Create and manage appointments

Book from the calendar, handle changes and cancellations, and keep every appointment’s status honest.

Appointments is the calendar, and the calendar is where your day actually runs. This guide covers booking, editing, statuses, and the small habits that keep the week readable.

Find your way around

The toolbar across the top:

• On the web, Day and Week switch the view. Week is for planning; Day is for working. When Everyone is selected, each Week date is divided into a column for every active stylist you can view. Each header uses the stylist’s profile photo when one is set, with initials as the fallback. Larger teams scroll sideways, the hour labels stay in place, and the small right arrow disappears once you reach the final columns. Choosing one stylist returns Week to seven full-width day columns.
• On iPhone and iPad, the calendar button offers Day, Week, and Month. When Everyone is selected, Day can show each active stylist in a side-by-side salon-wide column, so you can compare the whole day at a glance. Each column header uses the stylist’s profile photo when one is set, with initials as the fallback. Up to three stylist columns fill the phone; larger teams scroll sideways with three readable columns visible at a time. iPhone Week keeps all seven days visible with full client names in fixed-size, two-line tinted cards; Month shows short appointment names. In Day, drag sideways and the schedule slides with your finger, with the next day already in view; let go and it settles on that day at the same time of day you were looking at. Swipe sideways to move one week or month, or tap a Month date to open that Day.
• Today jumps back to now, and the arrows move you through time. The date opens a month picker with Skip by week shortcuts from +4 to +16 weeks, for finding a rebooking date fast.
• Everyone lets you see the salon together or focus the calendar on one stylist.
• The gear opens calendar display settings. On iPhone and iPad, your color choices are saved on that device for your account and current business. Switching businesses keeps each business’s colors separate. If a save fails, keep the calendar open and use Try saving again in display settings.
• Add starts something new: an Appointment or a Block time.

On iPad, the calendar fits the available window when you rotate the device or resize it for another app alongside Sable. Your selected date and view stay in place.

The hatched areas are hours outside the working schedule. Clients cannot pick those times from your public booking link, but you and your team can still book there whenever you decide to. A time you tap or drag to stays exactly where you put it when the booking form opens.

If a refresh fails, the web calendar keeps the last successfully loaded data for the current dates and shows “Calendar is out of date.” Choose Retry to load the latest appointments. Retry is also available if the calendar could not load initially.

Book an appointment

Hit Add and choose Appointment (or use Create → New Appointment from anywhere in the app).

1. Stylist. Choose who the appointment is with.

2. Client. Search for an existing client, or create one on the spot with just a name and phone (a last name is optional). The full profile can wait until they’re in the chair.

3. Time. On iPhone and iPad, booking from Appointments uses a date picker and separate start and end time menus. A time you selected on the calendar is already filled in. Booking from a client’s profile uses these same controls, with the client filled in and the date and time left for you to choose. When booking from a Messages conversation, tap Choose date and time to browse the appointment calendar. Check the stylist’s appointments and working hours in Day, Week, or Month, then tap an open time to return to the form. You can start at any 15-minute time from 5:00 AM through 11:45 PM and end as late as midnight, including outside the stylist’s working hours. Adding a service can extend the end time; after choosing a time, you can also adjust the end for this visit.

4. Service. Pick from the selected stylist’s available services. Changing the stylist refreshes the list and removes services that the new stylist does not offer from a new appointment. If the list cannot load, retry before booking. For one-off work that isn’t on the menu, add a custom service with its own name, price, and minutes.

   Service assignments apply here the same way they apply to your booking page, so a service always lands with someone who actually performs it. If the pairing doesn’t work, Sable says which service and which stylist so you can fix it in one move. A booth renter’s own services stay with the renter, because those carry the renter’s price and their payout.

5. Deposit. If you want money down, Collect deposit lets you set the amount right here at booking. The confirmation link shows the amount due today and collects it when the client confirms. Deposits need payments connected first.

6. Repeat. For standing appointments, Repeat appointment books the series: how many visits, and how many weeks apart.

Then Book it. When a client and stylist are selected, choose whether the confirmation link goes by Email, Text, or Both. A choice that is not available is dimmed, with the reason shown below it. If the client has no email or mobile number, add one in the confirmation window or choose Skip and book. When a card is required, the same window tells you whether a card is already on file.

