Bookings are what everything else builds toward. Every service you've created, every client you've added, every walk slot you've set up, they all come together in a booking. This page covers how to create a booking yourself, what happens when a client requests one, and how to manage a booking through its whole life.
To manage bookings: click Bookings in the left-hand menu, or New booking from the dashboard.
Creating a booking · the wizard
Click Create Booking and Barclo walks you through a short wizard. Here's each step:
- Choose a service. Pick what's being booked, Group Walk, Solo Grooming, Dog Boarding, etc. The service type you chose when creating the service determines how the rest of the wizard works.
- Choose a client. Search for the client by name. If they're not in the system yet, create them first (see Clients).
- Choose the pet(s). Select which of the client's pets this booking is for. You can select multiple, pricing adjusts based on your per-pet settings and any multi-pet discount you've set on the service.
- One-off or recurring? Choose whether this is a single booking or one that repeats. Recurring options include weekly, fortnightly, and monthly. Great for the Tuesday/Thursday regular walk.
- Choose the date and time. This step looks different depending on the service type, see below.
- Assign staff (optional). Pick which team member is responsible for this booking.
- Review and confirm. Check the summary (service, client, pets, date/time, and price), then confirm. The booking is created and a confirmation message is automatically sent to the client.
How the date step changes by service type
Timed session (e.g. grooming, training), you pick a date and then a start time from within your working hours. Barclo shows you which slots are free.
Walk-slot service (group walk), you pick a date and then choose from the walk slots available that day (e.g. Morning Walk 09:00 to 11:00, Afternoon Walk 13:00 to 15:00). The slot's current capacity count updates automatically.
Day care, you pick a date. No specific time, just the day.
Overnight stay (boarding), you pick a check-in date and a check-out date. Barclo calculates the number of nights and multiplies by the nightly rate. For example, checking in Friday and out Monday = 3 nights at £35/night = £105.
Flexible visit, you pick a date. Time is noted informally.
One-off vs recurring bookings
One-off, a single appointment. Used for first-time visits, one-off grooming, or ad-hoc boarding stays.
Recurring, the same booking repeats on a set schedule (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly). For example, Bella comes every Tuesday and Thursday for a group walk. You set the pattern once and Barclo generates each occurrence as its own booking record, skipping bank holidays, respecting conflicts, and letting you change or cancel a single occurrence without affecting the rest of the series.
Scenario: Max has his regular Tuesday morning group walk and Thursday solo grooming. You create two recurring bookings, one weekly for Tuesday walks, one fortnightly for Thursday grooming. From then on, those bookings appear on the calendar automatically every week without you having to re-enter them.
Multi-pet bookings
When a client brings two or more pets, select all of them in step 3. The price summary in the review step shows how pricing works out: base price, per-pet multiplier, and any multi-pet discount set on the service. For example:
| Pet | Service | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Kira (1st dog) | Group Walk | £15.00 |
| Mango (2nd dog, 10% multi-pet discount) | Group Walk | £13.50 |
| Total | £28.50 | |
Booking statuses · the lifecycle
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | A booking request from a client that you haven't yet approved. Only appears if you're using Approval required booking mode. |
| Confirmed | The booking is accepted and on your calendar. The client has received a confirmation message. This is the normal state of upcoming bookings. |
| Completed | The service has been delivered. Marking a booking as Completed can trigger automatic invoice creation (if you've set that up in Payments settings). This is the step that kicks off the billing flow. |
| Cancelled | The booking won't go ahead. Your cancellation policy governs any refund. |
| No-show | The client didn't turn up. Your no-show policy governs whether you charge the full amount, charge a custom amount, or waive the charge. Marking a booking as No-show keeps it visible on your records rather than silently cancelling it. |
The completing habit: Get into the routine of marking bookings as Completed at the end of each day. If you've set invoice automation to “When a booking's completed”, this single action generates and sends the invoice, no separate billing step needed.
Editing and cancelling a booking
Open any booking from the bookings list or the calendar. From the booking detail page you can edit the date/time, pets, staff assignment, or price. You can also cancel the booking. Barclo will record the cancellation reason and, if the client paid by card, apply the appropriate refund according to your cancellation policy.