Taking and filling bookings
Making a booking, filling an open shift fast, what the travel buffer does, and how to cancel without losing the charge.
Making one
Bookings → New. Client, date, time, who is going. Two things happen as you save it.
It checks for a clash. Somebody already booked at that hour, or outside the days they told you they are free, is flagged before you save rather than after you have told the client.
It prices it. The rate comes from your rate card, plus whichever uplifts you switched on for evenings, weekends, bank holidays, distance or experience. You can see the breakdown on the booking, which matters when a client asks why one Tuesday cost more than another.
Filling a shift nobody is on yet
Open the booking and use Broadcast. Everybody who is free and suitable is offered it at once, by email and as a notification on their phone, and the first to accept gets it. You do not chase anybody.
If you would rather choose, Suggestions ranks who to ask by availability, distance, history with that client and current workload, and tells you why each person is on the list.
Travel between visits
Settings → Bookings → Travel time between visits. If your staff drive between jobs, set this to the realistic figure, usually 30 to 40 minutes.
Once it is set, somebody finishing at 10:00 across town is not offered a 10:15 start. It starts at zero, which is right for live-in placements and wrong for anybody with a car, so it is worth setting on your first day.
Repeating work
Set a booking to repeat and the rest are generated for you, overnight, a few weeks ahead. Editing one asks whether you mean just that one or all the future ones.
Cancelling
Cancelling is not in the status list, on purpose. Use Cancel booking on the booking page, which asks what to charge: the whole visit, a set number of hours, or nothing, with a reason.
It asks every time because whether you charge a late cancellation is a conversation with that family, not a rule. You can set a default in Settings → Bookings so the figure is already filled in, and you can still waive it.
If the client has prepaid hours, the charge comes off that balance. If they do not, it is recorded on the booking for you to invoice.