📋 Contents
01Welcome to BookMate
02Getting Started & Your Free Trial
03First Time Setup
04Managing Bookings
05Schedule View
06Managing Availability
07Slot Capacity & Waitlist
08Workers & Multi-Worker Services
09Automatic Deposits & Full Payments
10Requesting Payment & Payment Links
11Automatic Emails
12Text Message Reminders
13Your Website Embed & Custom Link
14Calendar Sync
15Team Members
16Billing & Your Subscription
17Appearance & Your Account
18How Your Customers Book
19Sharing Your Booking Page
20Tips & Best Practices
21Support
BookMate gives your business a live, professional booking page customers can use from anywhere — while keeping you in complete control of every booking. It's built for solo tradespeople and small service businesses: window cleaners, mobile groomers, hairdressers, and anyone else tired of playing phone tag just to book a job.
No app to download. No commission on what you earn. Just a link (or a link on your own website) and a dashboard you check.
✅
You Stay in Control
Every booking is a request first. Nothing is confirmed until you approve it — so you're never double-booked or caught off guard.
💳
No Commission, Ever
One flat monthly price. BookMate never takes a cut of what you earn, no matter how many bookings come through.
📧
Emails Send Themselves
Confirmations, declines, payment requests and reschedules all email the customer automatically. Nothing to set up.
📲
Text Reminders Included
50 free text reminders a month, sent the day before, plus unlimited email reminders.
🌐
Embed On Your Website
Your live calendar can sit directly on your own site — customers book without ever leaving your page.
📋
Waitlist Support
When a slot fills up, customers join a waitlist instead of being turned away. A cancellation becomes someone else's lucky day.
💰
Payment Links
Save your common prices as Stripe Payment Links and pick one instead of typing an amount every time.
📱
Works on Any Device
Manage bookings from your phone, tablet or computer. Customers book from theirs — no app download needed.
Setting up BookMate is entirely self-serve — there's no account for anyone to create on your behalf.
1
Go to bookmate.nz/admin
Click "Start your free 14-day trial" on the sign-in screen.
2
Enter your business name, email and a password
No credit card required. Your account and 14-day trial are created instantly.
3
You're straight into your dashboard
A sidebar widget shows how many days are left in your trial, with a one-tap link to subscribe whenever you're ready.
4
Forgotten your password?
Click "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in screen — a reset link is emailed to you automatically. No need to contact support for this.
💡 Note: If your 14 days run out before you subscribe, your dashboard locks behind a simple screen prompting you to subscribe — nothing is lost, and everything unlocks the moment you do.
Take 10 minutes on first login to set up your business profile. This is what customers see when they visit your booking page.
1
Go to Settings
Fill in your Business Name, Tagline, contact email, and choose your brand colour.
2
Choose a Custom Booking Link
Set a friendly link like bookmate.nz/bookit/yourbusiness instead of a long string of letters and numbers.
3
Set your Operating Hours & Booking Rules
Toggle each day on or off, set start/end times, minimum notice, how far ahead customers can book, and slot capacity.
4
Add your Services
Go to Services → + Add Service. Add each thing you offer with a name, duration, price and icon.
5
Add your Payment Details
In Settings, add your bank details and a default Stripe Payment Link — used automatically whenever no specific saved link is picked.
6
Share your booking page
Go to Share Page to copy your link or your website embed code.
💡 Tip: Your customer page updates live the moment you save anything in Settings or Services — no publishing step, changes are instant.
Your dashboard shows everything at a glance. The All Bookings page has four tabs:
⏳
Pending Tab
New requests waiting for your action. Confirm or decline from here.
📆
Upcoming Tab
Confirmed bookings with future dates, sorted soonest first.
🗂
Past Tab
Confirmed bookings where the date has already passed — useful for looking up repeat customers.
📋
Waitlist Tab
Customers who requested a full slot. Contact them if a cancellation opens a spot.
Confirming, declining and rescheduling
Confirm sends an automatic confirmation email. Decline lets you add a reason and automatically emails the customer a polite decline notice. Reschedule moves a booking to a new date/time and emails the customer with the old and new time — all three happen without you writing a single message.
