thread Re: Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem in Appointments & Bookings

Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem

Lehi33 — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:14:57 GMT

I own a skin and wellness center and offer services that require clients to do a single booking that incorporates multiple appointments from multiple staff members.

The ability to book consecutively available times between calendars works great in square, however, any block/buffer time set for the services is no longer applied which is a big problem.

Example: Client books an Infusion facial that includes a light therapy session right afterwards, and also wants to add-on a dermaplane.

Dermaplaning and Infusions are performed by a skin therapist, and light therapy is done in a separate room with equipment so these are two different bookable calendars

Infusion is a 1hrservice with a 45min buffer

Dermaplane is a 30 min add-on, always done prior to another service so there is no buffer

Light Therapy is 30 min and always done after the service and needs a 15 min buffer

Square coordinates to schedule the client for dermaplane and Infusion with skin therapist for 1.5hrs and book them with light panel right afterwards, for a total of 2 hour appointment time - which is accurate.

The problem is the skin therapist is no longer showing the 45 min buffer she needs after the Infusion so now anyone can book during the buffer time

If a Client is booked from 1-2:30 with therapist Marlene, and from 2:30-3:00 with light panel, then Marlene should be blocked until 3:15 before her next appt can schedule, but she is open at 2:30

How can I preserve the buffer times set for each service? If I change the length of the Infusion to include the extra time, then clients have a 45 min wait until they are booked for light therapy and the appt is now 2hr and 45min long

It doesn't make sense because these are two different staff calendars so why would a client have to wait to be scheduled with light therapy until after Marlenes buffer time? Or, why does Marlene lose her buffer time just because a client is also doing a service with Light Therapy afterwards?

Hopefully this makes sense and there is a solution!

Re: Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem

JJ_ — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 23:55:32 GMT

Hello there @Lehi33 and welcome to the Seller Community

This sounds like a good question for our Appointments team.

They will be able to understand your business needs and point you in the right direction. Please reach out by phone or email when you have a moment by logging into your Square account and heading here.

Re: Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem

Bronze_Palms — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 21:03:09 GMT

Commenting to follow this because I have been seeing the same!

Re: Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem

Lehi33 — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 22:25:52 GMT

This issue still has not been resolved. Why is Square taking the buffer time of one staff member and applying it to a different staff member?

Example: client schedules a facial + massage from 9-11am.

Staff Mary performs the facial from 9-10am + 30 min buffer.

Staff Jenny performs the massage from 10-11am + 30 min buffer.

In square it is setup so Mary = Facial 1hr & Jenny = massage 1hr, and both services are setup with a 30 minute buffer.

However, what actually happens is Mary gets booked from 9-10 and completely loses her buffer so now she is available to book at 10am. Jenny is booked from 10-11 but is now unavailable for another booking until 12pm.

Mary will not be ready at 10am so that will cause issues, and poor Jenny has an entire hour blocked off for no reason.

Seems like a weird glitch. Why would Square take the timing information of one service/staff and apply it to a different service and staff? This is a huge problem and I can't believe it hasn't been addressed.

Re: Multiple Service Appointment Buffer Time Problem

Lou8 — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 11:05:00 GMT

Hi @Lehi33, thanks for following up on this.

I wasn't able to recreate this behavior on my own account. Have you contacted our support team about this already ? If not, I invite you to do so by email or phone. They'll be able to take a closer look at your account and settings, and escalate to our engineering team if necessary.

Thanks for your patience.