Client self-service cancellations

Every booking confirmation and reminder email includes a Manage Your Booking button (and the default SMS messages include the same link). Tapping it takes the client to a private page where they can see their appointment and, if they're still inside your cancellation window, cancel it themselves without calling or texting you.

You can also disable client self-cancellation entirely if you'd prefer to handle all cancellations yourself.

This article explains what clients see, what you see, and how to set the cancellation rules.

What clients see

The manage page is dead simple. There's no login: each booking has its own private link.

Clients see:

• Date and time of their appointment
• Service(s) and the staff member they're booked with
• Total duration and price
• Your salon's name, address, and phone number (with a tap-to-call button)
• A "Cancel Booking" button, only if online cancellation is turned on and they're still inside the cancellation window
• Their deposit, if they paid one, and what's left to pay at the salon

That's it. No chat, no upsell.

On the free plan there's no reschedule button: to move an appointment, the client cancels the existing one and books a new time on your public booking page. With TimeToBook Plus, clients also see a Change date or time button and can move the appointment themselves, inside the same notice window. See Client self-rescheduling.

The cancellation window

Whether the Cancel button shows up depends on the Cancellation notice you've set for the location. By default it's 24 hours: clients can cancel any time up to 24 hours before the appointment. After that the button disappears and they see a message asking them to contact you instead.

To change the window:

1. Go to Settings → Booking Page.
2. Scroll to Booking Rules and find Cancellation notice.
3. Pick a notice period from the dropdown, or choose Disabled to turn off client self-cancellation completely.
4. Click Save Settings.

The change is live immediately and applies to every upcoming booking, including ones already made. With TimeToBook Plus, the same window also controls how late clients can reschedule.

Which to choose?

• Disabled: clients cannot cancel online at all (or reschedule, with Plus). They'll still see their appointment details, but instead of a Cancel button they see "Online cancellation is not available for this booking. Please contact the salon directly to make any changes." Use this if you want full control over cancellations.
• 2 or 4 hours: generous, lots of last-minute cancellations. Use this if your no-show rate is already low and you'd rather have an empty slot than an angry client.
• 12 hours: overnight buffer. Clients can cancel before bed for a morning appointment, but not on the way to it.
• 24 hours (default): the industry standard. Long enough to text the next person on your waitlist.
• 48 hours: strict. Use for high-value services (colour, extensions, weddings) where rebooking is hard.

What happens after a client cancels

When a client clicks Cancel Booking:

1. They're asked for an optional reason.
2. They confirm.
3. The booking status flips to cancelled.
4. The slot becomes bookable again on your public page.
5. The cancellation reason (and "Cancelled by client on...") gets added to the booking notes, so you have a record.
6. The location's owners and managers, and the staff member the booking was with, get a notification in the bell. Each person also gets an email only if they've ticked Email for Booking Cancelled in Account → Notifications (off by default). There's no SMS alert. The client isn't sent a cancellation email or SMS, unless they paid a deposit (see below).
7. If the booking was a multi-service appointment, all services in the group are cancelled together, because they're treated as one appointment.

If the client paid a deposit

If the booking has a deposit, the client is told what happens to it before they confirm:

• Cancelling before your free cancellation cutoff refunds the deposit to their card automatically.
• Cancelling later than that means you keep the deposit, and they're warned about this first.

Afterwards the page shows whether the deposit was refunded, and the client is emailed to confirm the cancellation and what happened to their deposit. The free cancellation cutoff is set separately from the cancellation notice, in Settings → Payments. See Online payments and deposits.

The cancelled booking stays on your calendar greyed-out so you have a paper trail and accurate stats. To clear it from view, the staff member can delete it from the calendar.

Past the deadline

If a client tries to manage their booking after the cancellation deadline has passed, the page still shows their appointment details, but the Cancel button (and, with Plus, the reschedule option) is replaced with:

The cancellation window for this booking has passed. Please contact the salon directly to make any changes.

This is followed by a tap-to-call button (using your location's phone number from Settings → Location Details). Make sure your phone is filled in or this button won't appear.

Cancelling on behalf of a client

When a client phones to cancel after the deadline, you can still cancel for them from your end:

1. Open the calendar and click their booking.
2. Change the Status dropdown to Cancelled.
3. Save.

This frees up the slot the same way a client cancellation does. The client isn't sent a message about it, so let them know yourself.

Tips

• Tighter isn't always better. A 48-hour window doesn't reduce no-shows on its own. It just shifts them to "didn't bother to cancel".
• Keep your phone number current. The "call the salon" fallback only works if Settings → Location Details has your real phone number.
• Watch the cancellation reasons. Reasons accumulate in the booking notes and on the client profile. If the same client cancels three times in a month, that's a useful pattern.
• Think twice before disabling cancellations entirely. Clients who can't self-cancel are more likely to become no-shows. Self-service cancellation is one of the most effective no-show reducers in TimeToBook: it shifts the cancellation from "vanished" to "I knew about it in time to fill the slot". That said, some salons prefer to manage all cancellations personally, and that's fine too.