Deleting a booking
Every booking card has a small delete icon. Deleting is immediate but undoable — a bar appears at the bottom with a live 30-second countdown and a Delete Now option if you don't want to wait it out. Click Undo any time before it reaches zero and the booking is fully restored; click Delete Now to skip straight to removing it.
Notifying a waitlisted customer
When a spot frees up, open the Waitlist tab and click "Slot Available — Notify" on the customer you want to offer it to. This automatically emails and texts them that the slot is open and links straight to your booking page — first to book it gets it.
Adding a booking manually
Click + New Booking to add one yourself — useful when someone calls or books in person. Recurring bookings (weekly, fortnightly or monthly) are also supported and created confirmed immediately.
The Schedule page gives you a day-by-day, time-ordered view of confirmed bookings. It's the fastest way to see what's coming up.
🕐
Time-Ordered
Bookings within each day are sorted earliest first, with today highlighted.
📖
Details Visible
Customer name, service, phone number and notes are all shown without clicking in.
💡 Tip: Bookmark the Schedule page as your morning check-in.
Click Availability to block out days you're not available — annual leave, sick days, public holidays.
1
Tap a day on the calendar
The date fills in automatically.
2
Click "Block This Day"
The day is immediately greyed out on your customer booking page — no one can request it.
3
To unblock a day
Find it in the Blocked Days list and remove it. It becomes available again instantly.
Every service has its own Max Bookings Per Slot, set right when you add or edit it — not a single setting for your whole business. Use 1 for a private, one-on-one service, or a higher number for a group session — e.g. a one-on-one guitar lesson and a 10-person group class can both exist side by side, each with the capacity that actually suits it. Enable the waitlist in Booking Rules so customers aren't turned away when a slot fills.
| What customer sees | What it means |
|---|
| No count shown | Capacity is 1 (private) — slot is available |
| "3 left" | Capacity is more than 1 and spots remain |
| "Full" | Slot is at capacity |
| "Waitlist" | Full, but waitlist is enabled — customer can join |
💡 How to use it: When a booking is cancelled, check your Waitlist tab and offer the spot to the next person on it.
If more than one person does the work in your business, you can set up Workers in Settings and assign each service to a specific one. A one-on-one guitar lesson taught by Dean and the same lesson taught by Caroline become two completely independent services — each with its own bookings and its own availability — even though customers see them as naturally as "Guitar Lesson with Dean" and "Guitar Lesson with Caroline."
1
Add your workers
Go to Settings → Workers and add each person's name. Five workers are included free with your subscription.
2
Assign a worker to a service
When adding or editing a service, use the Assign to Worker dropdown. Leave it as "No specific worker" for a general service anyone can be booked into.
3
Need more than 5 workers?
Once you're at your limit, Settings shows a Buy Additional Worker Slot — $9.99 button — a one-off payment for one more permanent slot. If a worker leaves, just rename their slot for their replacement — no need to buy another.
💡 Someone calls in sick? Open that service and click Pause & Notify Customers. Pick how far ahead to notify — today only, up to 7 days, or all upcoming bookings — so a one-day absence doesn't disturb bookings weeks away. It hides just that one service from new bookings and automatically emails (and texts, if they opted in) everyone within the window you chose — every other worker's bookings are completely unaffected. Click "Resume Service" once they're back.
💡 Blocking a day off: In Availability, the "Block For" option lets you close a day for one specific worker only, instead of your whole business — perfect for one person's annual leave while everyone else stays bookable.
Connect your own Stripe account and BookMate can take a deposit or the full payment automatically, right when a customer books — no chasing anyone afterwards, and the money lands straight in your own bank account. This is completely separate from the manual Payment Links below: once connected, payment happens as part of the booking itself, before you've even reviewed the request.
1
Connect your Stripe account
Go to Settings → Payment Details → Automatic Deposits & Payments and click "Connect with Stripe." You'll be taken through Stripe's own secure onboarding — a few minutes, one time only.
2
Set Payment At Booking on a service
When adding or editing a service, choose None (pay you directly as usual), Require a deposit, or Require full payment — then enter the amount.
