How Bookings Reach the Salon

This page explains how an online booking reaches your schedule: the five steps the customer completes, what checkout verifies before anything is saved, and what information the finished booking carries. This page summarizes the Appointment Operations Policy, which governs.

The five steps the customer sees

Every appointment on your schedule arrives through the same online booking flow.

1. The pet. The customer enters the pet's name, breed from the breed list, birth date, and weight in pounds. Weight is the pricing key. Weight converts to a size tier: Small, Medium, Large, or X-Large: and every package price is stored per tier, with a separate member price for Bath Club members. The same package at two different tiers is two different prices by design.
2. The service menu. The menu loads in a single view: breeds, packages with all tier prices, premium treatments (one per appointment at most), flat-priced add-ons, the salon's tax rate, the location card, and the location's deposit rule. The customer sees rendered prices, and the server verifies every number again at checkout. If a customer says the site showed one price and checkout shows another, the checkout repricing is the authority; the menu prices were display values.
3. The slot. The customer picks a date and time from the availability check. See Schedule, Slots and Availability.
4. Extras. The customer may add a promo code or Perks points. Both are validated on the server.
5. Payment choice. The customer pays in full, or pays the deposit now and the balance at the salon. The deposit is never a fixed amount for all locations. It is the location's rule from Booking Rules settings: a toggle, a flat amount, or a percentage of the total. If no rule is set, no deposit is charged and the flow does not offer one. Deposits are governed by the Deposit & Prepayment Policy (Deposit and Prepayment), which governs.

What checkout verifies

When the customer confirms, checkout completes the following before the booking is treated as confirmed

1. Sign-in check. No one books anonymously. If the session has expired, the flow pauses with a prompt to sign back in. The booking is not lost.
2. Repricing. The server reprices the entire booking from the current service catalog at the customer's size tier, and at the member price if the customer is an active Bath Club member. Prices sent from the customer's browser are ignored for payment.
3. Promo and points check. The promo code is validated again against the actual booking. Perks points are checked against the customer's balance; if the customer does not hold the points claimed, checkout rejects the claim and shows the actual balance.
4. Slot recheck. Availability is checked again at the moment the booking is written. If two customers seek the same slot, the first completed booking takes it and the second customer is told the slot was just taken and asked to pick another time.
5. Records. The customer record is found or created by email and the account link is refreshed so the customer portal finds the customer. The dog is created or updated against that customer. The booking is created with status Pending Payment, carrying the full priced details: items, subtotal, tax, total, deposit amount, balance due, and payment mode.
6. Customer-record update. Customer records update automatically in the background. An update delay never blocks a booking.
7. Payment. A payment session is issued for the full total or for the deposit. Completed payment changes the booking to Confirmed. Payment confirmation is processed once, so a repeated confirmation does not create a second charge.

Two cases to know

• If payment is not configured, the booking still exists and the portal shows its pending state honestly. The salon confirms payment in person.
• If the location charges no deposit, there is no payment session at booking. The booking stands and the balance is settled at the salon.

What lands on your schedule

The booking you see carries: owner name, dog name, breed, weight, size tier, service package name, date, time, notes, phone, email, service price, deposit amount, balance due, payment status such as Unpaid or Deposit Paid, and the assigned groomer.

Common questions at the counter

• Balance due higher than expected after a deposit was paid. A promo or points adjustment is usually reconciled after redemption, and the booking record is rewritten to the actual redemption. See Pricing, Surcharges, Deposits and Discounts.
• Booking stuck in Pending Payment with no payment session. The payment step never completed. The slot is held but the money has not been received. Do not treat the booking as confirmed until its status changes.

Booking integrity and record requirements are governed by the Appointment Operations Policy, which governs.