This article is about appointments (1:1 sessions with a specialist): how clients pay for an appointment and how the cancellation fees and cancellation deadline work for appointment bookings. Cancellation rules for group classes are explained in Cancellation deadline and cancellation fees for class and appointment bookings, and courses and events have their own rules.
Payment methods
When booking an appointment, clients can pay using the following methods:
Online card payment
The client pays immediately by card when completing the booking. Payment is processed automatically. See "Setting Up Card Payments with Stripe".
PayPal
The client is redirected to PayPal to complete the payment. See "Setting Up Payments with PayPal".
Bank transfer
The client receives bank transfer details (account number, reference number). Payment is processed manually after it arrives in your account. See "Setting Up Bank Transfer Payments" and "Automatic Bank Transfer Payment Matching".
On-site payment
The client pays upon arrival — by cash, card, or another method directly at your location.
Credit / Pass / Membership
If a client has credit, a pass, or an active membership, they can use it to pay for the appointment. More about credit packs and passes and memberships.
Cancellation rules for appointments
Appointments don't have cancellation settings of their own. They use the studio-wide Cancellation fees for individual sessions and Cancellation deadline, the same rules as single classes. They protect your time and motivate clients to cancel with sufficient notice. Learn more in "Cancellation deadline and cancellation fees for class and appointment bookings".
How cancellation fees work for appointments
Cancellation fees work with time tiers — the closer to the appointment the client cancels, the higher the cancellation fee can be.
Example
Cancellation more than 24 hours before the appointment → no fee (full refund).
Cancellation 12–24 hours before the appointment → 50% cancellation fee.
Cancellation less than 12 hours before the appointment → 100% cancellation fee (no refund).
How to set up cancellation fees for appointments
Cancellation fees are set at the studio level, in Settings > Bookings and rules > Booking cancellation tab > Sessions card > Cancellation fees for individual sessions. One set of rules covers all individual sessions, which means your appointment services and your single classes follow the same rules — you can't give each service a policy of its own.
Click + Add and, in the New cancellation fee dialog, define:
How long before the class starts? — how many hours before the appointment the fee applies. The label says "class", but the same rule applies to appointments. Hours are the only unit here, so convert longer periods first (1 day = 24 hours).
What percentage of the class price? — what percentage of the price is charged as a fee (1–100%).
How late can clients cancel an appointment? (cancellation deadline)
The Cancellation deadline on the same Sessions card sets the latest time before the appointment when a client can still cancel it online. Choose Anytime, or choose Or set a specific deadline and enter the number of whole hours — for example, 2.
After the cancellation deadline, the client can't cancel the appointment online. Zenamu tells them: "It's too close to the appointment start time to cancel online. Please contact the studio." You can still cancel the booking yourself from the booking detail in Appointments > Bookings.
Note: Courses and events follow their own rules and have no percentage-based fees at all. See Setting Up Cancellation Policies and Make-Up Sessions.
Automatic refunds
When a booking is cancelled, the system automatically determines whether and how much should be refunded:
Free cancellation — The client receives a full refund. The email confirms cancellation without a fee.
Cancellation with fee — The client receives an email with the cancellation fee amount and any refunded amount.
The refund method depends on the original payment method:
Card/PayPal — Automatic refund to the original payment method.
Bank transfer / on-site — Refund is handled individually.
Credit / pass / membership — Automatic refund back to credit, pass, or membership.