Who this is for: studio operators (admin panel) · Product: Podyx V2
An admin booking is one you create on the client's behalf. Someone calls, walks in, or negotiates something over email, and you put it into the system yourself. It keeps every booking inside Podyx, which is what makes your calendar, your reporting and your invoicing trustworthy.
ℹ️ This is the full reference for the admin booking form. Sessions and the In-app Calendar both open the same form — what you can set is identical wherever you start from.
⚠️ Read Customer self-service first if you book on clients' behalf. Clients can now reschedule, cancel and buy add-ons on the sessions you created for them, including sessions already on your books. There is a per-session switch to turn that off.
🎥 Watch the walkthrough
🔧 Where to create one
Four places, all leading to the same form:
From the Sessions tab
From inside an individual session
From a client profile
Straight from the calendar, by clicking an open slot
💡 Start from the calendar when the time matters most and you are looking for a gap. Start from the client profile when the person matters most and you already know who you are booking for.
🛠 What you can set
Who and what
The client's email
The setup being booked and the base service
Recording seats, duration, and date and time
Additional services and file transfer options
Customer self-service — whether the client can manage this session themselves. On by default; see below
Money
A price override, when you have agreed something different
A promo code
Billing details
Whether to send a payment link, and how long it stays valid — see How long the payment link stays valid below
Whether to issue an invoice
Context
A note, which appears in the session details afterwards
Any guests attending
🔑 Customer self-service on sessions you created
Clients can now reschedule, cancel and buy add-ons on sessions the studio booked for them, exactly as they can on sessions they booked themselves. Until now, a session you created was yours to manage and the client had to call you to change anything.
⚠️ This applies to sessions already on your books, and it is on by default. There is no studio-wide switch. If you book on clients' behalf precisely so they cannot move things — a negotiated slot, a session built around a specific engineer, a booking you are holding as a favour — go and untick Customer self-service on the sessions that matter, now rather than later.
Two places to control it:
On New Booking — untick Customer self-service as you create the session.
On the session page — flip it on or off at any time afterwards.
What the client still cannot do, even with self-service on:
Reschedule, unless rescheduling is enabled in your settings. Your existing rescheduling rules still govern everything.
Move a session with a payment link still out. The link has to be dealt with first.
Cancel a session paid in cash or outside Podyx. They can move it, but cancelling it from their profile is refused — because there is no payment for Podyx to reverse.
💡 The honest trade-off: leaving self-service on removes a pile of phone calls about moving a session by an hour, which is most of what those calls are. Turning it off is for the bookings where the arrangement, not the slot, is the thing you agreed. Decide per booking rather than as a blanket policy, since that is the only way the switch works anyway.
⏳ How long the payment link stays valid
When you tick send a payment link, the form shows Payment link valid for. You choose an amount of time in minutes, hours or days, and you choose which end of the booking that time is measured from.
Counting forward from the booking. The link expires a set time after you create the booking — for example, 2 hours after. If the client has not paid by then, the link dies and the booking cancels.
Counting back from the session. The link expires a set time before the session starts — for example, 48 hours before. The deadline sits just ahead of the session itself, however far away that is.
The second option solves a familiar problem. A session booked six weeks out used to have its payment link expire, and the booking cancel, long before the client had any reason to think about paying. Now you can hold the slot and put the deadline where the client expects it.
Which one to use. Count forward when the session is happening soon — it is a pay-now-or-lose-the-slot situation, and a short window protects a valuable slot from sitting reserved and unpaid. Count back when the session is weeks out — you are holding the slot in good faith and asking the client to settle up nearer the time.
💡 Nothing changes unless you want it to. The default is still 2 hours after the booking is created, so if you never touch this field your links behave exactly as they always have.
If the session is too close for a before the session starts rule to make sense — the deadline would already have passed — the form tells you while you are filling it in, rather than letting you save and fail afterwards. Shorten the window or switch to counting forward.
Every deadline is capped at 2 hours before the session starts, and the preview says so as you set it. A link that could still be paid while the client is walking through the door helps nobody, so the cap gives you a little time to see the payment land and prepare the room. Short-notice and retroactive bookings are exempt — a session you are creating for this afternoon, or one you are recording after the fact, is not forced against a cap it could never meet.
⚠️ A long window is still a real deadline. Counting back from the session means the booking can cancel the day before it was due to happen, so keep an eye on unpaid bookings as the date approaches.
Payment link valid for only appears when a link will actually be sent. If you untick the send box the field disappears, and if you tick it again your chosen setting is still there.
👉 Need to move a deadline after the booking exists? The session page has an Extend button on the Payment link expires row — see Sessions.
🔓 What admin bookings can and cannot bypass
What you can bypass. When you book as an admin, the picker ignores the cutoff and buffer rules that apply to clients. So you can squeeze in a same-day session that your booking page would have refused, or place something inside a buffer window when you know the room is genuinely ready. You can also place a session inside your studio's own booking lead time.
What nobody can bypass. A session cannot be scheduled or rescheduled onto a time that has already passed. That applies to admins, to the customer's own picker, and to the API alike.
The slot picker does follow your studio's session increment, so you see the same available time slots the storefront sells. This keeps the grid consistent whether the booking is created by a client or by you.
⚠️ Useful power, worth respecting. The buffer exists because your turnaround does. Overriding it occasionally is smart, doing it habitually just moves the stress onto your day.
👋 The client is not registered yet
You can invite them directly from the CMS so they can sign up, then add them to an admin booking or a bundle. Nobody has to be turned away because they do not have an account.
🧠 Why it matters
Nothing lives outside the system, so your calendar and reports stay accurate.
You can say yes on the phone and take payment afterwards through a link.
Negotiated deals stay tidy, with price overrides recorded rather than remembered.
Fewer calls about small changes, since clients can move their own sessions unless you decide otherwise.
✅ Summary
Create admin bookings from Sessions, an individual session, a client profile or the calendar — all four open the same form. Clients can now reschedule, cancel and buy add-ons on the sessions you create, including ones already booked, so untick Customer self-service on the bookings you need to keep studio-managed. Set the session details, override the price if you agreed one, and send a payment link with an expiry in minutes, hours or days (2 hours by default) rather than chasing money later. That expiry can count forward from the booking for a session happening soon, or back from the session start — say 48 hours before — for one that is weeks away, capped at 2 hours before the session begins. Admin bookings skip client cutoffs, buffers and your booking lead time, but nothing can be scheduled into the past.
Related: Sessions · In-app Calendar · Clients · Booking Rules