3
Customers pay as part of booking
If a service requires payment, the customer is taken straight to a secure Stripe checkout before their request is even sent through. The booking only appears in your Pending tab once payment succeeds.
4
Refund straight from the booking
Need to give money back? Every Stripe-paid booking has a Refund button right on the card — no need to go into your Stripe dashboard.
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Deposit | A fixed dollar amount you set, paid upfront — the rest is settled however you normally take payment (cash, eftpos, bank transfer) |
| Full payment | The entire amount for that service, paid upfront at booking |
💡 Even a still-pending booking can already be paid: because payment happens before you review the request, a booking sitting in your Pending tab can already show a Stripe payment on it. If you decline it, BookMate reminds you to hit Refund.
💰 Stripe's processing fee applies: like any card payment, Stripe takes its standard processing fee out of each payment before the rest lands in your account — this isn't a BookMate charge, and BookMate doesn't take any cut of your deposits or payments. Worth keeping in mind when you set your deposit/full payment amount. Check
stripe.com/nz/pricing for their current rates.
This is the manual method — for services where you haven't set up automatic Stripe payment, or for one-off requests outside a service's usual price. Once a booking is confirmed you can request a deposit or the full amount. BookMate emails the customer with your payment details and their booking reference automatically.
1
Save your Payment Links once (optional)
In Settings, add as many Stripe Payment Links as you need — one per common price, e.g. "Full House Clean — $80". Add a default link too, for one-off custom amounts. Skip this step if you'd rather just type an amount each time.
2
Tap "Request Amount" on a booking
Pick a saved Payment Link from the dropdown — the amount fills in automatically — or choose "Custom / one-off amount" and type one in. Confirming sends the payment request email straight away — there's no separate "send" step.
3
"Amount Requested" badge appears
A running reminder of what you asked for and how much — right there on the booking, so you don't need to remember.
4
Mark as paid when money arrives
The badge updates to show payment received, and you can mark the job complete once it's done.
💡 Need to follow up? Once a request is out, a Resend Payment Email button appears on the booking — handy for a gentle nudge if payment hasn't come through, or to add a custom message on a follow-up.
💡 Reference Numbers: Every booking gets a unique reference. Ask customers to quote it when paying — it makes matching payments instant.
Every email BookMate sends goes out automatically — there's nothing for you to set up. No account to create, no template to configure. It just works from the moment you sign up.
| Email | When it sends |
|---|
| Booking Confirmed | The moment you confirm a pending request |
| Booking Declined | When you decline, including your reason if you added one |
| Payment Requested | When you request a deposit or full payment, with your payment options included |
| Booking Rescheduled | Whenever you move a booking, showing both the old and new time |
| Appointment Reminder | Automatically, the day before every confirmed booking |
Every BookMate subscription includes 50 free text reminders a month, sent automatically the day before each confirmed booking — on top of the unlimited email reminders above.
💡 Consent required: Text reminders only go to customers who've ticked "Text me a reminder" on your booking form — it's unchecked by default, so nobody gets a text unless they've actively opted in. They'll still get an email reminder either way.
📲
Use-It-Or-Lose-It
Your 50 free texts reset every billing cycle. Unused ones don't carry over.
💳
Top-Up Packs Never Expire
Run out in a busy month? Buy a 100-text pack from Settings. Purchased credits never expire, even though the free monthly ones do.
Test your setup any time from Settings → Text Reminders → Send Test Text — handy for confirming everything's connected before relying on it.
Most booking tools just give you a link to send customers away to. BookMate lets you put the real, live calendar directly on your own website.
1
Go to Share Page
Copy the Embed Code shown there.
2
Paste it into your website
Any site builder that accepts a snippet of HTML — Squarespace, Wix, Rocketspark, WordPress and more.
3
It resizes itself automatically
As customers move through the booking steps, so it never clips or scrolls awkwardly.
💡 Custom Link: Set a friendly link in Settings — e.g. bookmate.nz/bookit/yourbusiness — used automatically on your Share Page and in your embed code once you save it.
See your confirmed BookMate bookings inside Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, alongside your personal life — no separate app to check.
