Rescheduling, cancelling and no-shows

Use Sidebar → Calendar → Facility Calendar or Sidebar → Appointments → All Appointments. Both open the same appointment. The calendar is faster for moving one. The list is faster for finding one, including cancelled ones.

Rescheduling

Either:

• Drag it. In day or week view, drag the block to its new time. In day view you can drop it on another groomer's column too.
• Edit it. Open the appointment, change the date, time or groomer, and press Save Changes.

The same booking checks run as when you first booked. If the groomer is full or off, you'll be stopped, or asked to confirm a double-book if you're allowed. See Creating a new appointment.

Two things to know:

• Moving is not cancel-and-rebook. The appointment keeps its history, notes, payments and place in a series. Move it rather than making a new one.
• Reminders already sent are not sent again. Each reminder goes out once per appointment. If you move a booking after its 24-hour reminder went out, tell the client yourself.

Booked the wrong dog? While the appointment is still open, edit it and switch the pet. You don't need to cancel it.

Cancelling

1. Open the appointment and press Cancel. On the calendar, right-click the block and choose Cancel Appointment….
2. Pick a reason, add detail if you want, and confirm.

The slot frees up right away. The booking stays on record as Cancelled. It is not deleted, so reports still show it. Cancelled appointments don't show on the calendar grid.

After you cancel:

• The client gets a cancellation email, unless they opted out or you turned it off under Sidebar → Business Settings → Customer Notifications.
• Alaga offers the slot to the next person on the waitlist for that day. See Using the waitlist.

Cancelled the wrong one? Press Reinstate to bring it back as Confirmed. See Appointment statuses.

Clients can't cancel appointments online themselves. In their portal they send a change request with a note, and you make the change.

Cancellation fees

Set your policy under Sidebar → Business Settings → Payment Settings → Booking Policies → Cancellation Policy:

• Enable Cancellation Fees on or off
• Cancellation Window (hours before check-in) — cancelling inside this window counts as late
• Fee Type — a flat fee, a percentage of the booking, or one night's stay

What Alaga does with it:

• Boarding and daycare. When a client cancels a reservation from their portal inside the window, the fee is worked out and recorded for you.
• Appointments. The policy is shown to clients when they book online, but no fee is charged automatically. If you want to charge a late-cancel fee, add it yourself, for example as a charge on an invoice.

No-shows

Automatic no-shows are off unless you turn them on. An owner or manager can switch them on under Business Settings → Payment Settings → Booking Policies → Automatic No-Shows and choose how long to wait after the appointment ends (30 minutes to 24 hours, 2 hours by default).

When they're on, an appointment still marked Confirmed after that wait becomes No Show only if nothing shows the pet was there. Alaga skips it if it was started, completed or paid, has photos, is linked to a checked-in stay, the pet or another pet of the client is checked in for a stay, another pet in the same family visit was started or completed, or someone already pressed Undo No-Show. Appointments from before you switched it on, and Pending appointments, are never changed. The client may get a follow-up email, which you can turn off with Follow-up emails under Notifications. See Appointment statuses, cancellations and no-shows.

It's still worth clearing the day at closing. Start or complete every dog that came.

To mark one yourself:

• On the calendar, right-click the block and choose Mark No-Show, or
• Edit the appointment and set Status to No Show.

To fix a mistake:

• Undo No-Show puts it back to Confirmed.
• Reclassify as No-Show turns a cancellation into a no-show, when the client really just didn't come.

These need the Undo status changes permission (owners, managers and front desk have it by default).

Repeat no-shows can be made to pay a deposit before their next booking. See Deposits for repeat no-shows.

What each status means

Status	Means
Pending	Booked but not confirmed yet. Online requests start here.
Confirmed	Going ahead. Shows as Scheduled on the calendar.
In Progress	The pet is with you now.
Completed	Done. This is what counts as delivered work.
Cancelled	Called off, by either side.
No Show	The client didn't come.

Only Completed appointments count as delivered work. If a day's revenue looks low, the usual cause is visits that were never completed.

Recurring appointments

Cancelling one visit in a series only cancels that one. To cancel the rest, use the Series button. See Recurring and standing appointments.