Getting Started

This guide takes you from an empty account to the point where a client can book you on their own and you see that booking in your calendar. It is about an hour of work, and most of it is not configuration but decisions: what to call your services, how long they really take, and when you are willing to take clients.

The order of the steps is not arbitrary. Each one builds on the last, so if you follow them in sequence, nothing has to be redone.

What Bookly is made of

Before configuring anything, it helps to see which parts depend on which — then it becomes obvious why the schedule follows the services and not the other way round.

Four parts you will use every day:

• The booking page — what the client sees: your name, services, free time and the form;
• The calendar — every visit, break and blocked hour; the single source of truth about your workload;
• The client base — cards with contacts, visit history and your own notes;
• Payments — if you take money up front or want the client to pay while booking.

The booking page only shows what the calendar allows, and the calendar works out free time from how long each service takes. So setup always runs one way: services first, then hours, then everything else.

Step 1. The account and the basics

Registration needs nothing but an email address. Use one you actually read: booking notifications, cancellations and important account mail all go there. Once the code is confirmed your workspace exists, and everything else happens inside it.

The time zone is the most important field on day one

Every booking, reminder and report is calculated from the account time zone. Get it wrong and the client sees the wrong slots and the reminder arrives at the wrong hour. It is the most common reason someone turns up an hour early — and the easiest thing to fix while there are no bookings yet.

Language and currency

The language decides what the client sees on the page and in the confirmation. The currency decides how prices look in your list and in reports. Set both before you add services, so you do not rewrite prices afterwards.

Step 2. The profile a client sees

Your profile is the first thing that opens behind your link. A stranger has a few seconds to work out who you are, what you do and whether you are worth trusting. Three fields decide almost all of it: name, photo and one line of description.

The photo

Use a real photo — of you or of your work. A logo on a white square looks neutral but tells a first-time client nothing. If you work from a room, a photo of the space works too: it answers the unspoken question of where they will be arriving.

The line about you

Specifics beat generalities. “Brow artist, Lviv city centre” or “manicure and pedicure, child seat available” gives a client more than “quality services at affordable prices”. The description should answer two things: what exactly you do, and where.

Check the profile through a stranger’s eyes: open the page in a private browser window. If five seconds are not enough to tell what you do, simplify it rather than adding to it.

Step 3. Services

Services are your price list and the backbone of your schedule at the same time. They decide which slots the system offers, so every field here has a practical consequence.

The name

Name services the way clients name them, not the way they appear on an invoice or in a professional catalogue. People look for “a haircut” and “colour”, not for “a technological colour-change procedure”. An unclear name either leaves a question in your inbox or loses the booking.

Duration — including preparation

Give the honest time: not just the treatment, but preparation, cleanup and the client getting ready. If a haircut takes 45 minutes and you enter 30, every other booking starts pushing the next one, and by the end of the day you are an hour behind.

Where the time varies noticeably between clients, take the upper bound. Finishing early is pleasant; keeping the next person waiting is not.

The price

A price on the page answers the most common question and filters out people you are not affordable for — before they take a slot. If it depends on hair length or complexity, give a range or a “from”, and explain underneath what it depends on.

How many services to start with

Three to five, the ones you do most. They cover most bookings and give you a working page today rather than over the weekend. Add the rest of the list when it is genuinely needed — and you will do it faster, because by then you will understand how the slots behave.

Step 4. The schedule

The schedule decides what can be offered at all. Anything not blocked is treated as free, so it matters more to block carefully than to open generously.

Hours per weekday

Set hours for each day separately rather than one template for the week. Almost everyone’s week is uneven: a short Friday, a long Thursday, every other Saturday. One template means you either lose hours or decline people later.

Breaks

Lunch, travel between locations, cleanup after a long treatment — block these explicitly. A slot that would overlap a break is never offered, so you never decline it by hand. A break that exists only in your head will eventually be sold to a client.

How far ahead

Decide how far in advance people can book and how close to the visit a booking is still accepted. Too short a horizon makes planning impossible; too long invites cancellations because plans changed. For most services two to four weeks ahead is sensible.

Step 5. The link and the first test

With one service and your hours in place, you already have a working link. Put it where people already look at you: your social profile, your message signature, your reply to “how much is it”. It is one address that works in a chat, on a card and in a QR code by the till.

Before you share it, walk the whole path yourself: open the page in a private window, pick a service and a time, leave your contacts and wait for the confirmation. That minute shows everything — which slots appear, what the message says, whether the price is right. Then cancel the test booking.

Your first week

The first week is for watching, not for settings. See which slots go first, where people stop halfway, which questions still arrive in your inbox. That is your list of what to fix — as opposed to guessing.

Three habits worth starting immediately:

• enter the people who book by phone into the calendar;
• block time in advance instead of declining later;
• once a week, look at which services are booked most.

While part of your visits lives outside the system, the page will keep selling hours that are already taken — and the double booking will not be the client’s fault.

What next

Once booking works, take the guides in order: “Your first online booking” goes deeper into what you have just done, then the client base, the calendar, your team and payments. Each continues the last and needs nothing beyond what is already set up.