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One inbox, read inside one working day, by somebody who can change the product if the answer turns out to be that it is our fault.
Help for the people using Bokful
Short answers written by the people who built it, and re-checked against the code rather than remembered. If one of them is wrong, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.
Start from where you are
Three groups, and every answer in each of them is on this page.
Booking an appointment
Confirmation, changes, times and the emails you get.
Do I need an account to book?
No. A name, an email address and a phone number are all a business needs, and the confirmation email carries a link that lets you change that booking later. An account only exists so that every booking you have made sits in one place: My bookings.
Is my appointment confirmed straight away?
Usually. Instant confirmation is on unless the business turns it off, in which case your request arrives as pending and waits for a person to say yes. Either way the slot is yours from the moment you book, and the email you get says which of the two happened.
How far ahead can I book?
As far ahead as that business takes bookings, which its own page draws for you: a new business opens 30 days of diary and can widen that itself, so there is no one answer to print here. You cannot book a time in the past, and you cannot book a slot that has already started.
Can I cancel or move my appointment?
Yes, while it is still pending or confirmed and has not yet finished. Open it from My bookings, or from the link in your confirmation email if you booked as a guest, and choose cancel or reschedule. Bokful enforces no notice period of its own; the business may still have one, so give them what warning you can. Once the appointment has ended it is the business who changes it, not you.
Why will it not let me book twice?
Two rules, both checked as you book rather than afterwards: one live booking per business per day, and no two bookings anywhere on Bokful that overlap each other. They exist because a customer booking over themselves is nearly always a mistake. If you genuinely need a second slot on the same day, ask the business to add it.
Which timezone are the times in?
The business’s, named with its current offset above the day picker, and the banner tells you when your own device is somewhere else. Daylight-saving changes are handled, so a 9am slot is 9am for the business whatever your phone is set to.
What emails will I get?
Only ones about your own booking, one for each thing that can happen to it: requested, confirmed, booked for you by the business, moved, completed, declined, cancelled by you, cancelled by the business, and expired. Every one carries a calendar invite, and the four that end a booking send it as a cancellation so your calendar clears itself. We send no marketing email.
Nobody ever confirmed my request. What happens?
It closes itself. A booking that is still pending or confirmed seven days after it should have finished is cancelled automatically and you are emailed. Nothing is charged, because Bokful takes no money.
A slot looks free but will not book
Almost always somebody took it moments earlier. Overlapping bookings are refused by the database itself, so when two people press book at the same instant one of them is told the slot has gone. It can also mean the business closed that time while you were choosing. If a time keeps failing, report it: that is a bug and we want to know.
Can I keep a business for later?
Yes, once you are signed in. Save it from its page and it is waiting in Saved. Saving is private: the business is not told.
What happens to what I type in?
Your name, email and phone go to the business you booked with, because that is who is expecting you. What we hold and why is written out in the privacy policy, and the same address handles a request to see, correct, export or delete any of it.
Running your business
Your page, your hours, your services and your team.
How do I start taking bookings?
Four things, and a slot only appears where all four meet: the business exists, a service has a length, the weekly hours have an open day, and the page is published. Publishing needs a confirmed email address and enough of a location for a customer to find you. Create a business walks you through the lot.
Why can nobody book me?
Nearly always one of three. The page is not published yet. Or the weekly hours have no open day, in which case every slot is refused as closed. Or the service has no duration, and a service with no length has no grid to offer starts on. Your dashboard flags the missing one at the top.
How are appointment lengths decided?
By the service. Each one carries its own duration, so a 30-minute service offers 30-minute starts and a 90-minute one offers 90-minute starts. Change the duration and the grid of available times changes with it.
What is the difference between a holiday and leave?
A holiday can repeat: daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, which is how you close every Sunday, or Eid, or Christmas, once. Leave is always one-off, for time away. Both close the whole business rather than one person’s diary.
How far ahead can my customers book?
30 days to begin with, and you widen it yourself in your business settings, as far as the ceiling on your account. The ceiling starts at 90 days and only we can lift it, so if you take bookings further out than that, tell us why and we will raise it.
Can two customers take the same slot?
No, and this is enforced by the database rather than checked in the app, which is the difference between usually and never: two live bookings cannot overlap on the same person’s diary, so simultaneous requests cannot both succeed. One gets the slot and the other is told it has gone.
Do I have to confirm every booking?
Only if you want to. Instant confirmation is on by default, so a booking is confirmed the moment it is made; turn it off and every request waits for you to say yes. Either way an email goes to every owner and admin the moment one arrives, and to the member it is assigned to.
Can I add staff or team members?
Yes. Invite them by email from the Team screen and choose admin or staff. An admin runs the business alongside you but cannot take it from you; staff work the diary. Owner is the one role nobody can be invited into, and there is exactly one per business. An invitation lasts 7 days and only the address it was sent to can accept it. A business holds up to 25 members.
Where do I see my day?
The calendar in your dashboard draws the day as a grid, one column per person, with your closing hours shaded out and a marker on the current time. Requests that are still waiting on you sit in their own queue beside it, so nothing pending is hiding inside the diary.
Can I take payment through Bokful?
No. There is no payment provider in Bokful today: no card processing, no deposits, no payouts, and nothing stored. Bokful handles the scheduling, and the money is arranged with your customer directly. Deposits are planned, and when they arrive no plan will gate them.
Plans and founding codes
What it costs, what is metered, and how to join.
What does Bokful cost?
Three plans, in US dollars. Solo is free while you work alone. Solo Plus is $5 a month. Team is $10 per outlet per month and includes 10 members, then $1 a month for each one after that. Pay for the year and 2 months are free. The whole table is on the pricing page.
Am I being charged anything yet?
No. There is no billing code in Bokful: no card is stored, no invoice is issued, and a plan is granted to a business rather than bought by one. The prices above are what the plans will cost when billing exists, published early on purpose so that nobody meets a number for the first time on an invoice.
What is actually metered?
WhatsApp reminders, and nothing else, because they are the only thing in the product that costs real money to send. Solo has none, Solo Plus includes 150 a month and Team 250 per outlet, pooled. Email is free on every plan and is never counted. The meter is already in your dashboard, ahead of the reminders themselves: nothing sends a WhatsApp message today.
What is a founding code and how do I get one?
Creating a business during the launch period needs one, and we send them out by hand while the programme is small. Write to partners@bokful.com and tell us what you do, and we will send you one. It is used once, on the business you create with it at /join.
What do founding members actually get?
Team free for 12 months, then 50% off it for as long as the business runs: $10/mo becomes $5/mo. Multi-outlet businesses get the same terms on every outlet. There are 20 places, and the cohort closes when the last code is redeemed rather than on a date, so we are not going to quote you one.
I do not have a code. Can I still look around?
Yes. Everything a customer sees is open, so you can browse the businesses already taking bookings and book with them without an account. A code is only needed for the moment you create a business of your own.
Open your dashboardWhere every answer here applies
Most of what you need is one screen away: your services and their lengths under the menu, your weekly hours and closures under availability, the diary and the requests waiting on you in the calendar.