking between them.

What the customer can do

Every confirmation email carries a link to manage the booking, and the calendar event it adds says how to reschedule or cancel, with the same link. The customer can do the same from My Bookings, which lists their bookings at every business that uses Bookodile. What they may do depends on your cancellation window — the number of hours before the appointment after which they can no longer change it online.

• Outside the window: they can reschedule or cancel themselves. Each asks for an optional reason. The page shows when online changes close.
• Inside the window: neither. The page says online changes have closed and shows your phone number and email address. If you allow late cancellation, they can still cancel, after a warning that they may be charged — but they cannot reschedule.

Set the window to zero and customers can change a booking right up to its start. Set it to 24 and the last day is yours to manage.

Customers reschedule themselves

Reschedule opens the same week of days and start times as your booking page. The times offered are the ones where the whole visit fits — every service, each with the same team member, keeping its length and the gaps between them. A room, chair or other resource follows the same rules as when you move a visit. The customer's current time is marked, not offered.

The new time must fit your booking page's own rules: your minimum notice, how far ahead customers may book, and your slot spacing. A price tied to dates — a promotion, or an add-on discount that runs only between two dates — stays only inside those dates, so later days are not offered and the page says why. A time someone else holds is never offered and never double-booked; if it was taken while the customer was choosing, they are asked to pick another and the reason they typed is kept.

Only the time changes. The services, who does each one and the price stay as booked. To change any of those, the customer cancels and books again — the page tells them so. The booking keeps its status: a pending booking stays pending until you accept it.

What follows a customer's reschedule:

• The customer gets "You moved your booking", every service with its new time and the old one beside it, and a calendar file for the new time. No SMS: they have just done it themselves.
• Each team member whose service moved gets one email: the services, old and new, that the customer moved it and how, and the reason if they gave one.
• Owners and managers who switched on Rescheduled by a customer in Settings → Notifications get one email for the visit. A move made by someone on your team never emails them.
• The time they left is offered to your waiting list, as a cancellation's would be.
• The activity log records "Booking moved · Customer · with the link in their email" (or "in My Bookings").

A customer may reschedule as often as they like, as long as each move is outside the window — so a booking can never drift past your deadline.

When you move a booking from the dashboard, the next sections apply.

The customer's reason

Cancelling and rescheduling each ask for a reason. It is optional, up to 500 characters, and the page says that only your business sees it.

• Where you see it: in the emails to the team members involved and to the owners and managers who asked, and in the booking itself, under its history line — "The customer's reason for moving" or "…for cancelling". Anyone on your team who can open the booking can read it.
• Where it never appears: on your booking page, in the customer's own emails, in AI Chat, or in the words of the activity log, which records only that a reason was given.
• A later move by your team keeps the customer's last reason for moving; the customer's next reschedule replaces it.

Moving a visit with several services

A customer can book more than one service in one go — a combo whose stages are done by different team members, or a service with add-ons after it. That is one visit, and you move it as one.

In the calendar, each of its services is marked with its place in the visit: 2/3 is the second of three. A booking on its own carries no mark.

Open any of its bookings in the calendar. The booking shows This visit: every service in order, with its time, team member and price. Move visit opens a picker inside the same dialog:

• Day — a week at a time, Monday to Sunday, or two weeks side by side on a wide screen. Swipe or use the arrows; the month is shown beside the label, today is circled, and Today brings you back. Each day is marked by how many start times fit the whole visit. A day your business is closed is marked Closed and can still be picked.
• Team — who does each service. Change one and the times recalculate. A service that uses a room, chair or other resource kept for particular people goes with its new team member to one they may use — their own first — and the summary under the day shows the old resource and the new.
• Start time — only the times where every service fits: each team member's working hours, their time off and blocked time, their other bookings at any location they work at, and the capacity and hours of any room or equipment the service uses.
• Choose another time — under the start times, for any day and any start, to the minute, even one that clashes: pick the day, then type the time or nudge it a minute or five either way. It opens by itself whenever the time you have is not one of the free ones, and Hide closes it again — closed, it still names the time you set. On a day with no free start at all, the time field shows in their place. If it clashes, a box lists each clash — who already has a booking then, or the hours someone works or your business is open — and the button becomes Move anyway. Pressing it asks once more, listing every clash and who will be told, before anything moves.

Every service keeps its own length and its place in the order, and a gap between two services stays a gap. All of them move together or none do. If someone changed the visit while you were choosing, nothing moves and the times reload.

A clash is a double-booking, never a replacement: the other booking stays exactly where it is, and nobody is told about it.

