Reschedule & cancel policies
Booking policies determine whether a customer can cancel or reschedule, when the cutoff applies, and whether your team must review the request. Create them under Bookings → Setup → Booking policies.
Owners and Admins can change policies. Staff need the Bookings permission group.
An organization-default policy is the fallback. A service-specific policy overrides it for that service.
Choose a mode for each action
Cancellation and rescheduling are configured separately:
| Mode | Customer experience |
|---|---|
| Customer allowed | An eligible customer action is applied immediately after policy and capacity checks. |
| Request only | The customer submits a request for merchant review. |
| Merchant only | Customer self-service is unavailable; your team handles the change. |
Set each cutoff in minutes before the booking starts. Inside the cutoff, the customer action is unavailable even if the booking otherwise qualifies.
Where your storefront provides booking management, customers can use their signed-in account or booking-management link. The options offered depend on the booking's current state and policy. If a change is unavailable, your team can review the booking and the displayed reason.
Review customer requests
A pending cancellation or reschedule request appears on the booking detail page. You can:
- approve a cancellation, which releases capacity;
- approve a reschedule, which rechecks and claims the requested period before changing the booking; or
- decline the request without changing the booking.
Only one pending booking-change request can be active at a time.
Refund posture is not an automatic refund
The policy records your intended refund posture: full, partial, none, or manual. Approving a cancellation does not move money automatically.
Review the linked Sales record, then handle the refund separately through its available controls. Payments & refunds explains the difference between refunding a connected card payment and recording money already returned outside cartonium.
Merchant exceptions
Review these settings separately:
- Date-policy override records a policy preference. There is no current merchant override path for booking outside hours, blackouts, lead time, or maximum advance. Saving the preference does not make those periods bookable.
- Controlled shortage is off by default. When enabled, it still requires both Bookings and Booking overrides, an audited reason, and follow-up resolution. Exact serialized-unit conflicts cannot be overridden.
Use ordinary strict capacity checks whenever possible. A controlled shortage keeps the unresolved capacity visible; it does not make the missing resource exist.