Take your first booking in ten minutes

Booking software has a reputation for long setup. Schedopia’s is short because the form only needs three things: something to book, someone to book it with, and a page to put it on. Everything else can wait.

This guide takes you from a fresh install to a confirmed test appointment, with notes on the few choices that are worth getting right on day one.

The whole route, in order:

1. Install the plugin and choose a booking mode
2. Add a category, a service and a staff member
3. Put the booking form on a page
4. Make a test booking as a customer
5. Find it in the admin and mark it paid

Minutes 0 to 2: install and choose a mode

Install Schedopia from Plugins → Add Plugin and activate it. The setup wizard asks whether you take appointments or sell seats. Not sure? Pick appointments. You can turn events on later, or run both, in Settings.

Minutes 2 to 5: one category, one service, one person

Create a category, even if you only have one. Then add a service with a duration and a price, add a staff member, set their weekly hours, and assign the service to them.

Two decisions are easier to make now than to unpick later.

The first is duration. Duration is customer time, not calendar time. If a 45-minute treatment really takes an hour of the room, set the duration to 45 minutes and add a 15-minute buffer. Customers see 45. Your calendar blocks 60.

The second is price. Every service card on the form shows its price, so customers see it before they pick a slot. If you would rather quote on the day, that is fine, but the field is there for a reason: people book more readily when they already know what it costs.

Minutes 5 to 7: put the form on a page

Create a page and add the [schedopia_booking] shortcode using the Shortcode block, or Elementor’s Shortcode widget if that is your builder. Publish it.

One form per page. If you add events later, give them a page of their own.

Minutes 7 to 9: make a booking as a customer

Open the page in a private window so you see it the way a visitor does. Choose the service, pick a day and a slot, enter a name and an email you can check, and confirm.

Notice what the form did not ask for: no password and no card. With Pay on arrival, the last step is a name, an email, a phone number and a button.

Now check the inbox. The confirmation email has add-to-calendar buttons for Google, Outlook and Apple, and a cancel link that works without logging in.

Minutes 9 to 10: look at the admin

Open Schedopia → Dashboard. If the booking is for today it appears in Today’s schedule; either way it is counted in the totals. Then open Bookings, open the booking and click Record payment.

That is the whole loop: booked, seen, paid. Ten minutes.

What to do next

None of this is required to take bookings, but each one takes a couple of minutes and saves you a headache later.

• Open Design → Booking form and set your primary color. The live preview switches between desktop and mobile, so matching your brand is quick.
• Add days off for the next holiday before you forget.
• If you have several staff, add buffers where rooms or equipment need turnover.
• Subscribe to the calendar feed so bookings show up in the calendar app you already check.

The full detail for each step is in the setup wizard docs. If your business does not fit this pattern, tell us about it and we will suggest a setup.