How can we help?
Every feature explained in plain language. What it is, why it helps, and how to use it, written by the team who built Bookatu.
Looking for a quick answer? See the FAQ.
Everything, explained.
Getting started
Your booking page
The public page where clients book you, in seconds.
Why my booking page is not live yet
Publishing needs a confirmed email, and Stripe only when your page takes money online. Here is how to see what is in the way and clear it.
Connecting Stripe for payments
Connect your own Stripe account to take card payments online.
Adding your team
Give staff their own logins and bookable calendars.
Setting your opening hours
Your hours drive both the calendar and what clients can book.
Special dates and public holiday closures
Open on a day you are usually closed, close on a day you are usually open, set holiday hours, or close on every public holiday at once.
Setting up your services
Add what you offer, with a price, duration and category.
Importing your clients
Bring your existing client list with you from another tool.
Using Bookatu on your phone
Run your business, and let clients book, from a phone.
Ask the assistant
Ask about your business in plain words, and let it set changes up for you to confirm.
Installing Bookatu as an app
Add Bookatu to your home screen, with no app store.
Choosing your business type and industry wording
Pick your industry and Bookatu rewords the whole experience to match.
Your business profile, website and social links
Describe your business and link out to your website, Instagram, TikTok and more.
Your first-run setup checklist
A few honest steps from sign-up to a live, bookable storefront.
Finding your way around the admin
A quick tour of the admin navigation and where settings live.
Bookings
Set up automated reminders
Turn on confirmations and reminders to stop forgotten visits.
Fill cancellations automatically with the waitlist
Cancelled slots auto-offer to your next best client.
The calendar
Your whole day at a glance. Drag to reschedule.
Who booked it, booking history and the bookings CSV
See who made each booking or appointment and everything that happened to it, and download your bookings as a spreadsheet.
Deposits
Take a small upfront payment to protect against no-shows.
No-show shield
Charge a deposit only to clients who are a real risk.
Surcharges for public holidays and busy times
Charge more on public holidays or at busy times, shown to clients before they book.
Smart waitlist
Fill cancellations with your most valuable clients first.
Blocking off time
Stop clients booking breaks, holidays or admin time.
Automatic reminders
Cut no-shows with a confirmation and a friendly reminder before every visit.
Cancellations and your cancellation window
Set how much notice you need, and protect deposits on late cancels.
Booking terms clients accept to book online
Add your own terms that clients tick to accept before they book online, and see on each booking when they accepted which version.
Rescheduling a booking
Move an appointment in seconds, by drag or by form.
Managing staff, rooms and chairs
Keep several team members, rooms or chairs booked without clashes.
Time zones and travel
How appointment times are shown so nobody turns up at the wrong hour.
SMS text reminders and the Solo SMS add-on
Send reminders and confirmations by text, not just email, to cut no-shows hardest.
Text confirmations and your own reminder times
Text clients when a booking is made or moved, choose when reminder texts go out, and keep texts out of the night.
Recurring and standing appointments
Lock in a client's next visits at a set rhythm, all from one booking.
Run video appointments with Google Meet
Add a Google Meet link to online bookings, set per service.
Moving or reassigning a booking
Drag a booking to a new time, or move it to another staff member, in a few taps.
Share a private class or clinic link
Keep a class off your public page and share a link so only the people you send it to can book.
Book several services in one visit
Let a client book a colour then a cut as one visit, with one confirmation, one deposit and one checkout.
Set which services can be booked together
Choose which services can share a visit, which can never be booked together, and which extras go with each service.
Book a service that needs two or more people
Set how many of your team a service needs at once, like two stylists on one client or a couples massage.
Book a service that needs a room and equipment
Make one service hold two kinds of resource at once, like a treatment room and a laser.
Let a client swap out of a late cancellation
Quick swap lets a client who can't make it inside your late window offer their time to your waitlist, and leave with no fee if someone takes it.
Clients
Follow up with people who didn't finish booking
See people who started a booking or purchase but didn't finish, and reach out.
Inbox and channels
All your client messages (SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, email) in one place.
AI receptionist and auto-reply
Answers common questions and books clients, even when you are busy.
Intake and consent forms
Have clients fill health or consent forms, and draw their signature, before they arrive.
Ask clients questions while they book
Ask a few short questions when clients book, for one service or for all of them, and see the answers on the booking.
Programs (for trainers and coaches)
Send clients a plan with videos, notes and a checklist.
Client notes and photos
Keep treatment notes, colour formulas, allergies and before/after photos on each client.
Tags for clients and bookings
Label clients and bookings with your own tags, like VIP or Patch test done, then filter by them, spot them on the calendar and email a tagged group.
The client portal
Let clients view their visits and get a receipt, with no password.
Missed-call text-back and callbacks
Never lose a client to a missed call.
Marketing
Add booking to your own website
Paste one line of code to put booking on Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Shopify or any other site.
Automations that run your admin for you
Reminders, win-backs, birthdays and more, sent on autopilot.
Win back clients automatically
Bring quiet clients back on their own, no chasing.
Newsletters
Email offers and updates to clients who opted in.
Retention and win-backs
Automatically nudge clients who are due back.
Reviews and the Google flywheel
Collect reviews and send happy clients to Google.
