Booking Rules decide what a patient may do with a booked appointment without phoning reception: whether they may change the date, how many hours in advance, how many times, and what happens when they cancel too late.
The rules are separate for every practitioner, not shared across the practice. You set them on your own settings page — an administrator, too, sets only their own there. To change a colleague's rules, ask that person to do it on their side.
How to do it
Find the Booking Rules card
In Settings scroll to the Booking Rules card. Only someone who sees patients has it — a reception account does not, because it has no appointment calendar of its own.
Set the rescheduling rules
The Rescheduling section has three variants: Always, With approval (the request goes to the team and waits for a decision), Never.
On top of that a Minimum notice — a number of hours before appointment or No deadline — and a Maximum reschedules (Unlimited or a specific number of times max).
Set the cancellation rules
Allow patients to cancel turns the whole possibility on or off. If it is on, set the Minimum notice and the Late cancellation action:
- Allow free — the cancellation goes through, nothing happens.
- Block — the patient cannot cancel themselves, they have to call.
- Partial refund — with a Refund percentage (%) field.
- No refund.
Set what happens on a no-show
The No-Show section has a No-show action: No refund, Partial refund or Charge fee together with a No-show fee amount.
Add your own message and check the patient view
Add custom message lets you type your own text, which the person trying to reschedule or cancel will see — separately for each of the two situations.
The Patient View section shows, live, the sentences assembled from your settings, for example Must reschedule at least 24 h before the appointment. or 50% refund for late cancellations. Read them before saving — this is exactly the text that will reach the patient.
You finish with the Save Rules button; the confirmation reads Booking rules saved.
When something goes wrong
Unsaved changes
What this means: The form has changes that have not been saved yet.
Cannot cancel within 24 hours of the appointment.
What this means: The patient is trying to cancel after the configured notice has passed, and the late cancellation action is **Block**.
This appointment cannot be cancelled.
What this means: The appointment has a status that can no longer be cancelled — it is completed or already cancelled.
Who has access
Practitioner Clinic AdminAnyone who sees patients has the card — practitioner, administrator and owner. A practitioner can change only their own rules — an attempt to reach somebody else's ends in a refusal on the server side. Reception and read-only accounts do not have this card.
Related
- Online booking — where the patient meets these rules.
- Appointment list — marking no-shows and cancelling from the team's side.
- Payments — where you actually settle the no-show fee.
Related features
Adding an appointment
How to book a patient: click an empty spot on the calendar, or use the New Appointment button. What the warnings about a busy slot and about working hours mean.
Appointment list — filters, printing and bulk actions
The table view of the calendar: narrowing by status, payment and visit card, CSV export, reminders and no-shows marked in bulk, printing a day or a week.
Online booking from the portal
How a patient books a visit from the Patient Portal — a four-step wizard, instant booking versus a request, online payment, the waitlist, and rescheduling or cancelling.
Payments — the day's till
The reception screen for one working day: how much has been taken, who is sitting in the waiting room with an unpaid visit, what is outstanding, and how much cash is in the drawer at shift close.