Check-In & Lead Generation

Managing Appointments, Cancellations & No-Shows

Booking Appointments:

• Credits are NOT checked at booking time. Trainers can schedule freely. • Recurring appointments can be set up months in advance using the inline repeat options (Weekly, Every 2 weeks, Monthly) in the Create Appointment form. • When a client has an active pack or subscription, the recurring end date auto-fills from their expiry.

Pending Approvals (Client-Booked Sessions):

When a client books a 1-on-1 PT session through the client portal, it goes to pending status and appears in the Pending Approvals panel at the top of your calendar. Group class bookings and trainer-created appointments are auto-confirmed and skip this step.

The panel shows how long each request has been waiting and gives you three actions:

Approve — Confirms the appointment at the requested time. The client receives a confirmation email. • Smart Move — AI suggests up to 3 alternative time slots based on the client's past session preferences and your schedule. It can also suggest delegating to another trainer if they're available. When you pick a suggestion, the system approves and reschedules the appointment in one step. • Decline — Cancels the pending request. Any credits are restored and the client receives a cancellation email.

Tips for pending approvals:

• Respond promptly — stale requests show as overdue with urgency badges • Use Smart Move when the requested time doesn't work but you want to offer alternatives • If you never want to see approvals, create appointments yourself instead of having clients book

Completing Appointments:

• Credits are deducted automatically when a session is in the past (completed). • Group class check-ins also trigger credit deduction. • No manual action needed.

Cancelling Appointments:

For trainers: • Cancel from the appointment modal or dashboard widget. Enter a reason and confirm. • If the session was not yet completed, no credit was deducted, so nothing changes. • If the session was already completed, the credit is automatically restored.

For clients: • Clients can cancel their own appointments from the portal. • A cancellation window (e.g. 12 hours before) can block late cancellations. Within the window, clients must contact their trainer. • Both parties receive email confirmation.

Marking No-Shows:

• Use the "No-Show" button on the dashboard widget or inside the appointment modal (available for past appointments). • Credits ARE deducted for no-shows. The client loses the credit. • No-shows are tracked per client. Repeated no-shows can block future booking.

When to mark no-show:

• Appointment time has passed • Client did not attend and did not cancel in advance

Credit Impact:

Deducted: Completed sessions, no-shows, group class check-ins ❌ Not deducted: Future bookings, cancelled appointments

Calendar Indicators:

• Cancelled appointments show with an orange outline, strikethrough name, and ✕ badge. • No-show appointments show with a red outline and NS badge. • Completed appointments appear in light grey.

Tips:

• Mark no-shows on the same day for accurate records • Set a clear cancellation window (12-24 hours is standard) • Use the Credit Usage Report to spot clients with low balances

Ready to implement these strategies?

Join thousands of trainers using BuildStability to automate engagement tracking and prevent churn.

Start Your Free Trial