How to Close or Downgrade your Genbook Account

We know that sometimes Genbookers need to close their accounts, or downgrade, for one reason or another.

Downgrading (or upgrading) is as easy as going to Your Account, then clicking Your Genbook Plan. Once there, you'll see a list of our three plans (Standard, Solo and Free) and be able to tell which one you're using. You can then choose the plan you'd rather be on, simply by clicking on it.

If you're looking to close the account altogether, you'll click on Account Status, under Your Account. You'll see a page that looks like the following if you have an active account:

To close the account, you'll click Deactivate. You'll then see a brief survey about why you're closing your account:

You must complete and submit this survey (by clicking Deactivate again on this page) before the account can be deactivated. If you skip this step, the account remains active. If you change your mind and wish to keep the account active, you can simply click "Cancel" instead.

Once you've deactivated your Genbook account, you'll still be able to log into it. So, if you should ever decide to start using Genbook again, you can just go to Your Account, Account Status and click Activate in order to reactivate the account.

Credit Card Capture Clarification

Sometimes Genbookers ask whether or not Genbook processes credit cards. While our online appointment scheduling tool does have the ability to capture, verify and store credit card details for you, we do not provide a payment gateway. 

So there's no need to worry about clients accidentally being charged for the appointment. This also means it won't matter if the client decides to use a different form of payment at the time of the service. Furthermore, it means there also aren't any processing fees or hidden/extra charges attached to the credit card capture feature. It's all included in the Solo or Standard monthly fee. 

Weekly Calendar View

Exciting news Genbookers — we have released our week view of the calendar! We'd like to thank all of you who took notice and gave us your feedback on it. Now, here's a crash course in what you're seeing.

If you have a one-person business, your default view of the calendar will be the week view. It looks like this:


You'll notice that the current week is highlighted above the dates and there are other weeks to choose from. as well. If you click on the double arrows, you'll skip to the highlighted week's equivalent in the next month.

You'll notice two icons next to each date when you're in this view.


The one that looks sort of like a broken circle will, when clicked on, mark the staff member whose schedule you're viewing as "Away Today". The other, which looks like a calendar with one day highlighted in red, will take you to a day view of the calendar.

If you have multiple staff members, your schedule will default to the day view:


The icons next to the staff members' names will be the same as those next to the dates in the week view, except now the calendar icon will take you to the week view of a particular staff member's calendar.

If you have staff categories, you'll also notice that there are no longer tabs at the top of the calendar, where you can click in order to switch the category you're viewing. There is, instead, a drop-down menu at the top left of the calendar.


One more difference between the week and single day view is that in the single day view (where you see multiple staff members) you have two sets of arrows. The single arrows will take you back or forward one week in time, whereas the double arrows move you one month. You will, of course, still land on the corresponding day of the following/previous month.

If you are in the week view and have multiple staff members, you'll see a drop-down list of staff members where the categories would be in the single day view, from which you can choose to see another staff member's schedule week by week.

Another difference you'll notice is that the staff members no longer have drop-down menus under their names (ie: you can no longer hover above a staff member's name and see a list of options for settings). The Away Today icon took care of one of the previous options, but the others — like the Offline Mask — will have to be accessed by going to Settings, then Staff who provide your services and then clicking on the staff member's name.

Deleting Staff Members

Sometimes you'll need to — for one reason or another — delete a staff member from your online appointment scheduling account. This is not difficult and can usually be accomplished in just a few easy steps.

Locate the option to delete the staff member on his/her details page. You can access the details page either by hovering over the name in your calendar and clicking "Edit services and details" or going to Settings, "Staff who provide your services" and clicking on the name. At the bottom of this page, right under the Save Changes button, you'll see a link saying "Delete this staff member". You'll want to click this link.


Please remember that your staff member may not have any future appointments OR blocked times in the calendar, in order to make it possible for you to delete him/her. If there is a future appointment or block, you will see the following error message:


You'll need to go through the calendar, day by day, to see whether there are appointments, blocks, or both still set up for that staff member. You may wish to move appointments to another staff member. However, in the case of blocks, you'll simply delete them.


In the example above, you'll see that John has an hour blocked off on Monday, September 21st. In order for me to delete him from my staff list, I'll first have to ensure this block is deleted. Deleting a block is just like deleting an appointment. First, click on it once.


You'll see an appointment details box pop out, where all the fields are empty because it's not really an appointment. At the bottom of that box is a "Cancel this appointment" link, which you'll click. Once you confirm that you wish to delete the block, it will be removed from the calendar.

When you're sure there are no future appointments or blocked times in the calendar for the staff member you wish to delete, you can go back to his/her details page and try again.

The $1 Credit Capture Hold

Genbookers who use our Credit Card Capture feature sometimes ask why clients see a $1 transaction on their credit cards immediately after booking an appointment via Genbook.

