Hello everyone,
We urgently need a better way to properly handle appointments that were booked online and have already been paid for (in full or in part) in the event of a cancellation or no-show.
A concrete example from our practice
A client books an appointment online for multiple treatments and makes a payment or down payment at that time.
The customer then cancels the appointment at the last minute—for example, one day in advance—due to health reasons.
The treatments therefore did not take place. There had also not yet been a consultation or assessment to determine whether the treatments the customer selected online could even be performed on her.
In accordance with our cancellation policy, we would like to withhold, for example, €50 as a cancellation fee in such a case and refund the remaining amount.
Current Issue
Unfortunately, we are currently unable to accurately reflect this process in the system.
In this specific case, all of the originally booked treatments are still listed in the system. At the same time , €50 is shown as withheld or paid online.
Since the treatments were not actually performed, our only option at this time was to bill the individual treatments at €0.
However, this makes it appear in retrospect as though all treatments were performed or billed for €0.
This does not reflect the actual transaction and, in our view, is particularly problematic for traceability and accounting documentation.
Our suggestion
Ideally, there would be a dedicated function for canceling or processing such appointments.
When editing the appointment, for example, one could select a corresponding status or reason for cancellation:
Customer canceled in a timely manner
The customer canceled at the last minute
Customer did not show up / No-show
Cancellation due to health reasons
Cancellation by the company
Other reason
You should then be able to select how to handle a payment that has already been made.
Example:
Total payment: 200 €
No-show/cancellation fee: 50 €
Refund: 150 €
Then, for example, you could select:
“Cancel appointment → Customer canceled at short notice → Withhold €50 cancellation fee → Refund €150.”
The originally booked treatments should therefore be marked as “not performed / canceled” and not appear as services performed for 0 €.
Additionally, it would be very helpful if you could flexibly choose between the following options for the refund:
Fixed amount: e.g., withhold €50 and refund the remainder
Percentage: e.g., withhold 30% and refund 70%
Full refund: Refund 100%
No refund: e.g., in the case of a no-show, in accordance with the stored cancellation policy
For online payments, it would also be ideal if the refund could be processed directly through the original payment method.
Above all, a clear distinction is important
Treatment performed → normal billing
Appointment canceled → Treatment was not performed
No-show → Treatment was not performed
Cancellation fee → separate amount due to cancellation/no-show
Refund → full or partial refund of the payment already made
This would make it clear later on what actually happened, rather than having to bill multiple treatments at €0 each.
We would therefore very much like to see a corresponding function for cancellations, partial refunds, and cancellation fees added or enabled for online bookings.
Perhaps this issue affects other users as well. Especially when dealing with multiple treatments booked online and payments already made, such a feature would significantly simplify the process and make the records much clearer.
Thank you very much 🙏