1
Go to Settings → Calendar Sync
Click "Generate My Calendar Link" — a private, unguessable link is created for your account.
2
Copy the link
Keep it private — anyone with the link can see your booking schedule.
3
Add it to your calendar app
Google Calendar: Other calendars (+) → From URL → paste it in.
Apple Calendar: File → New Calendar Subscription → paste it in.
💡 One-way only: Your bookings flow into Google/Apple automatically, but anything you add directly there doesn't affect BookMate availability. If you ever need to invalidate the link (e.g. you shared it somewhere you shouldn't have), click "Regenerate Link" in Settings — the old one stops working immediately.
Add one extra person to help manage bookings — included free, no extra charge.
1
Go to Settings → Team
Enter their email and click "Invite Team Member."
2
They get their own login
An email arrives with a link to set their own password — never a shared password with you.
3
They sign in at bookmate.nz/admin
Same sign-in screen as you use, with their own email and password.
💡 What they can (and can't) do: A team member can view and manage bookings — confirm, decline, reschedule, request payment, and respond to the waitlist. They can't see or change Settings, Services, Availability, your Share Page, or anything to do with billing. Only one additional team member at a time — remove their access in Settings before inviting someone else.
BookMate is $19.99 NZD a month, flat — no commission, ever, no matter how many bookings you take.
| Where to find it | What it shows |
|---|
| Sidebar widget | A live status — trial days remaining, active, or if something needs attention |
| Settings → Billing & Text Messages | Your subscription status and text allowance, with a Subscribe/Resubscribe button when needed |
💡 Cancel or update anytime: Once you're subscribed, a Manage Subscription button appears in the same spot — it opens Stripe's own secure billing page where you can cancel, update your card, or view past invoices yourself, no need to contact support. Payments are processed securely through Stripe — your card details never touch BookMate directly.
💡 Two separate Stripe relationships: Your $19.99/month subscription (this section) is you paying BookMate. Automatic Deposits & Full Payments (Section 09) is a completely different connection — your own customers paying you directly through your own Stripe account. They don't affect each other.
Dark or light mode
Switch the toggle at the bottom of the sidebar any time. Your choice automatically applies to your customer booking page too, so the two stay visually consistent.
Forgotten your password?
Click "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in screen and a reset link is emailed to you — fully self-serve, no need to contact support.
When a customer visits your booking page they go through a simple process:
1
Choose a Service
They see your services with name, description, duration and price.
2
Pick a Date and Time
The calendar shows available days only — closed and blocked days are greyed out automatically.
3
Enter Their Details
Name, email, phone and any notes.
4
Submit the Request
Their unique reference number is shown clearly, and the request appears in your dashboard immediately.
💡 Waitlist flow: If a customer picks a full slot, they see a "Join Waitlist" option instead of being turned away.
| Where | How to use it |
|---|
| Your Website | Use the embed code so the calendar sits directly on your site — no click-away needed. |
| Instagram Bio | Paste your custom link in your bio. |
| Facebook Page | Add as your page's call-to-action "Book Now" button. |
| Google Business | Add your booking link to your Google Business Profile. |
| Text / WhatsApp | Send your link instead of going back and forth manually. |
⚡
Respond Quickly
Confirm or decline within a few hours — fast responses mean customers follow through.
💰
Use Deposits for No-Shows
Set a service to require a deposit (or connect Stripe for it to happen automatically) on high-value bookings to dramatically reduce no-shows.
🗓️
Block Days Early
Block public holidays and leave as soon as you know, to stop requests coming in.
🔖
Use Reference Numbers
Ask customers to quote their reference when paying — makes matching payments instant.
🌐
Embed, Don't Just Link
Put the calendar directly on your site rather than only sharing a link — fewer clicks, more bookings.
📋
Check Your Waitlist
Every time you get a cancellation, check the Waitlist tab before the slot goes to waste.
If you have any questions or run into an issue, get in touch. We're based in New Zealand and usually respond within a business day.
Need help? Get in touch.
We're here to support you.
hello@kiwicode.net.nz
BookMate is a product of Kiwi Code NZ · bookmate.nz