The most important thing to remember is that it's not a charge, but a hold. A temporary $1 hold is placed on the card as part of the verification step of the credit card capture process. It will disappear back into the account within a few business days.

So please let your clients know it's nothing to worry about!

Your Tabs

We've already tackled the things you can do with the Customers and Reviews tabs, but it's time to take a look at the Inbox, Settings and Resources.

The Inbox is where all current and upcoming online appointments will appear.

Here you'll see the appointment date and time, the staff member chosen for the appointment, the client's name, the service and the time/date the appointment was received, along with a unique confirmation code. One of the best things about your Inbox is that you can sort the appointments by any of the headings. Say, for example, you want to see appointments grouped by staff member, you'll simply click the "Staff" heading.

To view contact details, simply click on the client's name. This will also give you the options of seeing the appointment in the calendar, canceling it or choosing to "complete" it.


Your Settings tab is just what it sounds like, the place where you'll adjust all the settings for your business.


Here's where you'll go whether you need to adjust your business' operating hours or appointment lead times, turn a feature like Credit Card Capture or Customer Reminders on/off, input dates when your business will be closed for vacations/holidays, add your logo and much, much more. It's also where you'll set up and edit your staff and services. Best of all, you can check the outcome of any changes you've made by clicking the BookNow button to the right and doing a test appointment.

Resources is where you'll find the different ways to let clients book online with you, as well as the link to contact Genbook Support with questions/concerns.

You'll see your personalized scheduling page link and have access to the Customer Invitation tool. Plus, your BookNow button code is found under "Read our booknow link instructions"

Troubleshooting - Text Message Notifications

Some Genbookers have reported not getting text messages when they receive a new online appointment, despite having the text message notification feature turned on. We've done a bit of research and found that some cell phone providers block short code messages — messages that come from short code numbers, instead of full 10-digit mobile numbers — which is what Genbook uses to send you texts. Sprint, for example, does this automatically.

The good news is that the issue is often as easy to fix as calling up your provider's customer support department and requesting that they unblock short code messages to your phone. For more information, check out this helpful thread on the Sprint community forum.

Remember that Genbook only sends text messages for appointments made using the BookNow button or link, not for appointments you manually enter in the back end of the calendar.

Combining Services

You've probably noticed that Genbook only allows one service to be booked each time a client uses your BookNow button or link to schedule an online appointment with your business. The way around this is to set up a few "combo" services that actually include two or more services being booked as one.


In the example above, "Smoking" and "Quit Biting Your Nails" are separate services, but there is also a service called "Quit Smoking & Biting Your Nails" that combines the two.


Be sure to enter a duration that's long enough to factor in all the services you're providing within the combo service.

And remember, Genbook lets your business have an unlimited number of services. You can create as many different combinations of single services as you'd like!

The Reviews tab

If you're a Solo or Standard Genbooker, you already know you have the option of publishing client/customer reviews. So here's a bit about the actual Reviews tab, where you can see the reviews and control which ones get published, if you're not automatically publishing all of them, that is.

Here's what your Reviews tab will look like:

On the upper right, you'll see the option to preview the review invites your clients receive, just so you can see what they're seeing when being asked to review your business.



Clients will have the option of associating their names (either the full name or first name and last initial) or choosing "Other" and entering a name they feel gives them more privacy. And, as the note at the bottom says, identifying information isn't included in the review. The level of detail clients give about themselves and their appointments is totally within their control when they submit reviews.

Back now, to the Reviews tab itself -- To the left of "Received" you'll see a little dropdown menu that, when you've got a review selected (ie: the box next to a review checked), will give you several options of what to do with the review in question.


As you can see, you have the option of publishing the review you selected (if the review were already published, then "Unpublish selected reviews" would be an option). You're also able to make the choice about whether you'd like new reviews your business receives to be published automatically, without giving you a chance to look at them.

Many businesses choose to see the reviews before allowing them to be published to their online appointment scheduling pages. Manually publishing and unpublishing reviews can take up to 24 hours, so don't worry if you see "Pending Publication" under Status.

Publishing reviews is a great way to let newer clients see what existing clients think of your business and inspire confidence in your services.

Troubleshooting - Appointments Unavailable error message

Hey Genbookers, have you ever encountered the following error when doing a test appointment?


The message -- "Online appointments for (your business) are unavailable at this time. Please try again later." -- is understandably scary. But don't worry, because what's causing the error is very easy to fix.

You already know that you must list at least one staff member and one service in your account for Genbook to work. But you must also be sure to assign/link at least one service to a staff member, otherwise the above error occurs.



Click on Staff who provide your services (under Settings), then on a staff member's name and make sure that the box next to at least one service is checked, in order to assign that service to that staff member. Don't forget to hit the "Save changes" button at the bottom when you're done.