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Reservations

With PocketSuite’s Reservations, you can schedule clients for multi-day or overnight appointments

In this article:

Create a Reservation

Make sure to toggle the feature on in Settings>Features>Reservations

To get started, go to Settings>Reservations. Tap the plus sign (+) to create a new reservation or add one of our industry-specific templates.



First off, add a name and description for your reservation (and select a color to keep it organized on your calendar!)

 

Then, set a price for your reservation. You can charge a reservation by the number of nights, by the number of days, or by a fixed cost. Learn more about pricing reservations.

 

Next, set the reservation's duration. You can set a fixed number of days and nights or choose to make the duration flexible if you expect this to change for each booking.

 

Now, set the check-in and check-out times for the reservation. These can be defaulted for all bookings or made flexible so clients can choose a time that works best for them. You can also set the duration of check-in/check-out to reserve that time on your calendar. Learn how check-in and check-out times work for reservations. 


Then, you can customize the reservation by adding smart tasks for you or your team to complete during the appointment or adding resources, like rooms and equipment. You can even choose if this reservation will be a one-time event, like a boot camp or retreat. 

 

Pro Tip: Be sure to set a reservation capacity and add any relevant products, forms, or contracts to the reservation. 

 

Hit Save, and voila! Your reservation is ready for new bookings. 

 

Here are a few more things to know about setting up reservations: 

Requires staffing

When setting up a reservation item, you can choose whether it requires a team member to be available to staff it.

In the reservation's setup, look for the "Requires staffing" toggle — described as "This reservation requires a team member to be available to staff it."

When turned off, no team member is auto-assigned for the reservation, and no team member availability is required during the availability search. However, you can still manually assign a team member — it's only then that the booking affects that team member's reservation capacity. At least one team member must be available for check-in to be possible.

This is useful for facilities like boarding kennels where the resource (the kennel) needs to be available, but a specific team member doesn't need to be dedicated to the reservation for its duration.

Maximize reservation availability

Under Settings > Scheduling, the "Maximize reservation availability" setting controls whether reservations can be split across multiple resources mid-stay and whether future reservations can be automatically moved between resources to make room for new bookings.

This setting has five options: Never, One move per week, Two moves per week, Three moves per week, and Completely maximize (as many moves as needed).

When enabled, if no single resource is available for the full duration of a reservation but there is overall capacity across multiple resources, PocketSuite will split the stay — for example, assigning the first two nights to Resource A and the remaining three nights to Resource B.

For full details on how this setting works with resources, see the Resources article. For details on the scheduling flow, see the Scheduling [Reservations] article.

Resources on the booking record

Reservations support per-day resource assignments, meaning a single reservation can be assigned to different resources on different days — for example, the first three nights in Kennel A and the last two nights in Kennel B.

The booking record reflects this:

  • Before a reservation starts and after it ends: All assigned resources are shown in chronological order, with resources covering the longest portion of the stay listed first. The date range for each resource assignment is displayed.
  • During an active reservation: Only resources assigned to the current date and future dates are shown. Resources assigned to the current day appear directly on the record. Future assignments appear if space allows.

To reassign resources on a reservation, use the Resource Calendar. See the Resource Calendar article for details on assignment mode.

Check-in and check-out times affect resource availability

The check-in and check-out type you configure on a reservation determines how resources are held and released. For full details on configuring check-in and check-out settings, see the Check-in and Check-out [Reservations] article.

Here's how each type affects resource availability:

Flexible check-in/check-out (or Default times): When a reservation has a specific check-in time (e.g., 2pm) and a specific check-out time (e.g., 10am), the resource is blocked starting at check-in and freed at check-out. This makes back-to-back reservations on the same resource possible — for example, one guest checks out at 10am and another checks in at 2pm.

Any Time check-in: When check-in is set to "Any time," the resource is blocked for the entire check-in day since the client could arrive at any point. A new reservation cannot start on the same resource that day.

Any Time check-out: When check-out is set to "Any time," the resource is considered available on the check-out day. This is because the client is departing, and the resource will be freed at some point during the day.

 

Learn more about scheduling reservations from your calendar or how clients can book reservations online. Head to your Reservation Dashboard to see all reservation bookings and manage the check-in/check-out process. 

For a visualization on this feature, check out this video below:

 

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