FAQ · Ruth Guarino Bookings

FAQ

The questions Australian service businesses ask first — answered with what the running app actually does.

How does pricing work?

Ruth Guarino Bookings runs on three tiers. Free Solo is $0 forever and lets you publish one service with unlimited bookings and manual email confirmations. Pro is $19 per month and unlocks unlimited services, SMS reminders, a custom booking page and GST-ready invoices. Business is $49 per month and adds multiple team members and accountant-friendly exports.

There is no per-booking surcharge on your side — ever. Pro and Business are monthly Stripe subscriptions, so you cancel anytime from your billing portal.

How is GST handled on invoices?

Every confirmed booking produces a Tax Invoice PDF via the installed invoice renderer. The money side is handled in integer cents: subtotal is the GST-exclusive amount, a labelled "GST (10%)" line is added, and the total includes GST. Prices are advertised GST-inclusive and the GST split is computed as 1/11 of the inclusive amount, as the Australian standard.

The provider ABN is printed on the invoice whenever it is on file, so every receipt your customer receives carries the right wording for Australian small-business records at EOFY.

When and how are reminders sent?

A 24-hour pre-booking reminder runs from the cron endpoint POST /api/cron/reminders, which is gated by the shared x-cron-secret header for an external scheduler. With the default env (REMINDER_CENTER_HOURS=24, REMINDER_TOLERANCE_HOURS=2) the runner finds confirmed bookings starting in a 22 to 26 hour window and emails each customer.

Reminders are idempotent: the row is atomically stamped via updateMany only after sendEmail succeeds, so retries (or two cron instances racing) cannot double-fire. The reminder renders in the customer IANA timezone — Australia/Sydney by default — so they see the correct local time.

Can clients book on mobile?

Yes — the booking page, confirmation and provider dashboard all use the responsive layouts already shipped in globals.css, so they work on phones, tablets and laptops without any extra setup. The booking flow is intentionally short: pick a service, pick a time, pay.

There is no native app to install. Customers open the provider booking link in their mobile browser and complete the same flow they would on desktop.

What's the cancellation policy?

Providers can flip a booking to Cancelled from the provider dashboard (Upcoming / Pending / Cancelled tabs in /dashboard/bookings), and the change shows up immediately on the booking confirmation page. A cancelled booking will not generate a reminder on the next cron run because the reminder runner only looks at confirmed bookings.

On the customer side, Stripe Checkout exposes its own cancel and back button before payment — clicking it returns the customer to the confirmation page without charging, so a customer can walk away at any point before the card is taken. There is no separate customer-facing cancel after payment today; refunds are handled directly between the provider and their processor.