Booking & Scheduling
Run, reschedule or cancel a visit
Everything you do to one visit happens on that visit's page: start it, end it, move it, or call it off. Chester tells your client about each change and shows you any fee before it's charged.
The short version
- Open the visit from your schedule.
- Start and end it on your phone, or mark it complete on the web.
- To change it, use Reschedule, Mark no-show or Cancel Booking.
On your phone
- Tap the Schedule tab and tap the visit.
- Start it: tap the Start button, for example Start Walk.
- More than an hour early, Chester asks first, because starting tells your client it has begun.
- End it: tap the End button, for example End Walk, and confirm.
- The report card opens next.
- Move it: open Manage this walk (or groom, stay, visit), tap Reschedule, pick the New date & time, and tap Save New Time.
- No-show: tap Mark no-show and confirm.
- Chester shows any fee first.
- Cancel it: open Cancel options, tap Cancel Booking, add a reason if you like, and tap Cancel Booking again.
On the web
- Open your Schedule, click the visit, then View full details.
- Finish it: click Mark Complete once the visit is done.
- The web has no start or end button, and no live timer or GPS. Use your phone for those.
- Move it: open Manage this walk (or groom, stay, visit), click Reschedule, pick a date and time, and click Save new time.
- For a visit priced per night or per hour that isn't invoiced yet, Chester shows the new total before you save.
- No-show: click Mark No-Show and confirm.
- Cancel it: open Cancel options, click Cancel Booking, check the fee, and click Confirm Cancel.
Fees when you cancel
- You cancel, no fee. When you cancel, the client isn't charged.
- The client asked to cancel late? Tick "The client requested this cancellation - apply the..." fee. Chester shows the amount, and on the web also how it worked it out.
- Fees use the policy the visit was booked under, even if you've changed your policy since.
- A fee goes on a draft invoice. Review and send it from your invoices, or waive it.
- Waive a fee: on the cancelled or no-show visit, tap Waive Fee, add a reason, and tap Confirm Waive. The invoice is cancelled, so the client no longer owes it.
- Already paid? You can't waive it. Someone with billing access can tap Refund fee instead.
- A visit paid with a pack credit gets the credit back when you cancel. A no-show uses the credit, with no extra fee.
What your client gets
- Start: a push saying the visit has started.
- Reschedule: a push with the new time, or an email if they don't have the app.
- Cancel: a push, plus an email when a fee applies or if they don't have the app.
- No-show: a push and an email.
- Waived fee: a notice that it was waived.
- These follow the client's booking change notification settings. When a fee is involved, they get the email even if they also got the push, unless they turned booking change emails off.
Good to know
- No-shows open at the start time. Before then, cancel instead. A stay can be marked a no-show only on its check-in day.
- Moving or cancelling changes this visit only. The rest of a repeating series stays as it is.
- To stop a whole series, tap Cancel All Future Walks. It cancels every upcoming visit with no fee.
- A visit on a group walk moves with the whole walk. Use Reschedule Whole Group (phone) or Reschedule Whole Walk (web).
- Who can do what. Cancelling, no-shows and waiving fees need Cancel bookings. Moving a visit needs Create bookings. You can always cancel a single visit you booked yourself.
- Got there but couldn't get in? Record it as "Couldn't get in" instead of a no-show. See Record a visit you couldn't get into.
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