Appointment services

Everything a patient can be booked for starts here. A service carries its own price, its length, where it can be delivered and who may deliver it — and that one record then feeds the appointment sheet, the invoice picker and the public booking page.

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What this tab controls

The list is headed Appointment Services — “Manage services available for appointment booking” — with a search box, a Add Service button and a table of Service · Category · Duration · Price · Venue · Status. Each row’s menu offers View, Edit and Delete. Selecting Add Service opens the full form, with a live Service Preview beside it. Four more cards shape how the service is booked — only the owner or a manager can save them: There is still no colour field on this form. Deposits, paying in full when booking, and cancellation and missed appointment fees are set per service in Deposits & cancellation fees — see Deposits and cancellation fees.

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Deposits and cancellation fees

The Deposits & cancellation fees card sets what booking this service on your booking page or in the patient portal asks of a patient. It needs the Essential plan or above and a connected Stripe account; until then the controls are shown switched off with the reason. It is not available yet for hospitals that bill in Naira. Only the owner or a manager can change it. It is saved with the service, and it applies to bookings made after you save — a booking keeps the terms the patient agreed to. Write the policy patients read in the booking page designer, under Settings → Booking policy. Visits staff book. A visit booked from the calendar never asks the patient to agree and never takes a deposit. It follows the service’s cancellation window and fees only when that patient has already agreed to the same policy when booking online — then a late cancellation or a missed visit gives you a fee to review. Otherwise no fee is raised for that visit. Cancellation windows use the hospital’s time zone under General. The booking page designer’s Clinic Timezone is used only while General still shows its starting value, New York, and the designer names a different zone. When a visit is cancelled, its invoice closes. Nothing paid: the invoice is cancelled. Something kept, such as a deposit: the invoice keeps only that amount and the rest is written off. A later refund comes off the invoice, and restoring the visit reopens the invoice at its original total. An invoice with other charges or a discount code is left open for review.

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Set it up

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What changes once you save

An active service becomes usable straight away, in three places at once:

• The appointment sheet offers it, and picks up its duration and price automatically when it is chosen.
• The invoice service picker offers it, so a bill can be raised for it without retyping the amount.
• The public booking page becomes able to offer it — but does not yet. A new service still has to be marked visible in the Services tab of the Booking page designer. This is the single most common “why can’t patients book it?”.

Beyond that: a Required Resources line means the room or machine is reserved for the length of the appointment and cannot be double-booked; a Product Used line reserves stock at booking and draws it down at completion, earliest-expiring lot first; Preparation Instructions travel to the patient with the appointment. Turning Active Service off removes it from all three surfaces immediately. Appointments already booked against it are untouched, and its history stays intact — which is why retiring beats deleting. Deletion is blocked outright once a service has been used: “If this service is being used by any appointments, you will not be able to delete it. Consider deactivating it instead.” Editing a price changes new bookings and new invoice lines only. An invoice already raised keeps the amount it was raised with. With options or add-ons, the appointment sheet shows an Option list and Add-ons ticks under the service, and its summary adds each add-on as its own line with the Visit Time and Appointment Total. The appointment keeps the option, the add-ons and their prices as booked; the invoice names the option beside the service and lists each add-on on its own line. A Fee changed at the desk is used, with the standard price kept beside it on the appointment. The visit’s length always comes from the service, its option, its add-ons and the chosen clinician. An appointment booked with options or add-ons keeps its services when edited — cancel and book again to change them. On the booking page, patients see the same options and add-ons, and Online Booking decides who can book the service online and when. Offered times leave room for the buffer, and a clinician’s processing time can take another short visit. Moving an appointment to a time where the clinician is already booked — including the buffer after another visit — is refused with the reason, and nothing moves. A Usual time until the next visit only matters when Rebooking reminders is on in Notifications. Changing it affects visits whose gap is reached from then on; it never sends for visits long past.

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Check it worked

The new service appears in the list with an Active badge, its price in your currency and its duration. Open the appointment sheet and confirm it is selectable and pulls through the right length. If patients should book it themselves, open the Booking page designer and check it is on the page.

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Common issues