Need ability to book multiple therapists in one room

[Timedess]

Is there any such software (as in, online booking software)? That doesn't cost anything? (I know, we're cheap. It's that whole "overhead" thing.)

To accommodate our students, we're going to knock out a wall and expand the classroom. This will leave me with either one HUGE treatment room (like, over 300sf), or sharing Hubby's cozier room with him. Since we also desire to 1) give me the ability to also use his "toys" (we can't/don't want to buy doubles of everything), and 2) to condense his working time to give him an extra lighter/non-hands-on day, we'd rather share the smaller room (which will-have-used-to-be the LARGER room).

However, I'm having fits trying to figure out how to offer online booking this way. If we could somehow have where someone could book online, and choose the therapist, and it would block out the OTHER therapist at that time so there wouldn't be any double bookings, that would be easiest. But I don't want to pay some horrendous amount for that feature. And we really can't AFFORD to take on any payments right now (which is why we like GenBook).

I think I'm about to ask Hubby if he's okay with just not having online booking available anymore. That would also solve completely any "didn't we ask that person not to come back" issues.

[RelaxandRejuvenate]

What if you set up your calendar to be rooms, not people?

[DarrenNegraeff]

Hi Timedess - I don't know of any free online booking solution that can do that - though we have one client who had the same problem which we solved by doing as RelaxandRejeuvenate says by making rooms be calendars - and it worked for him. However, we're not free (well, we have a free plan, but it's fairly limited). Perhaps you could do something along those lines with Genbook, I'm not sure.

Or you could try not having online booking, as you suggested. It's not for everyone, and if your clients don't mind, it certainly seems like the easiest solution.

[Timedess]

We're working on thinking this through more before making any decisions. It looks like whatever way we go, we'll receive some benefits and give up some conveniences.

I am actually leaning more and more towards giving up the online booking altogether-- we were without Internet this morning, and because we do use Genbook, couldn't re-book his client for this morning! Fortunately, she is an "easy sort" so once we got it back, I called her and we took care of her next appointment. But I realized that I really don't LIKE being so reliant on technology that I can't necessarily control. I'm about to go entirely back to paper-and-pencil (including ditching QuickBooks; it's a PITA to have to go and re-record everything one MORE time!). </rant>

[softy515]

As much as I think online scheduling is handy, I just don't desire it for me. I am a solitary business so just so see if worth it for just me. Besides that, I don't want someone to schedule in such a way that I would have a huge gap in the day or something.

Renee, don't feel like it is bad to go back to pen and paper. How many of your clients actually use the online scheduler?