Set up an appointment-based business

This guide is for salons, barbers, spas, massage and wellness studios, personal trainers and tutors: anyone whose customers book a time with a person. You end with staff hours, booking types people can book online, chairs or rooms, repeat appointments, a new-client form, reminders and a way to bill at the counter. Your workspace calls people Clients. It doesn't cover group classes with many people in one time slot, which Fifi doesn't do.

Is this the right guide?

• Business type: Appointment services.
• At the end you'll have: a public booking page, staff with hours, optional chairs or rooms on a floor plan, clients in Fifi, a form for new clients, and invoices you can record at the counter.
• Time: about 30 minutes, not counting your client list.
• Plan: Pro covers everything here except Texting, which is on Business. During the beta every workspace has every module. See Modules, business types and plans.
• No sample for this type. The dog grooming sample at /try/grooming shows the same booking pages, seats, floor plan and repeat visits, with dogs where you'd have people.

New to Fifi? Do Your first hour with Fifi first.

Create the workspace

1. On Create your workspace, type your business's name and click Continue.
2. Under What kind of business is this?, choose Appointment services.
3. Pick a color scheme and click Create workspace.

What you'll see: Clients and Calendar in the menu. Appointment services starts with Email, Campaigns, Reports, Online booking, Forms and automations, Texting and Invoicing on. Deals is off.

Turn on what you need

Open Settings → Modules. Who can do it: owners and admins.

Business details

1. Open Settings → Workspace.
2. Click Upload logo.
3. Under Business address, type your address and click Save address. It appears on invoices and in campaign footers.
4. Pick Colors and click Save colors. Your booking pages use them.

See Set up your logo, colors and business details.

Your team and hours

1. Open Settings → Members. Under Invite a teammate, type each person's Email, choose a Role and click Invite. Stylists, trainers and tutors can be Members. A manager is usually an Admin.
2. Each person who takes bookings opens Settings → Booking → Your hours, chooses Your time zone, sets Weekly hours (up to 6 ranges a day), adds Days off with Add days off, and clicks Save hours.

What you'll see: nobody can be booked until they save their hours. See Set up your team.

Booking types, seats and repeat appointments

Booking types

A booking type is a service people can book.

1. Open Settings → Booking and, under Booking types, click New booking type.
2. Type a Name ("Haircut", "60-minute massage", "Maths tutoring"), a Description and a Page address.
3. Choose Length (15 minutes to 4 hours) and Free time before and Free time after for set-up and clean-up.
4. Set How far ahead people can book and Minimum notice.
5. Under Who takes it, tick the staff who do this service.
6. Under Questions, choose whether to ask for a Phone number, and click Add a question (up to 5), for example "Anything we should know?"
7. Tick Taking bookings and click Create.

What you'll see: your booking page at /b/‹your-address›, which lists the types. Pro allows 5 booking types and Business 20.

Seats: chairs, rooms and stations

If a service needs a chair or a room, add seats so two bookings can't use the same one.

1. In Settings → Booking, under Seats, click Add a seat.
2. Type a Name ("Chair 1") and choose a Kind: Table, Tub, Chair, Dryer, Station, or your own word.
3. Edit the booking type, tick Needs a seat and tick the seats it can use.

If you want a picture of the room, open Settings → Floor plans, click Add a floor plan, set Columns and Rows, click Add and open the editor, Place the seats and Save. Calendar → Floor then shows who is in which seat. See Online booking.

Book a client yourself

When a client phones or walks in, click Calendar, then Add, then Book an appointment. Choose the Booking type, the Client, Who and a time.

Repeat appointments

A client who comes every four weeks gets a repeating appointment. In Book an appointment, choose Repeat, then Every 4 weeks (or another interval), and choose how it ends. Fifi books the first visit and then the rest. A visit it can't book becomes a task. See Online booking.

Reminders

Confirmations and a reminder about 24 hours before go out by email. Text reminders go only to clients who asked for one on the booking page, and need Texting.

