Turn on appointments (online booking)
Appointments let customers book a time beside your walk-in line. To turn appointment booking on for a location:
- Open Location settings (the settings button at the bottom of your location card on the Locations page).
- Scroll to Appointments and turn it on.
- Choose a slot length: 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. This is the step between bookable start times.
- Set how many days ahead customers can book: 7 to 60 days.
- Set how many parties can book the same slot: 1 to 5.
- Click Save appointment settings.
You can also add cancellation policy text that customers see when they book. If you already use another booking tool, you can set a booking link so customers are sent there instead.
The setup wizard's "How customers join" step also lets you choose walk-ins only, or walk-ins plus appointments.
How customers book an appointment
When appointments are on, customers book from your join page (the QR code or your status page link). They pick a service, a team member (or anyone), and a time slot. Only open slots show: slots are checked against the service's length, the team member's working hours and their blocked time. The booking then appears on the staff screen with the time and party name.
Customers get a confirmation with links to reschedule or cancel on their own. Self-serve cancellation is allowed up to 2 hours before the appointment. Regulars can book a repeating series (weekly, every two weeks, or monthly) of up to 12 visits at once; any slot in the series that's already full is skipped. Cancelling from a series link can cancel that visit and all future ones.
Walk-ins and appointments together
Walk-ins and appointments can run side by side. Walk-ins without a time slot are shown in the order they arrived, separate from booked appointments. When an appointment customer arrives, staff check them in from the staff screen, which adds them to the live line. Staff can also mark an appointment as a no-show or cancel it.
Booked appointments also count in wait estimates: a team member with an appointment coming up isn't treated as free during that time, so walk-in quotes stay realistic.
Appointment reminders and confirmations
NextUp sends a confirmation when someone books, and reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before the appointment, by email and by text. Each confirmation includes a link to reschedule or cancel.
Texting note: NextUp's text messages are still being switched on, so appointment texts may not be going out on your account yet. Email confirmations and reminders go to customers who gave an email address.
You can also set a review request link and a delay after the appointment, so customers are asked for a review after their visit.
Set each person's working hours and block time off
Each team member can have their own weekly hours for taking bookings, and blocked time that closes their booking slots. Open the person's profile from the Staff page to set them.
Blocked time can be a whole day, a range of days, a few hours, or a weekly repeat (for example every Tuesday from 12 to 1) for up to a year. Team members can block their own time, and owners and managers can block anyone's. Blocks show on the desk, and when a customer books "anyone", a time closes only when nobody on the team is free then.
Team members can also connect Google Calendar so their personal events close those slots, and their NextUp appointments sync to their calendar.
No-show protection: deposits and no-show fees
No-show protection lets you require a card on file or a deposit when someone books an appointment. Payment is handled through Stripe Checkout. If the customer doesn't show up, staff charge the no-show fee you set from the appointment, using the card saved at booking. The fee is not charged automatically: staff decide.
Deposits and no-show fees are paid into your own connected Stripe account, less Stripe's processing fee. NextUp takes no cut. To use them you first connect Stripe on the Payouts page, and you can turn each online payment type (tips, deposits, no-show fees, packages, memberships) on or off.