Zelun help center
Step-by-step guides to set up and use Zelun in your business.
Account and setup
- Add locations (branches) to your company and group them into regions
Your company is the business as a whole. A location, which the product calls a branch, is one place where you serve clients: its own opening hours, its own tim…
- Add staff and manage their hours, services and departure
The staff directory is the list of people who work at one of your locations. Every appointment is assigned to one of them, so you need at least one person in t…
- Close a location for holidays and other days, and use the Mexican holiday list
A closure tells the product that a location is closed on certain days, for example a holiday, a repair or a trip. Every day in a closure is closed for the whol…
- Control what each person can do with roles and policies
Zelun decides who may do what with two building blocks.
- Create your account, start the free trial and sign in
Any business owner can create a Zelun account on their own, without waiting for an invitation. You fill in a short form, accept the Terms of Service and the Pr…
- Follow the Getting started checklist to your first bookable appointment
When you are new, a Getting started card appears at the top of the screen with the line "A few steps to your first bookable appointment." It lists what a shop…
- Request, approve and plan staff time off
Time off lets you record a vacation, a sick day or a part-day absence for a team member without editing their weekly hours. While it is approved, that person c…
- Set a location's cancellation fees and brand on its branch page
Each location (branch) has its own page, opened from Branches in the Setup group of the sidebar. It holds the settings that belong to that location and nothing…
- Set how far ahead clients can book, cleanup time and the rooms a service needs
These settings decide when a booking is allowed, whoever makes it. A location's own timezone and opening hours always apply. On top of that you can set four on…
- Switch the admin between English and Spanish
The admin, meaning the screens you and your staff use every day, is available in English and in Spanish. Menus, page titles, buttons, empty-screen messages, fo…
- Understand account alerts and check if a reminder reached a client
Zelun tells you when something about your account needs attention, so you do not find out from a missed payout or a client who never got a message. Alerts appe…
AI assistants
- Ask the Admin support assistant how to set something up
The Admin support assistant is a chat box inside the admin where you type a question about setting up Zelun, such as how to configure a cancellation policy, an…
- The data assistant is for Zelun's team, not for shops
Zelun has an AI assistant that answers open questions about a company's data, such as booking counts or the delivery status of messages. It is not available to…
- Where Zelun uses AI, who sees it and what a person must check
Zelun uses an AI model in a handful of places. This article lists every one that your team or your clients can run into, so you know what each does, who sees i…
Appointments and calendar
- Block time for a person or the whole location
Block time makes a person, or the whole location, unavailable for a short window without editing weekly hours, asking for time off or adding a closure. Use it…
- Collect intake and consent forms before a visit
An intake form is a short set of questions, and optionally a signature, that a client fills in before their visit: allergies before a color, a health questionn…
- Create services with durations, prices and processing phases, and choose who offers them
Your services are the menu your shop sells: a haircut, a massage, a colour treatment, a class. Each service has a name, a length in minutes and a price, and yo…
- Create walk-ins and appointments from the desk, then change, cancel and check out
This article covers everything you do at the desk with a single booking: creating it, giving it a client, moving it, cancelling it and checking it out with a t…
- Find, add and update your clients and their records
Every person who books with you has a client record. It holds their name, phone and email, a few preferences, and, if they need invoices, their tax details. Ea…
- Know what Zelun records about changes to appointments and clients
Zelun keeps a private log of changes made to your appointments and clients, so that work is never silently lost or altered without a trace. Each entry says who…
- Read and use the appointment book (the day diary for each location)
The appointment book is the screen you will have open most of the day. It is a diary for one location, laid out as a grid: time runs down the side, and each pe…
- Take a group booking and see who is in the group
