Hours, buffer, and time off

Availability comes from more than one setting, and picking the wrong one is the usual reason a slot shows up when it shouldn't.

Which setting you want

Set your timezone before your hours

Your salon's timezone lives under Settings → Business (opens in a new tab), and every hour you enter is read against it. Changing it after you've built a week's schedule reinterprets all of it, so if it's wrong, fix it first.

Blocking out time

Use time off for anything that isn't a client: a dentist appointment, a training day, a week away. It comes out of availability the same way a booking does, so the slot simply stops being offered. You can add it here, or straight from the schedule: click an empty spot and choose Block time off. Holding a block down on the schedule lets you drag it somewhere else or change its length.

How much notice you need

Booking rules (opens in a new tab) carries your lead time — the minimum notice before a slot can be booked online. It's the setting that stops someone booking a full head of colour for twenty minutes from now while you're mid-blowout.

Putting two clients in one slot

Booking from the dashboard ignores all of the above — hours, time off and notice are for the booking page, and you can put a client in at any time you like. The one thing it stops at is a stylist already being busy: you'll be told the time overlaps, and asked whether to book it anyway.

Say yes and both appointments stand, side by side on the schedule. That's the answer when a walk-in can be fitted in while a colour processes, or when one person is covering two chairs. Moving a double-booked appointment later on asks again, since the new time is a new decision.