Pipeline and naming

Appointment businesses rarely need Deals, so it's off. Turn it on in Settings → Modules if you sell packages or memberships. The stages never change:

Name each deal with the client and the package, for example "Rivera: 10-class pass".

Custom fields worth adding

Open Settings → Custom fields and click Add field.

See Custom fields and reminders.

Tags to start with

In Settings → Tags, click New tag.

• New client
• Regular
• VIP
• Membership
• Newsletter

Forms and automations to start with

A new-client form

1. Open Settings → Forms and click New form.
2. Type a Name ("New client") and a Page address.
3. Set Phone to required. Click Add a field for "What are you coming in for?" and "Anything we should know?"
4. Choose the tag to add (New client), write a Thank-you message, tick Taking submissions and save.

Automations

In Settings → Automations, click New automation.

Automations create tasks for your team. They never email clients. See Forms and Automations.

Bring in your customers

1. Export your clients from your old booking system as a CSV file. Fifi understands First name, Last name, Email, Phone, Address, Job title, Lead status, Source and your custom fields.
2. Open Clients and click Import.
3. Under 1. Choose a file, pick the “Contacts” option, choose the file and click Continue.
4. Match the columns, choose Skip it (keep what's in Fifi) for duplicates, click Preview import and import.

See Import, export and Trash and Bring in your existing customers.

Email and texting

1. Open Settings → Email and click Connect Gmail on the Gmail card. Outlook shows Coming soon until Fifi's Microsoft connection is set up.
2. Texting is on Business. If Settings → Modules lists Texting under Coming soon, it isn't available yet. When it is, open Settings → Texting and click Get a number. A new number needs Fifi's approval before it can send.

See Connecting your email and Texting.

Invoicing for this business

Invoicing is on, so you can bill at the counter.

1. Open Settings → Invoicing and set Prefix, Next number, Default terms (Due on receipt suits the counter), Tax name and Tax rate (%).
2. After the visit, open it on the calendar and click Invoice.
3. Type the price, issue the invoice, and record the payment: cash, check, or a card taken on your own terminal.

Fifi records payments but doesn't take cards in person. Online card payments through your own Stripe account are for invoices you send. See Choose how you'll invoice and Create and send your first invoice.

Your first campaign

Email clients who haven't booked in a while. You need your business address saved and a mailbox connected.

1. Open Marketing and click New campaign.
2. Choose your audience, write two or three sentences with your booking link, and send a test.
3. Send.

With Ask Fifi on you can ask for "Invite people who never booked to book online". See Campaigns and Send your first campaign.

Reports and the dashboard

Pin these three from Reports:

• New clients by source: where clients find you.
• Activities by type per week: how much you do.
• Overdue tasks by assignee: follow-ups that slipped.

Ask Fifi's first questions are "How many new clients did we add this month, by source?" and "How many meetings did we log each week this month?" See Know your numbers.

Your first week

• To do: Everyone who takes bookings has saved their hours.
• To do: Your booking types are live, and the link is on your website.
• To do: Seats are added, if you need them.
• To do: Your clients are imported.
• To do: You booked one repeating client.
• To do: The new-client form is live and tested.
• To do: You issued and recorded one invoice.
• To do: Your mailbox is connected.
• To do: You sent one campaign to a small list.
• To do: Three reports are pinned.

What Fifi doesn't do for this business yet

• Group classes. A booking is one person with one staff member, and optionally a seat. Fifi doesn't run a class with many people at once.
• Deposits and prepaid packages. Online booking takes no payment. Track a package in a number field.
• Point of sale and inventory. Fifi records payments on invoices. It doesn't sell retail products or count stock.
• Taking cards in person. Take the card on your own terminal and record it.
• Recurring invoices. Duplicate an earlier invoice for a membership.

Troubleshooting and related

Still stuck?

Contact Fifi support with your workspace name, what you clicked and the exact message you saw. The troubleshooting guide covers the common ones.

Related: Online booking, Calendar, Forms, Invoices.

Next: Choose how you'll invoice, then Send your first campaign.