Appointment Book

The Appointment Book is the day-to-day calendar used to manage bookings, staff time, customer appointments, and the hand-off into Point of Sale.

When you log in you will arrive to the Appointment Book however at any other time you can return by selecting Appointments from the main navigation menu.

The Appointment Book shows one day at a time. Staff appear as columns, based on their roster for the selected day. If a staff member is rostered with two appointment book columns, they will appear twice, usually as Column 1 and Column 2.

Use the date picker on the right to move between days. The side panel also includes quick actions for:

• Sell

• New Customer

• Clock In/Out

If no staff are rostered for the selected day, Pointa will show No staff today.

How the Appointment Book Works

The Appointment Book is built from staff rosters.

A staff member will normally appear on the Appointment Book when they have a roster for that day. Rostered-off time is shown as blocked-out time before or after their rostered hours.

Best practice is to keep staff rosters accurate. This makes the Appointment Book cleaner, helps prevent bookings being placed at the wrong time, and supports Online Bookings.

See the Rosters section for more detail on creating rosters, temporary rosters, leave, and online availability.

Creating a Booking

To create a booking:

1. Go to Appointments.

2. Select the correct date.

3. Click or tap an available time under the correct staff member. If operating from a mobile device, long hold on the appropriate slot time to bring up the booking window.

4. Complete the booking details.

5. Click Save.

New bookings default to Customer Booking.

For a customer booking, select or create the customer, then add the required services or package. Pointa will use the selected service durations and booking gaps to calculate the finish time.

If there are no services on the booking, the finish time can be adjusted manually. Once services are added, Pointa calculates the finish time from the services.

Booking Types

Pointa supports different booking types:

• Customer Booking
  Used for normal customer appointments. Requires a customer and allows services or packages to be added.

• Off
  Used to block time where a staff member is not available.

• Lunch
  Used to block a lunch break.

• Meeting
  Used for meetings. A name, mobile, and email can be entered if required.

• Leave
  Used to block leave time.

• Other
  Used for general non-customer time blocks.

Customer bookings are the only booking type that use services/packages and can be completed through POS.

Adding Services and Packages

On a customer booking, use the Services field to search for and add a service or package.

Packages appear with the package icon and expand into their included services. This is useful for multi-step appointments such as colour packages, foil packages, or treatment bundles.

Best practice is to use packages for grouped services. For example, if a customer needs foils, toner, haircut, and blow-dry, use a package rather than having the staff member manually select each service in the correct order every time.

Packages help Pointa calculate the correct timing and keep bookings consistent.

See Products and Services for setting up services, booking durations, booking gaps, staff restrictions, and packages.

Assigning Staff to Services

The main staff member is selected in the Staff field.

For bookings with services, each service can also have its own assigned staff member. This is useful where different staff perform different parts of the appointment.

To change the assigned staff member for a service, use the staff button beside that service.

If a staff member is not normally able to perform a selected service, Pointa may show a warning. You can choose whether to continue, but best practice is to keep service staff restrictions accurate so warnings are meaningful.

Editing a Booking

To edit a booking:

1. Click the booking on the Appointment Book.

2. Click Edit.

3. Make the required changes.

4. Click Save.

Bookings in the past cannot be edited.

If a sale has already been completed for the booking, take care before changing services or staff assignments. Pointa may warn you because changing a completed appointment can affect the sale history and staff attribution.

Moving or Resizing a Booking

Bookings can be moved by dragging them to a new time or staff column. Pointa will update the booking when it is dropped into the new position.

To change a booking's duration, hover over the bottom edge of the booking until the resize cursor appears, then click and drag the end of the booking up or down to shorten or extend the finish time, where appropriate.

Pointa will prevent or warn about some changes, including:

• Moving a booking to a staff member who is not rostered that day

• Moving a booking to a staff member who cannot perform the booked services

• Changing staff after the sale has already been completed

• Creating conflicts or overlaps

• Booking outside rostered or business hours, depending on settings

Past bookings cannot be dragged or resized.

Booking Conflicts and Roster Warnings

Pointa checks bookings against rostered hours and existing bookings.

If a booking overlaps another booking, Pointa may show a conflict warning. In some cases, Pointa may offer to shorten the booking so it no longer overlaps.

If a booking is outside the staff member’s rostered hours, Pointa may block the booking or ask whether you want to continue. This depends on the Appointment Book settings.

The setting is found at:

Settings > Appointment Book > Allow booking outside rostered hours

Best practice is to keep this off unless the business intentionally allows staff to be booked outside their roster. If it is turned on, staff may be able to override roster warnings.

Booking Details

Clicking a booking opens the booking details window.

Depending on the booking, this may show:

• Customer

• Staff member

• Phone number

• Email address

• Date and time

• Services

• Notes

• Deposit paid

• Linked sale

• Booking status icons

If SMS is enabled, a message button may appear beside the customer phone number.

For customer bookings, the customer menu can be used to:

• Edit Customer

• View Records

See Customers for more detail on customer records and history.

Completing a Sale from a Booking

Best practice is to start the sale from the Appointment Book.

To complete a sale:

1. Click the booking.

2. Click Complete Sale.

3. Review the loaded customer, services, and products.

4. Take payment.

5. Click Complete Sale in POS.

This is the preferred workflow because the customer and booked services are loaded into POS automatically.

See Point of Sale for the full sales process.

Cancelling a Booking

To cancel a booking:

1. Click the booking.

2. Open the more menu.

3. Choose Cancel.

4. Confirm the cancellation.

A booking cannot be cancelled from this menu once a sale has been completed.

If an online booking is cancelled where a deposit has been paid, the value of the deposit will be added to the customer’s account to go towards a future booking.

Rebooking and Replicating

From the booking details more menu, Pointa provides:

• Rebook
  Used to create the customer’s next appointment a set number of weeks ahead.

• Replicate
  Used to copy the booking details into a new booking.

Rebook is useful for repeat appointments, such as rebooking a customer in 4, 6, or 8 weeks.

Replicate is useful when you want to copy the structure of the booking but choose the date and time yourself.

Pencil Bookings

If Online Bookings are configured to use pencil bookings, an online booking may need to be confirmed by the business before it becomes a normal confirmed booking.

Pencil bookings show with a pencil icon on the appointment book and you will receive a notification in the top panel when the booking is made.

To confirm a pencil booking:

1. Click the booking.

2. Click Confirm.

3. Confirm the action.

To learn more on pencil bookings visit here.

Booking Colours and Icons

Bookings may display icons to help staff quickly understand their status.

Common icons include:

• Online booking in progress

• Pencil booking

• Customer confirmed

• Booked online

• Deposit paid

• Sale completed

• Notes

• VIP customer

Booking colours can also be customised. Colours can be changed manually from the booking's More menu, or automatically assigned based on the service type. For more information, see Creating a Service.

If enabled, Pointa can also automatically change a booking to grey once it has been paid.

To enable this setting, go to:

Settings > Appointment Book > Change colour when paid

Appointment Book Settings

Appointment Book settings are found at:

Settings > Appointment Book

Common settings include:

• Slot interval
  Controls the calendar grid interval, such as 5, 10, or 15 minutes. This is administrator-only.

• Time format
  Choose 12-hour or 24-hour time.

• Change colour when paid
  Changes a paid booking to grey.

• Show start time
  Displays the booking start time directly on the booking.

• Allow booking outside rostered hours
  Allows staff to override roster warnings in some cases.

• Default start and finish times
  Used as default roster times.

• Staff order
  Controls the order staff appear on the Appointment Book. If staff have not been set up yet, there may be nothing to drag into order.