Advanced Template FAQ

Time To Pet's Template feature is a robust tool created to help simplify scheduling for recurring services. For an overview of templates, check out our help article here: Scheduling Repeat Services Using Templates. In this article, we'll review some different case scenarios and how to set up your templates for each. 

Monday Through Sunday Billing

First, create a Template with the following settings, making note of the "First Occurrence":

When adding services to the Template, add only Monday - Saturday on the 1st week and Sunday on the 2nd week:

Then, create a second Template with the same settings as the first, but set the First Occurrence to the following week:

Then, add the services with the same day and week schedule as the first Template:

Saturday Through Friday Billing

First, create a Template with the following settings, making note of the "First Occurrence":

When adding services to the Template, add only Saturday on the 1st week and Sunday through Friday on the 2nd week:

Then, create a second Template with the same settings as the first, but set the First Occurrence to the following week:

Then, add the services with the same day and week schedule as the first Template:

Every Other Week Events

You would like to schedule a client for every other week visits as a recurring schedule. 

Here is how you would set that up:

Then, when adding services to the template, select the days of the week, and add them to only the 1st or 2nd week:

4-Week Recurring Schedule

You are wanting to book recurring services for a client on a basis of every 4 weeks.

For this template, you would set up your billing like this:

Then, when adding events to the template, add the days of the week and select only one of the weeks they should occur in, for example:

Weekend Only With Weekly Billing

You have a client that schedules services for weekends only and pays for both Saturday and Sunday on each Saturday. You would like their invoices to be set up for billing before each Saturday and Sunday and mark them as paid each weekend. Here is how you can set up your templates to include the same weekend on a single invoice:

On the first template, set up the Billing Frequency, Weeks Per Period, and First Occurrence as shown:

Then, when adding serves to this template, first add Saturday to the 1st week:

And then Sunday to the 2nd week:

Once you've added these to the template, close out of the template and create a new one with the following billing configurations.

Then, add the Saturday and Sunday services like you did with the first template, with Saturday on the 1st week, and Sunday on the 2nd.

This will create alternating templates that include the same weekend on each invoice.

Alternating Weekly Events

Let's say you have a client with a set schedule that switches every week. They work Tues, Fri, Sat one week and then Sun, Wed, Thurs the following week. For this case, you will create two templates. On one template, set the billing frequency, weeks per period, and first occurrence as shown:

When adding services, select the days of the week that should apply to the week the recurring visits will begin, and check off only 1st Week. For the image below, I used the Tu/Fr/Sa schedule, but you would want to change it to Su/We/Th if those are the days the client needs that week.

On the second template, you would set the billing frequency, weeks per period, and first occurrence as shown:

Then when adding services to this template, select the days of the week that should apply to the following week and check off only 1st Week (like earlier, the example below is using the Su/We/Th week but you will want to change this if that's not the correct days for the week).

Once you've set these up, both templates will bill every other week on their own, but they will be alternating weeks - so the client will be billed weekly.

Every Other Day Events

This method will require billing every two weeks, so if you prefer to bill every week, we will also provide another method to do that. With both methods, you'll be creating templates in the Scheduler > Templates tab. 

Method 1: Bills Every Two Weeks

Here is how you will set up the billing frequency and weeks per period:

Then, you will add services for the first week with only the 1st week checked in "Which Weeks"?

Once those services are added to the template, click to add more services, and this time add the services for the second week, and make sure only "2nd" is checked in "Which Weeks?"

Once those services are added, you can review the services in this template. Notice that each event notes which week in the series it belongs to

Method 2: Weekly Billing

For this method, you'll create two separate templates that each bill weekly, and each of them will skip the week that the other is billed.

For the first template, you'll set up the billing frequency to "Week At A Time" and the "How Often?" to "Every Other Week". Set the First Occurrence to next week.

Then, add the services for the first week in the series.

Create a second template with the same "Week At A Time" billing frequency and "Every Other Week" for "How Often?". But this time, set the First Occurrence for the following week.

Then, add the services for the second week.

These two templates will then take turns with each other each week and will bill weekly instead of every other week.

Every Other Weekend Events

This method will schedule events every other weekend (Saturday and Sunday), with the Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend being added to the same invoice. This method requires the use of two templates that each use a 4-week billing cycle, and they offset each other by two weeks. This will result in the client being billed/invoiced every 2 weeks for each weekend.

1. Create a new template and set the Billing Frequency and Weeks Per Period as shown below. Make note of the date set in "First Occurrence". Templates run Sunday - Saturday, so you'll want to set the First Occurrence to the date range that starts with the Sunday before the first Saturday that should have services scheduled. In this example, the First Occurrence is set to Sunday, March 5th, through Saturday, April 1st. This will result in the first weekend with scheduled services being Saturday and Sunday, March 11th and 12th:

   

   
   
2. After filling out the rest of the Settings fields, click "Save Template Details".

3. Click to "Add Service To Template" and add the Saturday service to the 1st week as shown:

   

   
   

4. After you've added Saturday to the template, click "Add Service To Template" again, and add the Sunday service to the 2nd week as shown:

   

   
   

5. The first template is now complete, and we can begin on the second template. Create a new template with the Billing Frequency and Weeks Per Period as shown below. In this second template, be sure to set the "First Occurrence" to two weeks after the date range set in the first template. In this example, the first template's first occurrence was Sunday, March 5th through Saturday, April 1st, so the second template should be set to two weeks later which is Sunday, March 19th through Saturday, April 15th:

   

   
   
6. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 above, and when finished, your templates will be complete!