Can you set the appointments program to make people pay to book?

[tlowther]

I am trying to see if appointments would work for my students to book my classes. Any tips? can i set it so they have to pay during the booking process? can I set a time where multiple people can book the same time slot?

[Chad]

Hello @tlowther, welcome to the Seller Community! 

So, Square Appointments isn't really geared towards booking classes or groups. It's a popular feature request that our Support Team is looking into, but I don't have a timeline for when it might be avalible. Currently only one person can book an appointment at a time and once that time slot is filled it won't allow you to double book.

I wish I had a workaround for you, and if I hear of anything I'll make sure to tag you. 

[phipottery]

I just started using appointments and it looks great. I run a pottery business and I am looking to schedule a max number of services per appointment time. For instance, I have two pottery wheels and can have two students at the same time. If one schedules an appointment for 6:30-9:30, how do I allow a second student to sign up for the same time slot? Can I do this automatically and manually? I made a different service for two students who want to sign up together, will I be able to block out the time if someone were to book using that service? In the future I will have six slots of availability per appointment time. Please advise!

[Helen]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Can I allow a max # of services per appointment time to be booked?

Hello @phipottery! I merged your post in to this thread so you can read Chad's and @DaoDeJings' answers to a similar question.

I'll share your post with the Appointments team as well and if there's a way to allow groups to book or a way to offer a limited number of slots for your classes in future, we'll let you know in this thread! 

[DaoDeJing]

First, yes you can set it to require people pay to book. On the Square Dashboard, in the Appointments area, go to Settings, then Payments & Cancellations. There you can select "Require Prepayment".

As far as allowing multiple people to sign up for the same time slot, I agree that would be HIGHLY useful! My business is in escape rooms, so I'm also really interested in this feature hopefully coming soon.

In the meantime, one possible work-around might be to create "staff" equal to the number of seats available in each of your sessions. Some creative structuring of the schedules of availability may be needed, but this could allow for multiple people to sign up for the same time. If you go that route, perhaps you'd also want to activate the "Allow multiple services to be booked online" feature listed about halfway down the Appointments > Settings > Calendar & Bookings page. That way a single person could sign up for multiple people.

I've not tried this idea myself, as all of my classes/groups are private events and so having a single appointment for a group generally works for me. But if you go through the hassle of trying it out, I'd be interested to hear how it goes. Good luck!