Can a member work outside the salon's opening hours?

Yes. Clients can book a member at any time inside the member's working hours, even if it's outside the salon's opening hours.

Do closed periods change my opening hours?

No. A closed period blocks booking for everyone during that time, but the opening hours shown to clients stay the same.

Salon opening hours vs team working hours

Softalon has two kinds of hours, and they do different jobs. Your salon's opening hours tell clients when you're open. Each team member's working hours decide when clients can actually book. Changing one never changes the other.

The difference at a glance

	Salon opening hours	Team working hours
Where you set them	Settings › Company › Working Hours	Members › a member › Working Hours
Set per	Salon	Team member and location
Create bookable times	No	Yes
Shown to clients	On your booking site, when you show working hours there	As the free times in the booking flow
Who can change them	Members who can manage salon settings	Each member for themselves, or an Administrator and above

Salon opening hours

The Working Hours card in Settings › Company describes when your business is open. Softalon uses these hours to:

show your opening hours on your booking site, if you include them on your site,
share your opening hours with search engines through your booking site,
let the AI assistant answer questions like "Are you open on Saturday?"

They don't open or close any times for booking. A client can't book a 7:00 PM appointment just because your salon is open until 8:00 PM. Someone on your team has to be working then.

Team working hours

Each team member has their own weekly hours for every location they work at. These are the only hours that create bookable time. On top of them, Softalon removes time off, closed periods, blocked times, calendar events and existing appointments. See How available times are calculated.

This lets you run realistic schedules:

Emma Johnson works Tuesday to Saturday, and Liam works Sunday to Thursday.
A stylist works mornings at your downtown Austin location and afternoons at your second location.
A part-time nail tech works only Friday evenings.

Why they're separate

Most salons are open longer than any one person works. If opening hours created availability, clients could book a time when nobody is there. Keeping them apart means:

clients only see times when a real person can serve them,
you can describe your salon's hours to clients without exposing each shift,
each member's schedule can change without touching the salon's public hours.

Keeping them consistent

There's no setting that copies salon hours to your team, and there's no automatic check between them. When you change your opening hours:

Update the Working Hours card in Settings › Company.
Open each affected team member and update their Working Hours for each location.

For a one-off change, such as closing for a holiday, add a closed period instead. It blocks booking for everyone without changing either set of hours.

If your booking site shows no times at all, check team working hours first. Setting the salon's opening hours alone doesn't make anyone bookable.

Common questions

Opening hours don't create availability. Set working hours for each team member at each location. See Set a team member's working hours.

Related guides

How available times are calculatedLearn exactly how Softalon decides which times clients can book, from working hours and time off to buffers, resources and time zones.

Set a team member's working hoursSet the weekly hours a team member can be booked at each location, including split shifts, using the editor or a plain-language description.

Company settings explainedWhat each card in Settings › Company does: business and contact details, country, social media, opening hours and closed periods.