Who hears about it. Each team member whose service moved gets one email with their own services, old time and new; someone taken off a service is told it is off their calendar. The customer is told under Tell the customer the new time, which has a tick for each way that would reach them: Email when they have an address, SMS when your business sends texts and they have a number — both ticked to start. The email lists every service with its new time; the SMS is a short set text with a link to the booking. Untick both and the customer hears nothing.

Moving one service on its own

Changing the start time in the booking form still moves only that service. The form picks it the same way — Edit on its day and time, then the week, the start times that fit that service's team member, and Choose another time — with the rest of the visit drawn as an outline. If the new time overlaps another service of the same visit, or puts it out of order, the form says so and offers to move the whole visit instead, keeping the day and time you picked.

Moving a single booking

A booking of one service moves on its own. Change its time — or who does it — in the booking dialog and press Save, or drag it in the day or week view.

The dialog shows the booking's day and time in one box. Edit opens the week and the start times inside it; Done closes it again and keeps what you picked. Once the time differs from the saved one, the box shows the old time crossed out and Go back to when it's booked. A booking on a day that has passed has no free times to offer, so the time field shows straight away.

Either way the new time is checked before anything moves, the same way Move visit checks one: the team member's working hours, their time off and blocked time, their other bookings, and the capacity and hours of any room or equipment it uses. If something clashes, you are asked first — in the dialog, Save anyway lists every clash and who will be told; after a drag, Move anyway? does the same — and whatever it clashes with stays where it is. The team member is told about the change.

The customer. When you change the time in the booking dialog, the footer shows Tell the customer the new time, with Email and — when your business sends texts and the customer has a number — SMS, both ticked. Leave Email ticked and they get a "Booking moved" email with the new time; leave SMS ticked and they get a short text with a link to the booking; untick both and they hear nothing. Dragging never tells the customer. A walk-in is told nothing either way.

A booking already marked completed or a no-show can't be dragged. Its time can still be corrected in the dialog, with no checks and no emails, the way it always could.

Dragging a visit in the calendar

Drag any service of a visit, in the day or the week view, and the whole visit moves with it: every service keeps its length and the gaps between them. Drop it on another team member's column in the day view and only the service you dragged changes hands — taking a resource that person may use, if the one it held is kept for somebody else.

If the new time clashes with anything — someone's hours or time off, another booking, a block — the calendar asks before moving anything, and whatever it clashes with stays where it is. The team is told as with Move visit; the customer is not emailed, so use Move visit when they should get the new times.

When a drag clashes

Dropping a booking or a visit where it clashes opens Move anyway? before anything moves. It shows where the booking is and where it would go — with the team member, when the drop hands it to someone else — and names each clash in words: The business is closed then, with your opening hours that day; a team member who isn't working then, with the hours they work; time off; another booking or a block, with its time. It also says the customer won't be told. Go back puts the booking back where it was and changes nothing.

Undoing a drag

After every drag that moves something, a message shows where it went, with Undo for ten seconds. Undo moves it back — the same time and the same team member — and the team is told about that move too; the customer is told about neither. If someone changed the booking in the meantime, nothing moves and the calendar reloads. If the old time clashes by now — someone booked it in those seconds, or it was outside your hours to begin with — you are asked first, as with any drag.

Undo is the way back from a drag that landed in the wrong place. Cancelling the booking instead frees the time and, if you leave it ticked, emails the customer that their booking is cancelled.

Worked example: moving a visit

A barbershop has a cut with one barber at 10:00 and a wash with a colleague at 10:30. The customer rings to push it to the afternoon: the receptionist opens either booking, picks Thursday, taps 14:00, and both services move — the cut to 14:00, the wash to 14:30 — with one email to the customer and one to each barber.

A physiotherapy clinic has an assessment followed by a massage with another therapist. The massage therapist is off that afternoon, so no afternoon time fits; the receptionist hands the massage to a colleague under Team, and the afternoon times appear.

Cancelling a single booking

Cancel booking asks before anything happens. It shows the booking — its service, time and team member — and what will follow: who on the team is told, the synced calendar event removed, the time offered to your waiting list, and any money recorded as paid, which stays in Payments.

The customer is told under Tell the customer: Email when they have an address, SMS when your business sends texts and they have a number, both ticked to start. Untick both and they hear nothing. Keep booking closes it with nothing changed.

A booking in a series cancels the same way, one booking at a time; Cancel series still cancels every booking left in it.

Cancelling part of a visit, or all of it

Cancel… on a booking that belongs to a visit asks what you mean: Only this service, or The whole visit. Nothing is preselected, and the dialog says what will happen before you confirm.

