Naming your chairs
With one location, open Settings, then Calendar, then Chairs. With several locations, open Settings, Locations, choose the location, and open Chairs under that location. Choose + Add a chair and give it a name, for example Shave chair. Each chair has a How many at once number, which is 1 unless a chair really takes more people at the same time.
Add a chair only when it is the bottleneck or a special chair. Bookings stay per barber. As soon as you have listed a chair, ServeCounter counts chairs, and there is no switch to turn that on or off.
Linking services to a chair
A chair only matters for the services you link to it. Open the service in the Catalogue and, under Chairs, choose + Add a chair and pick the chair. A service can need a chair for all of its time or for a part of it, and you can link a service to more than one chair. A service you did not link to a chair never waits for one.
What "a chair is full" means
ServeCounter checks only the services linked to a chair, and only for the minutes that service needs the chair. When a chair already has as many linked appointments at that time as its "How many at once" number allows, the chair is full for those services:
- Online, the time is never offered for a linked service.
- In the Calendar, booking it shows a warning that names what is full.
- Only someone with the right to book anyway, outside availability, can book past it. The owner can give that right to a role in Staff, Roles.
Services that are not linked to that chair are not affected. Appointments you booked before you linked a chair stay as they are, even when they are more than the chair takes. Only new bookings and moves are checked.
Renting a chair out
A chair renter is a business of their own. They have their own booking page, prices, customers, payments and plan. Rent is settled between you and the renter, outside ServeCounter. Chair renters is part of Complete.
- The renter's Owner asks to link, using the booking page link of your location.
- Open Chair renters in Settings, the same way you opened Chairs, and you see the request. An Owner of your business accepts or declines it.
- When you accept, you pick which chair is theirs. If it is not on your list yet, choose Add a chair, name it, and go back to the request.
- Either side can end the link at any time, and only an Owner can.
The renter's Owners are told when you accept, decline or end the link.
What you see and what the renter sees
Your Calendar shows each linked renter as a column after your barbers, with a Busy block while they have an appointment, from its start to the end of its buffer. You never see their customers, services or money. The renter sees only the name of your business and location.
While the link lasts, the renter holds one place of that chair. The services you linked to it can then be booked at your location only up to the places that are left: a chair that takes one at a time is wholly the renter's, so those services cannot be booked at your location until the link ends. A chair a renter has cannot be removed from your list until the link ends.
If you rent a chair somewhere
Open Chair renters in Settings, the same way you opened Chairs, and look under "Your chair at another business". Paste the booking page link of the location where you rent the chair, and choose Ask to link. An Owner at that business accepts or declines.