Setting Preparation and Cleaning Time

Preparation and cleaning time — padding time — block extra time on the calendar right before or after an appointment, without changing the appointment's own duration. Set a default on a service, override it for one team member, change it on a single appointment, and see how padding behaves when an appointment has more than one service.

What padding time does

• Preparation time is added before the appointment starts.
• Cleaning time is added after the appointment ends.
• Both block the calendar the same way an appointment does — no one else can be booked into that time.
• Each field accepts 0 minutes up to 1 hour, in 5-minute steps.
• Clients never see preparation or cleaning time on the Booking Website — they only see fewer available times to choose from.

Preparation and cleaning time apply only to appointments booked after the change; editing a service's padding later does not change appointments that already exist.

On the Calendar, padding shows as a darker band directly above and/or below the appointment card — the lighter middle section is the appointment itself:

Set a service's default preparation and cleaning time

1. Click Settings in the left menu, then click Services under Services, rooms and equipment.
2. Find the service, click its Service actions menu, and click Edit service.
3. In the Duration & Pricing section, set Preparation time and Cleaning time.
4. Click Save.

Every team member who provides this service uses these values unless a team member has their own override.

Override preparation and cleaning time for one team member

Use this when a specific team member needs more, or less, padding than the service default — a new team member who needs longer to prepare, for example.

1. Open the service's edit drawer (see steps above) and click the Service providers tab.
2. Click the pencil icon next to the team member's name.
3. In Adjust team member service, set Preparation time and/or Cleaning time.
4. Click Save.

Changing a service's default preparation or cleaning time later does not update a team member's own override — Appointible flags any team member with a custom value and asks for a review before saving.

Padding time on multi-service appointments

When an appointment has more than one service, padding only applies at the edges:

• Preparation time is added before the appointment starts. It is the longest preparation time among all of the appointment's services.
• Cleaning time is added after the appointment ends. It is the longest cleaning time among all of the appointment's services.
• Services in between run back-to-back with no padding between them.

For example, a haircut with 5 minutes of preparation and 10 minutes of cleaning, followed by a color with 10 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cleaning, adds 10 minutes before the appointment and 15 minutes after it.

Each service uses the team member's own override when they have one. Appointible works the padding out again when you add, remove or change services. Moving the appointment to another team member keeps its padding.

Change preparation or cleaning time on one appointment

Use this when one appointment needs different padding than its services would normally give it — extra setup time for a single client, for example, or no cleaning time after the last appointment of the day.

1. On the Calendar, click the appointment.
2. In the appointment pop-up, click Edit.
3. In the Services section, under Duration, click the preparation and cleaning line, for example 5min prep • 10min clean. When the appointment has no padding yet, click Add prep & cleaning time.
4. Set Preparation time and/or Cleaning time, then click Done.
5. Click Save.

Preparation time is set on the first service provider in the Services section and cleaning time on the last one. When the appointment has one service provider, both are on it.

A value you change is marked Custom. A custom value of 0 minutes shows as No prep or No clean. The Summary timeline shows the preparation, the service and the cleaning with their start and end times.

A custom value stays on the appointment when you change its services, move it to another team member, or drag it on the calendar. If its service provider is no longer the first or last one in the appointment, the custom value is dropped and the new first or last one gets the default padding.

To go back to the default padding, open the line again and click Reset to default, then click Save.

Next steps

To set up a service before adding padding to it, see Adding A New Service. Padding time is separate from how far in advance clients can book online — for that, see Setting Minimum Booking Notice.