Provider Bookings: Offering & Booking Services

Provider Bookings

If your business offers appointment-based services — a salon, spa, laundry, or similar — you can list them for clients to find and pay for online.

Becoming a Provider

Enable Provider Management in Profile → Feature Access to get the PROVIDER role. Then go to Dashboard → Provider → Profile to fill in your business name, description, address, and timezone. There's no phone number or email to add here — clients book and message you through the platform, not a direct contact on your booking page.

Pricing

Each service you list has its own price — set it when you add or edit a service, and it's what clients see as the cost of that service. Separately, your Provider Profile has a single booking fee that applies to every service you offer, and an optional call-out fee if you tick "I do call-outs" (for on-site visits). The booking fee (plus call-out fee, if it applies) is the only amount Informativ actually collects from the client to secure a booking, through Yoco or PayFast — the rest of the service's price is yours to collect directly from the client, however you'd normally arrange that (cash, EFT, on the day, etc.). Commission is only ever charged on the booking fee actually collected, never on the full service price. Leaving a service's price blank shows clients "Price on request" instead of a figure.

Listing Services

Services are grouped in two levels. First add a category from Dashboard → Provider → Services → Manage Categories — e.g. "Hair Dressing". Then, under that category, add each specific bookable service you offer — e.g. "Braids", "Weave", "Cut & Style" — with its own price and duration. You can also set a buffer time afterward (e.g. cleaning time) before the next booking can start.

Setting Availability

From Dashboard → Provider → Availability, set your weekly working hours per day. You can also add date-specific exceptions for holidays or one-off closures/extended hours.

How Clients Book

Your public booking page lists your active services, each showing its own price. If you offer call-outs, the client chooses whether they'll come to your premises or you'll travel to them — a call-out adds your call-out fee and asks for their address, either picked from their saved addresses or entered fresh (which also saves it to their profile for next time). They then pick a date and one of your available time slots (already-booked times are automatically excluded), and pay the booking fee up front through Yoco, or through PayFast if they choose to save their card for future payments — there's no deposit/balance split on the booking fee itself, and the price summary makes clear that any remaining balance on the service's price is settled with you directly, not through checkout.

Managing Bookings

From Dashboard → Provider → Bookings, confirm, start, and complete appointments — a booking's detail page shows the client's call-out address when it's a call-out, and the bookings list/dashboard flag call-outs with a small badge so you can spot them at a glance. If you cancel a paid booking yourself, it always refunds the client in full — the platform's commission already collected is non-refundable, same as equipment rental cancellations.

The mobile app has the same tools under More → Weekly Schedule and More → Provider Bookings: a day-by-day view of your working hours and appointments, and a bookings list where you can confirm, start, complete, or cancel from your phone — the same actions, same refund rules, as the dashboard.

Automatic Arrival Check-In

A client can turn on Automatic Arrival Check-In in the mobile app (their own More → Automatic Arrival Check-In — it's opt-in and off by default) so you're told automatically when they arrive at a booking, instead of having to ask or wait for them to say something. It doesn't change the booking's status on its own — you still tap Start Service when you're ready — but if they leave without you marking it complete, the booking is automatically marked Completed once they go, so it doesn't sit open indefinitely. This only works for clients who've chosen to turn it on; nothing changes for a booking where they haven't.

Cancellation Fee Schedule

On Dashboard → Provider → Profile, set a waiting period (in hours) and a late cancellation fee (0–100%). If a client cancels their own booking with at least that much notice, they get a full refund. If they cancel inside that window, they forfeit your configured percentage of the booking fee to you, and are refunded the rest — the platform's commission is never refunded either way. Set the fee to 0% if you'd rather always refund clients in full regardless of notice. These terms (plus your own free-text cancellation policy, if you write one) show on your public booking page before a client pays, not just after they try to cancel — so keep them up to date.

Prefer to never refund the booking fee at all? Right next to the Booking Fee field is a "Booking fee is refundable on cancellation" toggle — switch it off and a client who cancels never gets any of it back, no matter how much notice they give, overriding the waiting period and late fee above entirely. Clients see this clearly on your booking page before they pay (a "Non-refundable" badge next to the fee, and the Cancellation Policy card spells it out), and again on their own booking page if they try to cancel. This only affects the client cancelling — if you cancel a paid booking yourself, it's still always refunded in full.

