Booking rules

Booking rules control what customers can do when they book and cancel online: how much notice you need, how far ahead they can book, when free cancellation ends and what happens if they do not show up.

The page is Services → Rules in the sidebar. Settings → Booking rules opens the same page.

#Choose how bookings confirm

1. Open Services → Rules in the sidebar, or Settings → Booking rules.
2. Under Confirmation, pick Instant confirmation or Manual approval in How bookings confirm.
3. Click Save confirmation mode.

With manual approval, new bookings wait for you to accept them before they are confirmed.

#Allow guest bookings

Guest bookings are off unless you switch them on. When they are on, customers who are not signed in can book free and pay-at-venue services with their name, email and phone.

1. Open Services → Rules.
2. Under Confirmation, tick Allow guest bookings.
3. Click Save confirmation mode.

How it works:

• The guest gets an email with a link and has up to 30 minutes to open it and click Confirm booking. Until then the time is held and the booking shows as pending: you can cancel it, but not confirm it or check the guest in. Holds that are never confirmed are removed, together with the details the guest typed. You hear about the booking once it is confirmed.
• Your booking rules apply to guests too: lead times, buffers, the daily and weekly limits per customer and the repeat no-show policy. They count per email, or on the customer's account when the email belongs to a verified account.
• Bookings paid online, memberships, packs, wallet and discount codes still need an account.
• The guest can see and cancel the booking from the link while free cancellation is open. Later cancellations go through you.
• Each guest booking starts on a client card of its own with the name and phone, even when the email belongs to one of your clients, so nobody can book into someone else's records by typing their email. Once the guest confirms, the booking joins their account if the email belongs to a verified account, or otherwise their first guest card with you. If the guest later creates an account with the same email and verifies it, the guest bookings they confirmed move to that account.
• To limit abuse, guest bookings are limited per email, per device network and per business.

#Set your default policy

The Cancellation & policies form applies to every service. Leave a field empty for no limit, then click Save policy.

Type each time as a number and pick its unit next to it: minutes, hours or days for the lead time, last-minute booking and the cancellation window, and days or weeks for how far ahead customers can book. A saved time shows in the largest whole unit, so 1440 minutes shows as 1 day and 90 minutes stays 90 minutes. A time must come to whole minutes, or whole days for booking ahead: 1.5 hours works, 1.5 weeks doesn't.

With a cancellation window, customers see one sentence made from your rule instead of the policy text, in their own language, for example "Free cancellation up to 2 hours before the start. Later cancellations cost 50% of the price." It names the window and the late-cancel fee, so it always matches what Nola charges. The policy text is for a business without a window. Without a window and without policy text, customers see "Free cancellation any time before the start." The payment step and the customer's cancel window also show the exact deadline for that booking and what a later cancellation costs.

When you save a new or changed policy text, Nola offers to translate it into your other languages. See Translate a text when you save it.

#Late cancellations and no-shows

Under Fees, set a Late-cancel fee and a No-show fee as a percentage, a fixed amount or both. The fee never exceeds the booking price.

When a customer cancels inside the cancellation window:

• If you set a late-cancel fee, the cancellation goes through and the fee is applied.
• If you did not, the customer cannot cancel online and has to contact you.

Choose How fees are charged:

• Manual: you follow up with the client. The fee is recorded on the booking and the customer is notified. You collect it yourself.
• Charge customer wallet automatically: the fee is taken from the customer's wallet. If that would take the balance below zero and the client is not allowed a negative balance, the fee is recorded and you get a notification instead.
• Charge saved payment method: the fee is recorded on the booking and the customer is notified. Nola does not charge the card automatically yet, so collect it yourself.

If the customer already paid for the booking, cancelling gives the money back and the late-cancel fee is kept from it, whichever way fees are charged. Only a booking that wasn't paid is charged the fee as above. See Refunds when a customer cancels.

A booking is charged each fee only once, even if it is marked as a no-show again. When you waive a fee that was taken from the wallet, the amount goes back to the wallet it came from. Waiving a fee kept from a refund gives it back the way the customer paid.

#Repeat no-shows

Under Repeat no-shows, set Strikes before action, Counted over (days) (365 by default) and Action at limit:

• Only show a warning on the client card
• Require prepayment (payments module)
• Block online booking; must contact you

Nola counts a customer's no-shows inside that period. Late cancellations that got the late-cancel fee count as strikes too, together with the no-shows. A late cancellation whose fee you waived does not count.

Block online booking; must contact you stops the customer's online bookings, private lessons with a coach included. They see "Online booking is paused after 3 missed or late-cancelled bookings. Please contact the venue." with their own count. Your team can still book for them.

#Override rules for one service

1. Under Per-service override, choose the service.
2. A second form opens, filled in with your current default values.
3. Change what should differ and click Save policy.

Write the policy text in your default language. To show it in English and Estonian, translate it under Settings → Languages; see Languages and translations. Changing the text removes its translations.

#Related

• Resources and opening hours
• Client wallets
• Cancel or change a booking
• Unpaid balances