Why unconfirmed bookings are declined automatically

A “New” booking holds its time only until a deadline: by default 60 minutes before the start, or 20 minutes after it if the booking was made later. Then it becomes “Declined” and the time is free again. Change the deadlines in the CRM: “Workspace” → “Rules”.

The owner and staff with “Full access” can change the deadlines.

How it works

• The rule covers every booking with the status “New” — both online bookings with manual approval and bookings created in the CRM calendar: a new CRM booking starts as “New” too.
• If nobody confirms the booking, 60 minutes before the start it becomes “Declined”, and its time is free to book again.
• If the client booked later than that deadline, the booking waits until 20 minutes after the visit starts.
• The CRM’s own example: a 14:00 visit booked in advance is declined at 13:00 if nobody confirms it; a visit booked at 12:00 for 13:00 is declined at 13:20.
• The booking’s “Activity” shows “not confirmed in time, declined automatically”, by “System”.
• If the booking was paid, a refund appears in “Finance”.
• “Confirmed”, “Booked” and “Completed” bookings are never touched.

A staff member with their own CRM sign-in gets the bell notification “Booking declined automatically: it was not confirmed in time”. The client gets a cancellation message if “Cancellation notice” is on in the widget settings.

How to do it: change the deadlines or turn the rule off

1. In the CRM, open “Workspace” → “Rules”.
2. Under “Built-in rules”, find “Booking status timeout”.
3. Enter “Minutes before the start” and “Minutes after the start” — whole numbers from 0 to 1440. The CRM shows an example with your numbers right under the fields.
4. Click “Save”.

To stop “New” bookings from being declined, switch the rule off with its “On” toggle or set both numbers to 0. A 0 in just one field moves that deadline to the very start of the visit.

The simplest way to avoid auto-decline is to confirm bookings right away: open the booking and change its status to “Confirmed”.

On your phone

Tap “More” in the bottom bar → “Workspace” → “Rules”. The rest is the same.

If something goes wrong

A booking was declined, but the client is coming

An auto-declined booking stays in the calendar, but its time is already free. Open the booking and change the status to “Confirmed”. If someone else has been booked for that time, the CRM won’t save it — pick another time. On Basic, a booking brought back counts towards the 30 bookings a month.

“Enter whole minutes from 0 to 1440.”

The field holds something other than a whole number, or a number out of range. Type the minutes as digits with no fractions, from 0 to 1440 (1440 minutes is a full day).

I can’t see “Rules”

Only the owner and staff with “Full access” can open “Rules”. Ask the salon owner to change the deadlines.

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• Booking statuses and payment statuses
• Booking widget: services, specialists, fields and confirmation
• How a client books online and what they see
• The notification bell: what arrives and turning on sound
• Your booking request hasn’t been confirmed (for clients)