A group booking lets one person book for themselves and for other people in a single visit to the booking page: a couple, a bride and her friends, a parent and…
- Understand why a slot can or cannot be booked, and read a "slot rejected" message
Zelun never lets two bookings clash. Before it accepts an appointment, from you or from a client, it checks several things at once. The slot is bookable only i…
Booking page
- Let clients book from a photo of your team's work
Booking by photo lets a client choose by looking at results. Next to a service on your booking page, the client sees photos of work done by your team. When the…
- Let clients install your booking page on their phone
Your clients can put your booking page on their phone's home screen, so it opens like an app with your name and your icon, in one tap. This is a PWA: the same…
- Offer optional client sign-in and favorite staff on your booking page
Your booking page can offer your clients an optional sign-in. A client who signs in sees a list called "Your appointments" with their visits at your business,…
- Put your logo, cover photo and colour on your booking page, for the company or one location
Your brand kit makes your booking page look like your business instead of a generic page. It has three pieces:
- Share your booking page and see what your clients see
The booking page is where your clients book by themselves, any hour of the day, without calling you and without creating an account. Each location has its own…
- Share your booking page with a short link, express links and a preview card
Your clients book from your booking page. This article is about the links that lead to it and how to hand them out:
- Understand one-tap rebook for returning clients
One-tap rebook is a shortcut on your booking page for clients who have visited you before. The client types their phone number, and if your location recognises…
Bringing clients back
- Bring lapsed clients back with automatic rebooking reminders
A rebooking reminder is a WhatsApp message that invites a client to book again once they have gone longer than usual without returning. You do not send it by h…
- Fill cancelled slots with your waitlist and the Fill panel
The waitlist is the list of clients who want an appointment but could not get one. When a slot frees up, Zelun offers it to the best-matching person on the lis…
- Manage gifts that clients buy for friends: resend the text and refund unused gifts
A client who has a booking with you can buy a service as a gift for someone else. The recipient gets a text message with a link, and the gift is applied automa…
- Reward clients who refer friends, and see where new clients come from
Zelun gives every client a personal referral code and a share link. When a friend books for the first time through that link and later pays for their first vis…
- Sell visit packages and credit, and let clients renew their balance
You can also mark a package as a Recurring membership (monthly). A package can expire after a number of days you choose, or never.
- Set up loyalty points that clients earn and redeem at checkout
Loyalty points let a client earn a little back on every service they pay for, and spend those points as a discount on a later visit. Points are added automatic…
- Thank clients after a visit, ask for reviews and understand recommendations
Three things happen around the end of a visit, and this article explains what each one does and what you control.
Client messaging
- Connect your shop's own WhatsApp number (Meta or Twilio)
Zelun sends your appointment messages over WhatsApp for you. By default they go out from a shared platform sender, one number that Zelun runs for every shop. T…
- Control the appointment messages your clients get, and the alerts you get
Zelun sends your clients messages about their appointments on its own, so you do not have to remember to. This article covers two separate things:
- Control when and how often your clients are messaged
Zelun decides, for every message it sends to a client, whether it goes out now, waits for an allowed time, or is not sent. The rules protect your clients from…
- Let clients book an appointment by chatting on WhatsApp
Booking over WhatsApp lets a client write to your shop's WhatsApp number in their own words, for example "corte mañana 4pm", and get back times they can confir…
- Let clients confirm, cancel and reschedule by replying to a text message
When Zelun sends a client an SMS about an appointment, the client can answer that same text to act on it. There is no app to open, no WhatsApp and no link to t…
- Read and reply to clients in the WhatsApp inbox
The WhatsApp inbox keeps every message your clients send to your shop's WhatsApp number, so you can read and answer them without opening WhatsApp on a phone. C…
- What messaging your plan includes, what uses credits, and which sender your clients see
Messaging has three parts, and it helps to keep them apart.