• Cancelling one service leaves the rest booked. If it was the first service, the next one becomes the start of the visit and keeps the booking's note and any discount, so the visit still gets its reminder.
• From then on the customer sees only what is still booked: the reminder and My Bookings list the services left and add up their prices alone.
• The customer is told under Tell the customer: by Email — one email, what is cancelled and, if anything remains, what is still booked — and by SMS when your business sends texts and they have a number. A customer with a number but no email address is still told, by SMS.
• Each team member whose service was cancelled is told. Owners and managers who asked to hear about cancellations get one email for the visit.
• If you use the waiting list, each cancelled service is offered once — a combo's stages together, as one time.
• Money already recorded as paid stays in Payments; nothing is refunded automatically.

The customer's calendar

The confirmation email carries a calendar file for the whole appointment, add-ons included. Its notes list the team member, your phone and email, and "Need to reschedule or cancel?" with the link to the booking.

When the booking later moves — the customer's reschedule, or your Move visit or booking-dialog change with the customer told — the "Booking moved" email carries a file for the same event at its new time. A cancellation email carries one that takes the event out; when part of a visit is cancelled, it moves the event to what is still booked. Calendar apps that accept these updates change the event the customer already has — Gmail, Apple Mail and Outlook all do (checked October 2026).

An event the customer added with the Google or Outlook button on the booking page is their own copy, which no email can change; after a reschedule the page offers the buttons again for the new time.

Pending versus confirmed

With auto-confirm on, bookings arrive confirmed.

With it off, bookings arrive pending and nothing is agreed until you accept — but the customer is not told that. They get the same confirmation email either way, and your booking page thanks them the same way; the word "pending" appears only if they open the manage-booking link. So if you turn auto-confirm off, say so in your own confirmation text (Settings → Email Templates), or customers will believe they have an appointment.

It is the right setting when you need to check you can actually do the job, and the wrong one if nobody is watching the dashboard — a pending booking is a customer waiting.

No-shows

You mark a no-show yourself, from the booking's status in the calendar. It is a record, not an automation: nothing is charged, and no email goes to the customer.

Use it if you want the history. A customer's no-show count is visible on their record.

A no-show is never counted as money. Reports, the dashboard's revenue, Revenue split, Forecasting, the Leaderboard and the lifetime value on a customer's or a team member's page all leave its price out. It still counts as a booking — in your booking totals and as part of the cancellation rate's base. Money you actually took for it, such as a deposit, is recorded with payment tracking like any other payment.

Which emails go out

Staff notifications are per-person preferences, so two people in the same business can want different things.

There is a master switch that pauses all customer emails for a business. It stops confirmations and reminders alike, so it is for genuine pauses, not quiet periods.

Worked example

A salon with a 12-hour cancellation window.

• A customer books Friday 14:00 on Wednesday. They get a confirmation.
• Thursday morning they cancel through the email link — outside the window, so it goes through. The slot reopens instantly and the stylist is notified.
• Another customer cancels at Friday 09:00 — inside the window. The page tells them to ring the salon. The receptionist cancels it from the dashboard, and the customer gets a cancellation email.

A physiotherapy clinic with a 24-hour window. A patient booked for Thursday 10:00 opens My Bookings on Monday, taps Reschedule, picks Friday 15:00 with the same therapist and writes "Back pain flared up after work, Friday works better". The therapist's email shows the old and the new time and that note; the receptionist sees it in the booking. On Thursday morning — inside the window — the same patient could no longer move it online, and would be shown the clinic's number.

Limits

• A customer's reschedule changes only the time. A different service, a different team member or another location is a cancellation and a new booking.
• No customer reschedule inside the window, even where late cancellation is allowed.
• A customer moves the whole visit or none of it — never one service of several — and not once any part of it is completed or marked a no-show.
• Dragging does not tell the customer — a single booking or a whole visit — and neither does moving one service of a visit in the form. Changing a single booking's time in the booking dialog offers to, by email or SMS, and so does Move visit.
• Only the day view hands a service to someone else by drag. The week view moves a visit in time without changing who does what.
• Undo lasts ten seconds. After that, drag the booking back or change its time in the booking dialog.
• A booking already marked completed or a no-show cancels at once when you press Cancel booking, without the question, and the customer is emailed.
• A visit can't be moved once part of it is completed or marked a no-show.
• No-show marking charges nothing — there is no card on file, because Bookodile does not process payments.
• The cancellation window is one number for the whole business. It cannot differ per service.