Dog Walking Cancellation Policy

Your rules

Each rule is a number of days and a percentage from 0 to 100, and no two rules may share the same days. Saving needs at least one complete rule; a rule missing either number is dropped when you save. Make 1 your shortest window: it covers the day before and the walk's own day. Do not use 0 — a saved 0-day rule is read back as incomplete, so the card does not count it and your next save drops it.

Which plans see it

The Dog Walking policies appear when your plan includes walking: Starter, Walker and Pro, or a Sitter or Boarder with the Dog Walking add-on.

The client cancels a date

On their Bookings every walk date has Cancel Date, available until the date has passed or the booking is checked in. The dialog asks for a reason and quotes the charge for that date — how many days away the walk is, the percentage and the amount, with VAT where you charge it. 'Pet sickness / illness' uses your Dog Walking Sickness Policy instead, when that policy is active.

What happens to the booking

The date comes off the booking and is kept as cancelled with its fee; the booking's total is re-priced from the walks left. Cancelling the last date left cancels the booking. Your copy and the client's are written together.

Money

The fee goes on that month's invoice as a Cancellation Fee line. If the client had already paid for the date, they get account credit for what they paid less the fee; refunding actual money is yours to do by hand. If you charge VAT, the fee carries it at the rate on the walk's date.

Emails

The client gets a cancellation email, worded for sickness when that policy applied, under the client switch 'Booking cancelled'. When a client cancels, a copy goes to your business email under your admin switch 'Booking cancelled' — but it is built after the client's, so with the client switch off, or a client with no email address, neither goes. When you cancel for a client you can choose to send no email, and then nothing is sent.

Exempt clients

A client on 'Clients Exempt from Cancellation Policy' is never charged, whatever the notice — on their own cancellations, when you cancel for them, and if they leave your business. Their agreement shows an exemption notice instead of the rules, and they get an in-app notice when added or removed; nothing to re-sign. The Sickness Policy keeps its own exempt list.

Pending dates

A date on a booking you have not yet confirmed cancels free, whoever cancels it; there is no switch for this any more. On a pending booking only the dates you have already confirmed can be charged.

When you cancel for a client

From Clients → Bookings, the Daybook's Batch Edit or Gaia you cancel one date, see the same quote the client would, and the fee is charged only when you choose to apply it. Cancel Booking on your Bookings screen cancels every remaining date at once: for a single walk you pick one of your rules or cancel without charge; for several walks 'Cancel All (Auto Policy)' applies the rule for the first remaining walk's notice, taken on all the remaining walks' prices. The Daybook's own 'Cancel bookings' on ticked rows cancels that day silently — no fee, no email — and a paid booking's money goes back to the client as account credit. Afterwards you can edit a cancelled date's charge and the walker's share of it.

Your team

A walk cancelled before its day comes off the walker's Daybook; they earn nothing for it and the business keeps the whole fee. A walk cancelled on its own day shows on their Daybook as cancelled today, under two banners in Staff that are on unless you switch them off. By default the business keeps that fee as well; switch 'Pay … for same-day cancellations' on for a walker in Staff and they get their usual cut from then on — cancellations already recorded are unchanged.

Undo

A cancelled date can be put back: by the client for any date after today, by you at any time. The date returns as it was, any credit is reversed, and the client is emailed that it is back on, if that email is switched on.

Agreement and welcome email

While the policy is active, its rules print into the Dog Walking Agreement and into a walking client's welcome email. Switching it on, or changing an active policy's rules, records a revision on the agreement and sends every client an in-app notice of what changed; saving it inactive tells nobody.

Changing a walk inside the window

While the policy is active, a client cannot swap a walk's service on a day inside your widest charging window. They can still move the day within the same week, or cancel and pay.