Referrals
Turn happy clients into a source of new ones.
QR codes (sharing your booking link)
Your booking link, a QR code, and a website widget.
The Discovery network
A free 'find a business near me' page that lists you.
Getting found online
Your booking page is built to rank and to be understood by AI.
Sharing your booking link on Instagram and Google
Put your booking link where clients already are: Instagram, Google, your email signature and a printed QR code.
Get booked from Google, Instagram and Maps
Copy a tagged booking link for Google, Instagram, Facebook, Apple Maps and Bing, and see which one brought each booking.
Promo codes and discounts
Run an offer with a code, or set up a standing discount.
Keeping clients coming back
The simple habits that turn one visit into a regular.
Deals and off-peak offers
Give an automatic discount on your quietest hours.
Local discovery hubs (your city and service pages)
Get listed on shared local pages so new clients in your town find you.
Write blog posts with your own AI
Get a ready prompt for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other AI, paste its answer back, and Bookatu fills in the post for you to check.
Sales
Share photo galleries with your clients
Deliver private photo galleries, let clients pick favourites, and sell extra shots.
Put your menu online and take pickup orders
Show your food menu on your page and let guests order ahead for pickup.
Sell session packs and chase unpaid sessions
Sell blocks of sessions that tick down, and see exactly who owes you.
Gift cards
Sell gift cards online that clients redeem against any service.
Gift card promo codes, resends, reissues and history
Let a promo code take money off gift cards bought online, resend or reissue a card, see what happened to it, and download every card as a CSV.
Packages (prepaid bundles)
Sell 'pay for 5, get 6' style bundles as upfront credit.
Memberships
Recurring monthly plans for steady, predictable income.
Wallet credit and loyalty
How gift cards, packages and points are spent automatically.
Tax and accounting
Track the tax you collect and hand a clean report to your accountant.
Funding to grow
See whether you could be a fit for revenue-based funding.
Getting paid and payouts
How the money your clients pay reaches your bank.
Refunds and cancellation charges
How to give money back, and when a deposit can be kept.
Understanding your insights
The dashboard that shows how your business is really doing.
Selling retail products in your shop
Sell retail and take-home products from your booking site.
Sell and check out at the point of sale
Ring up products and check bookings out on Bookatu's own point of sale, print or email the receipt, and see which devices you can use with it.
Shipping and collect-in-store for product orders
Choose whether each product ships or is collected, and track every order.
Invoice a company that pays by bank transfer
Send a proper invoice to a business — with a reference, terms and your bank details — and tick it off when the transfer lands.
Send a client a payment link
Charge for something outside a booking — a top-up, a product you sold, a session agreed over text — with a link they pay by card.
Set tiered commission and goal bonuses
Pay a higher rate once someone sells more in a pay period, and a fixed bonus when they reach a sales target.
Set up a booth or chair renter
Mark a team member as renting a booth or chair, set their rent, and keep them apart from your employees.
Set pay periods and download payroll
Choose how often you pay your team, then download each pay period's commission, bonuses and tips for your payroll system.
Connect QuickBooks Online
Have each day's sales, tax, tips and deposits posted to QuickBooks Online for you, once Bookatu has switched it on.
Your account
Pay as you go: no monthly fee
Pay 8 dollars per team member, with a small monthly minimum, instead of a subscription.
Your subscription and billing
The free trial, how plans are priced, SMS, annual billing and how to cancel.
Exporting your data
Your data is yours. Take a copy whenever you want.
Privacy requests and data deletion
Client deletion requests in one queue, with a countdown, plus your own full-business export.
Contacting support
How to reach a human, and how to report a problem.
Securing your account: two-factor and team logins
Protect your business with a strong password, two-factor and per-person logins.
Check your security on the Security page
One page that scores how well protected your business is, says what to fix first, and links to every security setting.
Sign people out automatically after inactivity
Sign your team out of your business when they have done nothing for a while, so a screen left open does not stay open.
Sign in with a passkey
Sign in with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, your phone or a security key instead of typing a password.
Remove someone from your team and sign them out
When someone leaves, remove their login, sign them out and close what they set up at your business in one go.
Using your own domain for your booking page
Point a web address you own, like book.yoursalon.com, at your Bookatu booking page.
Set up a daily checklist for your team
Build a daily task list your staff and trainees tick off on their phones. It resets every morning.
Add a trainee who only sees the checklist
Give a junior or apprentice a login that shows only the daily checklist, and nothing else.
Troubleshooting
Developers
Developer API and AI agents (MCP)
Let other software, and AI assistants, read and manage your bookings.
Test mode and sandboxes
Developers can build and test against a sandbox business with bk_test_ keys, where nothing reaches a real client or moves real money.
Check out bookings from another point of sale
Let an outside point of sale, such as Moneris MGR, read what a booking comes to and post the sale back so the booking completes.
Let AI tools read Bookatu's guides
Give ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Perplexity Bookatu's real help and developer docs through llms.txt, markdown copies and a docs MCP server that needs no key.
Manage your blog from an AI tool
Let Claude or any MCP client list, write, edit, publish and unpublish posts on your own storefront blog through the Bookatu MCP server.
Still need a hand?
Every guide ends with a way to reach a human. Drop us a message and we will help.