The client opens the link to review the services, stylist, date, time, and total. They can accept the displayed terms, save a card when one is required, and pay the deposit before confirming. Then the appointment changes from Unconfirmed to Confirmed.

When you edit an existing appointment or add a service during checkout, the service picker uses that appointment’s stylist. Services already on the appointment keep their saved prices and durations, including visit adjustments. If an appointment has no stylist, choose one in its editor before adding services or changing its time. Save the assignment before checking out.

If the time overlaps another appointment or a block, Sable shows the conflict and asks you to Double-book or Book anyway before it saves. Your public booking page still keeps those times closed.

Block time that isn’t an appointment

Lunch, color practice, the school run. Add → Block time puts a named block on the calendar, and online booking treats it as busy.

Choose separate Start date and End date values when the time away spans more than one day. Turn on All day for vacation or personal time that should cover every selected date from midnight through the end of the final day. Sable saves the range as one block, so you do not need to create a separate block for each day.

To change a block, tap or click it. You can rename it, change its start and end times, or choose Remove block. On the web, drag a block to a new time or day; on iPhone and iPad, press and hold it, then drag. A block that spans several days keeps its dates as set, so you can rename or remove it from the same panel and add a new block for different dates.

What the statuses mean

Every appointment carries a status, and the calendar colors follow it:

Status	Meaning
Unconfirmed	Booked and waiting on the client. For a staff-made booking, Sable sends a confirmation link by the channel you chose. The client reviews the visit, accepts any terms, adds a card or pays a deposit when needed, and confirms. You can also confirm it yourself when they say yes in person.
Confirmed	The client confirmed from the link or your team confirmed the appointment by hand.
In progress	The visit is happening. Sable moves an appointment here on its own when its start time arrives, so your calendar tracks the day without you touching it. An unconfirmed appointment starts the same way; the confirmation question expires quietly once the time comes. It stays in progress, even after its end time, until checkout completes it.
Completed	Done and behind you. Checkout marks this for you.
Cancelled	Called off ahead of time.
No-show	They just didn’t come. Mark it honestly; your reports and no-show fees depend on it. Available while the appointment is in progress too, so a chair that stayed empty gets recorded the moment you know.
Request	A client asked for this time online and it’s waiting on your approval. Only appears if you’ve turned on booking approval; see Booking requests. A request stays yours to answer: accept it or decline it, whenever you get to it, and Sable starts it at its time once you’ve accepted it. Accept one after its time and it joins your day without sending the client a booking text for an hour that has already gone.

Change or cancel an appointment

On iPhone and iPad, tap the client’s name in an appointment to open their profile. Use Back or dismiss the profile to return to the same appointment. Your access to client details follows your salon permissions.

Click any appointment to open its details. From there you can adjust the times and Save changes, update the status, or cancel. For a repeating appointment, Sable asks whether you mean just this one or the whole series, and tells you plainly: the appointment is cancelled either way.

An unconfirmed staff-made appointment shows when its confirmation link was sent. Use Resend link to send it again or Copy link to share it in another conversation. Confirm records that your team confirmed the appointment by hand. It does not save a card or collect an unpaid deposit, so the appointment panel keeps that amount visible and lets you resend or copy the link for payment.

The detail panel also keeps the good stuff attached to the visit: color formulas and products used, so next time starts where last time ended. When an amount is more than a service usually uses, Sable asks you to confirm it. More on that in Profiles, formulas, allergies, and photos. On iPhone and iPad, touch and hold a visit-record value or note to select and copy it.

In an active appointment, use Products used → Add product to search your back-bar inventory, including products marked Both. Choose the product, enter the quantity and unit used, then select Add to visit. The entry stays with the appointment; you can remove it before checkout finalizes it. On iPhone and iPad, open products in the appointment’s visit record to do the same.

