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Empty chairs from no-shows are the most expensive silence in this business. Sable gives you three layers of protection (cards, deposits, fees), rules for how bookings can change, and a waitlist to refill the gaps that happen anyway.

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Money at booking time

Two things decide what a client commits to when they book online:
  • Require a card to book, in Settings → Booking Page → payments. The client saves a card to finish booking. No charge yet. The client accepts the displayed storage, purchase and fee terms before entering the card in secure payment fields. For a staff-made booking, the confirmation link collects the card before the client confirms. Staff can still confirm an appointment by hand, but that does not collect a card.
  • A deposit on each service, in Services. Open edit service and turn on deposit: a fixed amount or a percentage of the price (100% asks for full payment), and new clients only if returning clients should skip it. A service with options carries a deposit on each option instead. A booking with several services asks for each one’s deposit, and the deposit comes off the final bill at checkout. See Services and options.
Clients can save a card or pay a deposit with Apple Pay or Google Pay when their phone or browser has it set up, on online booking, the confirmation link and a card request. A card saved this way is a card on file like any other, so a cancellation or no-show fee can be charged to it. Cancellation and no-show fees live with your cancellation policy, under Settings → Scheduling → Booking Policies. A fee is collected from a card on file, so while fees are on, Require a card to book stays on. A business that set a fixed no-show fee earlier keeps that fee, and its No-show fee row here, until it saves a cancellation policy. When a card is required, online confirmation waits until the card has been saved and verified. If secure collection is unavailable, clients see a message to contact the business. A paid deposit alone does not satisfy the card requirement. A pattern that works for a lot of salons: require a card on everything, and add deposits only to the long or high-value services like color, extensions, and bridal. With Require booking approval on, a deposit or full prepayment is not charged when the client sends the request. The client saves their card and sees the exact amount; Sable charges it only when the salon accepts. Declining the request, or letting it end unanswered at its start time, charges nothing. Booking in person? The calendar’s booking panel has Collect deposit right in it, so a phone booking can carry a deposit too. The confirmation link shows the amount due and collects it when the client confirms. A team member can still confirm by hand, but the deposit remains unpaid until the client uses the link. All of this needs payments connected first; until then, the deposit control waits with a pointer to payment setup. Need money down on a visit that is already booked? request deposit on the appointment takes any amount by card reader, cash, card on file, a keyed card or a payment link. See Request a deposit.

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Rules for changes and cancellations

In Settings → Scheduling, the Booking Policies tab decides how much control clients have after booking: Booth renters manage these settings for their own bookings, including card requirements, no-show fees, cancellation rules, and lead times, and set the deposits on their own services. Their changes do not rewrite another stylist’s policies. A salon can set a renter’s card requirement for her; see Require a card for specific stylists.
  • Allow client cancellations plus the notice window: clients can bow out online, but not inside the window where you can’t refill the spot.
  • Require booking approval: online bookings arrive as requests and are confirmed when you accept them. Good for salons where every booking needs a human eye; skip it if you’d rather the calendar fill itself. See Booking requests.

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Your cancellation policy

The same Booking Policies tab holds the policy your clients agree to. It has four controls:
  • cancellation and no-show fees. The switch for the whole thing. Off, clients see no fee wording and your team is never asked about a fee.
  • cancellation policy. Your policy in your own words, up to 1,000 characters of plain text. Say how much notice you need and what you charge, including a policy with steps: free up to 48 hours before, half inside 48 hours, the full price inside 24. Clients see it exactly as written and agree to it when they save a card. A policy is required to turn fees on.
  • notice window. How long before the start a client can still cancel on their own. It is also the notice your team sees when deciding a fee. A client who cancels on their own with that much notice is never charged a fee.
  • card on file required. Who a client needs a card on file to book with: off, everyone, or specific stylists. See Require a card for specific stylists.
Your policy is shown wherever a client saves a card: online booking, the confirmation link, and the page a card request opens. By saving a card, the client authorizes a cancellation or no-show fee under your policy, up to the full price of the services scheduled for that appointment. A client who already has a card on file agrees by confirming. The confirmation link shows your policy with the line By confirming, you agree to the cancellation policy., and confirming the appointment records that agreement. A business that set a fixed no-show fee before this policy existed keeps everything as it was, with its no-show fee row beside the policy box. Saving a cancellation policy is the switch: from then on you choose the fee each time, up to the full price of the appointment. Cards your clients saved earlier keep the terms they agreed to.