Reviews

Once you mark a booking as completed, the client can leave a 1–5 star rating and an optional comment — they may also get a WhatsApp message inviting them to, straight to that review page. Your average rating and review count show on your public booking page, your dashboard hub, and Dashboard → Provider → Reviews.

Request for Quote (Custom Requests)

Sometimes a client wants something your standard booking options don't cover — an after-hours time, or a call-out you haven't enabled. Your booking page has a "Request a Custom Quote" link for exactly this: the client describes what they need, picks a preferred time (which can be outside your set availability), and optionally asks you to come to them. You'll see it under Dashboard → Provider → Quote Requests and can either quote a price — either the full amount, or just a deposit percentage of it if you'd rather collect the rest yourself — or decline if you're not interested, with an optional reason. If the client approves and pays what's due (the full amount, or just the deposit), it becomes a normal booking on your Bookings page, managed exactly the same way as any other appointment. You have 48 hours to respond to a request before it's shown as overdue to the client (it won't auto-close, so you can still respond late).

Asking for a Deposit Instead of Full Payment

When you quote a custom request, you can set a deposit percentage from 0–100% alongside your price. At 100% (the default) the client pays the full amount to confirm, same as before. Set it lower and the client only pays that percentage through Informativ to confirm the booking — you collect the remaining balance directly from them yourself, however you'd normally arrange that (cash, EFT, on the day, etc.) — Informativ doesn't track a due date for it or chase it up. Your booking page and dashboard always show both figures clearly: what was paid through the platform, and what's still owed to you. Platform commission is only ever charged on the deposit you actually receive, never on the balance. If you later need to cancel a deposit-based booking, the refund (and any late-cancellation fee, per your usual notice-period settings) is worked out from the deposit alone — the balance was never processed by Informativ, so it's unaffected either way.

Waiting List & Cancellation Offers

If a client tries to book a time that's already taken, they can join the waiting list for that exact date and time instead — no payment up front, just the same details a normal booking would need. If any booking for that slot is then cancelled (by you or the client, whenever it happens), the freed spot is offered out automatically: first to whoever already has a later appointment with you that same day for the same service (in case they'd rather move earlier), then to whoever's been waiting longest for that exact time. Each offer comes with a response window of up to a few hours — sooner if the cancellation happens close to the appointment itself. Someone waiting only pays once they actually confirm the spot; if nobody takes it, it just goes back to normal booking. You can see who's waiting for what, read-only, from Dashboard → Provider → Bookings → Waiting List — there's nothing for you to do, the whole process runs on its own.

For Clients: Managing Your Bookings

Every booking you make shows up under Dashboard → Provider → My Bookings — you don't need to be a provider yourself to see this. From there you can view a booking's details and cancel it yourself. The booking page shows exactly what you'd be refunded (and any cancellation fee you'd forfeit) before you confirm — see "Cancellation Fee Schedule" above for how that's worked out. You'll also get a reminder about 24 hours before a confirmed appointment. Any custom quote requests you've sent are separate, under Dashboard → My Quote Requests — see "Request for Quote" above. If you joined a waiting list, or you're offered an earlier same-day spot, you'll find those under Dashboard → My Waiting List and on the booking's own page respectively. If a provider quoted you a deposit rather than the full amount, your booking page always shows both what you paid through Informativ and what's still owed directly to the provider — a cancellation refund is worked out from your deposit only, never the full quoted price.

On the mobile app, you can turn on More → Automatic Arrival Check-In so a confirmed booking checks you in with the provider automatically when you get there, and checks you out again once you leave — no need to remember to tell them. It's off by default, only ever looks at your own confirmed bookings for the current day, and you can turn it off again at any time.

Email Notifications & Invoices

Both you and the client get an email whenever a booking is confirmed or cancelled — the same information as the in-app/WhatsApp notification, just in your inbox too. Once a booking is confirmed, the client is emailed a PDF invoice automatically; either of you can also view or download it any time from the booking's detail page ("View Invoice"). If a booking is later cancelled, its invoice is marked accordingly.