Cancellation Fees, No-show Protection, Tips and Peak Prices

Empty chairs cost money. A customer who cancels an hour before, or never shows up, leaves you with a slot nobody else can book. The Payment rules module gives you four tools for that: cancellation fees by notice, no-show protection with a saved card, tips on balance payments, and peak or off-peak prices.

Turn It On

1. Go to Bookings → Settings → Modules, switch on Payment rules and click Save modules.
2. Open Bookings → Settings → Payment rules, set what you need and click Save payment rules.

Saved cards, fees and tips use Stripe, so connect Stripe first. Cancellation tiers and price rules work with any payment method.

Set Cancellation Fees

Under Cancellation fee tiers, add up to five tiers. Each one reads: If cancelled less than this many hours before, keep Fee (% of the booking price). For example, less than 48 hours keeps 50% and less than 12 hours keeps 100%. A shorter notice can never cost less than a longer one.

• The tiers are added to the booking policy on the form and saved with each new paid booking. Changing them later never changes the fee for bookings already made.
• The fee applies only when the customer cancels a confirmed booking. Staff cancellations, declined requests and expired holds never carry a fee.
• When a customer cancels late, the appointment panel shows the Suggested refund and prefills the refund form with it, so you return only what the fee doesn’t keep. See Refunds and Payment Review.
• A gift card used on the booking keeps the same share of the fee automatically.
• If the fee is more than the customer paid (a small deposit, say), the difference becomes the suggested late-cancellation charge for a saved card.

Protect Against No-shows

Turn this on per service: in the service editor, tick No-show protection (Ask customers to save a card so a no-show or late-cancellation fee can be charged). The customer’s booking page then shows Save a card for no-show protection, which opens a secure Stripe form. Add {card_url} to your emails to send the same link.

Under No-show fee on the settings screen, choose Percentage of the booking price or Fixed amount. That’s the amount suggested when you charge. To charge a fee:

1. Mark the appointment no-show, or cancel it, from Manage appointment.
2. On the panel, open Charge a no-show fee or Charge a late-cancellation fee.
3. Check the amount, fill in Reason (shown to the customer) and click Charge fee.

The card is charged right away, without the customer present. A successful charge is added to the timeline and the customer is emailed the amount, card and reason. A declined card, or one that needs the customer to authenticate, isn’t charged; contact the customer. If Stripe’s answer is unclear, the fee stays pending and Check again asks Stripe without charging twice. To return a charged fee, open Refund this fee, add a reason and click Refund fee.

Accept Tips

Tick Let customers add a tip when they pay a remaining balance online and set up to four Suggested tips (%), such as 10, 15, 20. On the booking page the customer sees Add a tip (optional) with those percentages of the balance, or can type their own amount up to the balance itself.

The tip is a separate line on the Stripe checkout and is recorded apart from the booking price. It shows on the booking page, the appointment panel and the balance receipt, and it isn’t refunded with the booking.

Charge Peak or Off-peak Prices

Under Peak and off-peak prices, add up to ten rules. Each rule has weekdays, a From and until time in the site timezone, a Change as a Percent or an Amount per seat, an optional Label shown to customers and Services (none selected means all). Use a minus sign for a discount, such as -10 for 10% off.

• Percent changes go up to 300% more or 90% less.
• The first matching rule applies, and the price preview includes it once the customer picks a time.
• Rescheduling keeps the price that was paid.
• Leave a rule’s times empty to remove it.

Limits

• Saving a card is requested, not enforced. The booking stands without it, so say how fees work in your booking policy.
• Fees are only ever charged by a manager, with a reason. Nothing is charged automatically.
• There’s no customer-facing page yet for approving a fee that their bank wants them to authenticate. Contact the customer instead.
• Tips aren’t offered with FluentCart checkout.
• A price rule that would leave between 0.01 and 0.49 to pay online is skipped, and the regular price applies.
• Only the card brand, last four digits, expiry and Stripe references are stored on your site, never card numbers.