Timetable spacing
A staff member's timetable spacing determines their timeslot increments and available service length options - examples:
10-minute spacing: Timeslots at 09:00, 09:10, 09:20... | Service length options of 10, 20, 30... minutes
15-minute spacing: Timeslots at 09:00, 09:15, 09:30... | Service length options of 15, 30, 45... minutes
Within Settings > My Business, you can see the spacing against the staff member:
This is automatically set when their record is first added to the system based on their service list. If you need it changed, please contact our Support via the blue help bubble or support@nearcut.com / support@bookinbeautiful.com to request a change.
Note: If forced appointment spacing is used (detailed in the next section), the above button will be overridden and turn green, so you need to click the edit button against the barber/therapist to see their timetable spacing.
Example spacing
If your timetable spacing is 30 minutes:
Service lengths are in 30-minute intervals (e.g. 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes).
Customers will see slots in 30-minute intervals (e.g. 09:00, 09:30, 10:00, 10:30).
How to change your spacing
Contact our support team via the blue help bubble or support@nearcut.com / support@bookinbeautiful.com to request a change. ↘️
Note: Changing your timetable spacing may require appointments to be moved or cancelled.
For example, if changing from 15 to 20 minutes, a 30-minute service will become 40 minutes and may push forward the next appointment.
Forced appointment spacing
Optionally, you can choose to force the spacing your customers select when booking. This does not change the timetable spacing but overrides the slots available for customer booking.
Example setting
If your timetable spacing is 10 minutes but force appointment spacing is set to 30 minutes:
Customers can book at 09:00, 09:30, 10:00 etc. Other slots are greyed out (but can still be manually booked by an admin).
How to change the setting
This can be configured in Settings > My Business by editing the barber profile and changing the Force appointment spacing every setting:
Note: Try to not make this too long if you have shorter services. If you set it to 60 minutes but have a 15-minute service booked at 09:00 for example, the 09:15 - 10:00 gap cannot be filled by the customer as the next available slot is 10:00.
Prevent customers from creating gaps
The system will automatically prevent customers from creating gaps smaller than your shortest service to ensure there is always space for customers to book in with you.
If you'd like the system to prevent customers from creating gaps larger than your shortest service, you can change this setting.
Example setting
If the timetable spacing is 10 minutes but the system is set up to prevent customers from creating gaps smaller than 60 minutes:
Customers can book at 09:00, but not at 09:10, 09:20 etc as this will create a gap at the start of the day shorter than 60 minutes in length.
How to change this setting
This can be configured in Settings > My Business by editing the barber profile and changing the Prevent customers from creating gaps smaller than setting:
Related articles
How to add breaks before/during/after a service - Block off time before/after a service, or free up a slot during a longer service's downtime.