Bowls on iPhone and iPad

On iPhone and iPad, open Products used on an active appointment to record what you mix, bowl by bowl. Choose new bowl and pick what it is for: highlight, lowlight, root, midtone, endtone, base break, high lift, treatment, or all over color. Sable takes you straight to your back-bar inventory to fill it. Search by name, narrow by product type, pick a product, and enter the amount in grams or ounces. A visit can hold several bowls of one kind, and Sable numbers them in the order you made them.

Sable weighs each product against its package size. When you pick a product that has no size yet, Sable asks for it first: choose the unit, enter the package size, and choose save size. Its stock then shows in grams and you carry on to the amount.

Each bowl lists its products with their amounts and prices and shows a total for the bowl. The total for the whole visit sits at the top of the screen. Use product for anything you apply straight, with no bowl; it appears under not in a bowl. Tap an amount to change it or to remove the product as the visit goes on, and open a bowl’s menu to remove the whole bowl.

When a bowl holds color or lightener and no developer yet, Sable offers add developer and lists developers from the same brand first. Dismiss the suggestion when the bowl doesn’t need one.

If the product you reach for isn’t in inventory, search for it and choose add to inventory. Sable opens the add-product form with the name filled in, then returns you to the amount. This follows your salon’s permission to add products.

Once the appointment is checked out, its products and bowls are final and stay with the visit as its record.

Use Retail products for items the client is buying. Those products go into checkout separately from the products used during the service. Your salon’s permissions control which products and visit records you can access.

The appointment on iPhone and iPad

Tap an appointment and it opens as one sheet you read from top to bottom. The status sits at the top, then the client and their services, then what matters for where the visit is right now. One action waits at the bottom of the screen, and more beside it holds the rest.

• Before the visit. The date, time, and length, who it’s with, and the services with their total. edit opens the appointment editor, forms sends a form, and start appointment begins the visit early. A request waiting on you shows accept, decline and message instead. A repeating appointment shows how often it repeats.
• At the start time. Sable starts the visit for you, whether or not the client confirmed. If the appointment is open on your screen, it turns to in progress on its own; if you open it afterwards, it is already there.
• During the visit. A bar shows how far into the booked time you are. Tap a price to change it for this visit, return it to the regular price, or take the service off; add service adds one. The visit record keeps products, formula, notes, and photos together, each with add until there’s something in it. open checkout takes payment, and shows the amount due when Sable has it.
• After checkout. The receipt leads with total paid, how it was paid and when, then each service, the product fee, tip, discount, and tax. your earnings shows what you keep from the visit; what appears there follows your role and permissions. The products used and the visit record stay below. rebook starts the client’s next appointment.
• Cancelled, no-show, or declined. The screen keeps when it was booked for, what was booked, the cancellation time and reason, and how the cancellation or no-show fee ended. rebook is ready when the client is.

more holds edit appointment, cancel appointment, and mark no-show. For a repeating appointment you choose between cancel this appointment and cancel entire series. Cancelling asks for an optional reason first; marking a no-show asks you to confirm. The actions you see follow your salon permissions.

If someone else changes the appointment while you have it open, or your phone loses its connection mid-change, a notice at the top says what happened and offers reload or retry now.

On iPad in landscape the appointment fills the screen in two panes: the visit and its action on the left, the visit record on the right.

When the service is done

During an active visit on iPhone or iPad, tap the pencil beside a service for Edit Price or Remove Service. You can also swipe left on the service and tap the red trash button to remove it. Keep at least one primary service on the appointment. The service price appears separately from the pencil, and the total updates after you save a price or remove a service.

Checkout lives right on the appointment: services, add-ons, retail, tip, and payment in one pass. That’s its own guide: Checkout, refunds, and receipts.

Habits that pay off

• Mark no-shows as No-show, not Cancelled. The distinction feeds your reports and any no-show fee you charge.
• Block time before you need it. A calendar that shows the truth gets trusted; one that doesn’t gets double-booked.
• Let clients confirm through reminders instead of chasing them. See Reminders and confirmations.

Related

• Services, schedules, and availability
• Deposits, policies, and waitlist
• Checkout, refunds, and receipts

Still stuck? Visit the Help Center to submit a support ticket.