Flowesce runs the whole salon: bookings, your team, inventory, marketing, and your books, in one place. This guide is the map. It covers the order to set things up, the exact checks that have to pass before your public booking page goes live, and how to find anything that is still missing.
Set things up in this order
The pieces depend on each other, so the order matters. A service cannot be booked until it has staff and a branch, and staff cannot be booked until they have hours and are linked to a branch. Set up:
- A branch (your location). Even a single-chair, single-location salon needs one branch, because that is where opening hours and bookings live. See Set your branches and opening hours.
- Your staff, then link each person to the branches they work at and the services they perform, and give them working hours. If you are a solo operator, add yourself as a staff member. See Add staff, assign their work, and set who can see what.
- Your services, with a price, a duration, the branches that offer them, and the staff who perform them. See Add your services.
- Turn on online bookings and share your page.
Inventory, marketing, payments, and your storefront can come later. Bookings are the foundation.
The guided setup
When you first sign up, Flowesce opens a short guided setup at /welcome/setup that walks you through branch, staff, service, and go-live in order. You can leave and come back at any time; it picks up at the next unfinished step. You do not have to use the wizard, but it is the fastest path the first time.
The booking readiness card
Your dashboard shows a booking readiness card that checks everything a customer needs in order to book and points you straight at whatever is missing. Each item has a "Fix" link that drops you on the exact page to sort it out.
Two things worth knowing:
- The card can be dismissed in your browser. A dismissed card does not mean setup is finished, it just means you hid it. You can always finish setup from Settings.
- The card turns fully green only when all ten checks below pass.
The ten checks that have to pass
Your public booking page will not take bookings until every one of these is true. This is the single most useful list to keep handy, because most "my booking page is not working" questions trace back to one of them.
- At least one active branch exists.
- Every active branch has opening hours. No hours means no times can be offered, on any day with no hours set.
- At least one active staff member exists.
- Every staff member is assigned to at least one branch.
- Every staff member has working hours.
- At least one active service exists.
- Every active service is offered at a branch. The booking page filters services by branch, so a service with no branch never appears.
- Every active service has at least one staff member who can perform it.
- At least one active service is set to show on the booking page (the "Show on booking page" switch on the service).
- Public bookings are turned on (the master switch in Settings, then Business).
If a specific time or day shows nothing even after all ten pass, see Why your booking page shows no available times.
What can go wrong
- You finished setup but the page still says you are not taking bookings. Check number 10: the master switch in Settings, then Business has to be on. It is separate from the per-service "Show on booking page" switch.
- The readiness card is green but one staff member never gets booked. The card passes when every staff member has hours and assignments, but a single person missing hours, or not linked to a service or branch, simply produces no times for themselves while the rest of the salon looks fine. Open that person and check their Branches, Services, and Schedule tabs.
- You dismissed the card and assume setup is done. Re-open setup from Settings to confirm. Dismissing only hides the card.
What's next
Once the ten checks pass, share your booking page (it lives at flowesce.com/book/your-salon-name) and take a test booking yourself. Then add inventory so stock comes off automatically as you complete appointments, and look at online card payments and the online storefront when you are ready to sell online.