How drop-offs and rush turnarounds work
The core Velobook pattern: a customer books a day and arrival window to drop in, you work to your own schedule, rush is an optional surcharge.
Last updated 2 September 2026
A drop-off reserves a date and an arrival window for the customer to bring their item in, not a fixed appointment. You work on it on your own schedule and tell them when it is ready.
Why drop-offs, not time slots
- A service might take twenty minutes or wait two days for a part. The customer commits to a day and a window (morning, afternoon); you keep control of the bench.
- For work that runs to the clock, switch a service to By appointment in its Booking type. The customer then picks an exact time on a specific mechanic. The rest of your menu stays on drop-offs.
Set up a drop-off service
- 1Open Catalogue → Services, pick the Service menu tab, and add or edit a service.
- 2Leave its Booking type on Drop-off window.
- 3Set the Duration (minutes). Add a Turnaround such as "1–3 days" when what you promise differs from the bench time; the booking page shows the turnaround.
- 4Save.
Each day is split into arrival windows, and you set how many drop-offs each takes, plus an optional per-mechanic daily limit. To fill the day by total work-time instead of a job count, see booking capacity.
Rush turnarounds
Customers can choose rush for a same-day turnaround. It adds a surcharge to the service and its add-ons. Set it under Integrations → Payments & POS, in the Surcharges group, under Rush (same-day turnaround).
- The Rush surcharge starts at 25% of the job. Switch it to a fixed amount to charge a flat figure per rush booking.
- Set it to 0 to stop offering rush.
- Include the rush surcharge in the online charge decides whether the extra is collected online at booking or in store.
The rush option appears only when the customer has picked today (in your shop's timezone), and, on a booking where you come to them, only when their address is in an area you cover. Move a rush booking to another day and the rush comes off with it.
Rush bookings carry a rush pill on the Workboard, in Schedule's Today view and in booking history. It is not the Priority flag on a job card: rush is a same-day turnaround the customer paid for; priority is your own ordering nudge, bills nothing, and is never shown to the customer.
The e-bike surcharge
- Set the E-bike surcharge in the same Surcharges group, as a flat amount or a percentage of the service and add-ons.
- It is added whenever a customer says their bike is an e-bike during booking. Nothing for them to tick.
- Rush lifts it along with the rest of the job.
- The amount is frozen onto the booking, so changing your rate later never re-prices past work.
- Leave it at zero to charge e-bikes the same as anything else.
Several jobs on one booking
Out of the box, one booking is one job. Turn on Several jobs on one booking under Admin, Shop profile, and a customer can add more than one service to a single booking. Staff can do the same when taking a booking, or add a second job later. Each job keeps its own bike, price and time.
Working the job
- Staff move a drop-off through its stages on the Workboard (Booked, In progress, Waiting, Ready for pickup, Complete, plus Declined if you turn it on, under your own names and colours) or from the Today view of Schedule
- With the optional Arrived stage on, a bike that has been dropped off but not started can be marked as here without opening the job
- Each job can carry a checklist
- Jobs stuck waiting on parts are flagged with how long they have waited
- The customer follows the job on their manage page and gets a notice when it is ready