Client records and privacy
- Export or anonymize a client's data and understand what Zelun stores
This article explains what Zelun keeps about your clients, which consents it records, and the two tools you have when a client asks about their data: Export, w…
- Keep visit notes and before/after photos on a client's record
Zelun lets your team keep a private history for each client: short notes written at checkout (for example a formula, a preference or an allergy), and before an…
- What you and your clients accept, Terms of Service and Privacy Notice
Zelun asks you, the owner, to accept two documents: the Terms of Service and the Privacy Notice (shown in Spanish as the Aviso de Privacidad). Zelun keeps a re…
Mobile apps
- What your team can do in the staff mobile app
The staff mobile app is meant for the people who work at your shop. It has five tabs along the bottom of the screen:
Payments and invoicing
- Account credit: money a client keeps with you
Account credit is a balance of money a client has already paid you and chose to keep with you. It is kept per client for your business, with a record of every…
- Ask clients to leave a card on file
A saved card protects a location against no-shows without taking a deposit. The client leaves a card when they book. Nothing is charged then. If they later can…
- Ask for a deposit from clients who keep missing appointments
A risk deposit asks for a deposit only from the specific clients who have repeatedly not shown up at a location, without asking everyone else. You set a thresh…
- Check out an appointment, take tips and retail sales, and balance the cash drawer
Checkout is how you finish an appointment and record what the Client paid. It works like a simple cash register inside the diary. You do not need a card reader…
- Choose a plan, subscribe and manage your Zelun billing
Your Zelun subscription is what you pay Zelun to run your shop. It is separate from the money your own clients pay you. Zelun prices it by plan, which the prod…
- Connect payouts and take deposits at each location
Payouts are how money your clients pay by card reaches your own bank account. You connect a payout account for each location (branch) once. After that, that lo…
- Issue CFDI invoices (facturas) from checked-out appointments
If you need to give your clients official Mexican tax invoices (CFDI, "facturas"), Zelun can prepare them for you straight from an appointment you have already…
- Record who cancelled when you cancel at the desk
When you cancel a visit from the appointment book, you say who cancelled it. That decides whether a fee applies, so it has to be a choice you make on purpose a…
- Respond to a card dispute
A card dispute happens when a client asks their bank to reverse a card payment they paid you. Zelun is told when one opens, tells you straight away, and builds…
- Set a promo code and apply discounts so clients pay the right amount
Zelun can lower the price of an appointment in three steps. They always apply in the same order, and each one starts from the result of the one before:
- Set late-cancellation and no-show fees for a location
Each location has a cancel policy: the fee a client owes when they cancel too close to the appointment, and the fee when they do not show up. You choose each f…
- What happens to a client's deposit after a cancel or no-show
A deposit that a client paid always ends up somewhere you and the client can see. It is applied to the visit, kept as a cancellation or no-show fee, refunded,…
- What happens when your Zelun plan ends, and how to reactivate it
If your card subscription keeps failing until the payment provider gives up, your Zelun plan ends. This is different from a payment that is only late: while a…
- What to do when your Zelun subscription payment fails
If Zelun cannot charge the payment method on your subscription, it does not stay silent until the subscription ends. It tells you right away, keeps reminding y…
Running the business
- Keep track of products and stock, and know when to reorder
Inventory is where you keep the list of products your business uses or sells, and how much of each one you have at each location. Each product is called a SKU:…
- Order stock from a supplier and receive it
A purchase order is your written request to a supplier for stock. You list the products and quantities you want, and you can name the supplier it is for. When…
- Quote a made-to-order job, track the order and take the deposit
Some work does not fit a time slot in the diary: a custom piece, a made-to-measure item, anything you build or order for one client. For that, Zelun has quotes…
- Read your location report and the company financial roll-up
Reports is one screen per location that answers "how did this period go?" in plain language, money first and activity second. A second screen, the company fina…
- Record and categorize your shop's expenses
Expenses is where you write down what the business spends, so the Reports screen can show what is left after costs. Every location has its own Expenses screen,…
- Understand pay-run reports and Today earnings for your staff
The pay run is how Zelun works out what each person on your team is owed for a period, from the work they actually checked out. It produces reports and a file…