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Require a card for specific stylists

In Settings → Scheduling → Booking Policies on the web, card on file required has three choices:
  • off. Nobody’s clients are asked for a card. Available while cancellation and no-show fees are off, because a fee can only be charged to a card on file.
  • everyone. Every stylist’s clients save a card to book. With fees on, this is where the choice starts.
  • specific stylists. A list of your bookable stylists appears under the choice, each with a toggle. Clients save a card only for the stylists switched on. Each time you choose specific stylists, the toggles start from what is in force at that moment, so choosing it never changes who is asked for a card. Nothing changes until you flip a toggle.
Save any edits to your fees or cancellation policy before changing this choice. While those edits are unsaved, the choice shows save changes first. The choice applies everywhere a client is asked for a card: online booking, booking requests, the confirmation link, and the card line on an appointment. Move an appointment to another stylist and it follows that stylist’s setting. A stylist switched off still works under your cancellation policy. A client of hers who already has a card on file sees your policy on the confirmation link and agrees to it by confirming, so a fee can be charged to that card as usual. New clients are simply not asked for a card. A stylist who joins your team while specific stylists is chosen starts switched on. Switch her off if her clients should book without a card. Booth renters are listed under all three choices, because a renter’s card requirement belongs to her own business and does not follow your salon’s choice. Under off and everyone the list holds your booth renters only. Each renter has a booth renter tag, her own toggle, and beneath it a second setting that reads, for a renter named Riley, Riley can change this. On, the renter decides for her own business from her own Booking Policies tab. Off, the value you set applies, and her switch shows it with your salon’s name beside it. A stylist whose payment setup is not finished shows finish payment setup beside her toggle. Her clients keep booking online in the meantime. Owners and admins change the list. An owner’s or an admin’s own row is changed by the owner. Each change is recorded with who made it.

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Charge a cancellation or no-show fee

A fee is always your call, made one appointment at a time. Nothing is charged automatically. One case is settled for you: a client who cancels on their own, with at least the notice your policy asks for, is never charged a fee. The cancellation shows that the client gave notice, and no fee choice is offered for it. Cancel an appointment or set it to No-show and Sable asks what to charge. Open the appointment and choose cancel appointment or mark no-show: from the more actions button at the bottom of the appointment panel on the web, and from more on iPhone and iPad. The fee choice follows your confirmation. That works during the appointment too: once the start time passes and the chair is still empty, mark no-show is right there in the same menu. The fee prompt shows the client, the services and their price, how much notice the cancellation gave, and the card on file. Then you choose:
  • no charge, which is where the prompt always starts
  • 50% or 100% of the appointment’s scheduled services
  • other amount, typed as a percent or in dollars
The most you can charge is the full price of the appointment’s scheduled services, and the prompt says so. A deposit the client already paid counts toward the fee, so the card is charged only the difference. Charging outside your notice window asks for a short note, which stays with your team. The button names exactly what will happen, such as cancel and charge $92.50. When a fee is charged, the client gets a receipt by email with the amount, the appointment, and the policy they agreed to. If the card is declined, the appointment is still cancelled or marked, and the fee can be tried again. You have 14 days after the cancellation or no-show to decide. Open the client’s profile and look at Appointments: a cancelled or missed visit shows where its fee stands, with decide fee, charge a fee after a waiver, or try again after a decline. Or open the cancelled or missed appointment itself, on the web, iPhone, or iPad: the same line sits in its cancellation or no-show card. One fee is collected per appointment. Owners, admins, and front desk decide fees on any appointment in the salon, so whoever takes the call at the desk can charge the fee or choose no charge right then. Stylists and booth renters decide them on their own appointments, and assistants on their own and on the appointments of the stylists they assist. See Roles and permissions. Marking a no-show is also the honest record your reports draw from. Be consistent about it; a policy you only sometimes enforce trains clients to gamble.

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The waitlist

Clients → Waitlist is where “call me if anything opens up” stops being a sticky note.
  • Add Entry puts a client on the list: who they are, what service they’re waiting for (or any), and a note about what they need.
  • Each entry tracks where things stand: Waiting, Contacted, Booked, or Removed.
  • Filter the list by stylist to see one person’s line, with a count on each chip.
  • When a cancellation opens a gap, work the list: Invite to book sends the client a private link for that stylist by text, by email, or copied wherever you talk. Mark entries Removed when they’re no longer waiting, so the list stays real.
Applications approved from a form land here too, on the waitlist of the stylist the form belongs to. See From application to booked. A short, current waitlist turns a cancelled Tuesday into a full one. A long stale one is just guilt in table form. Still stuck? Visit the Help Center to submit a support ticket.