Late cancellations and no-shows can be a real challenge for fitness studios, leaving empty spots that could have been filled by other clients. Clovo’s Penalties feature lets you define clear rules for late cancellations and no-shows, helping clients respect your timetable while giving your studio flexibility in how penalties are applied.
What Are Penalties?
Penalties are rules that apply when a client:
- Cancels a booking too close to the class start time
- Does not attend a class and has no check-in recorded
Depending on how you configure the rule, Clovo can:
- Keep the client’s class credit
- Charge a penalty fee
- Record the penalty outcome in the client’s history
Penalties do not apply to direct purchase bookings. If a client paid directly for that individual booking, Clovo will not apply cancellation or no-show penalties to that booking.
Setting Up Penalties
In Clovo Studio, go to Setup > Penalties.
When creating or editing a penalty, you can configure:
- When the penalty applies: Choose whether the rule applies to cancellations, no-shows, or both.
- Cancellation window: Set how many hours before class a client can cancel without penalty.
- Booking-age grace period: Choose whether very new bookings should be protected from penalties for a set number of hours.
- No-show grace buffer: Set how long after class ends Clovo should wait before treating an unchecked booking as a no-show.
- Penalty action: Choose whether Clovo keeps the credit or charges a penalty fee.
- Penalty fee amount: If charging a fee, enter the fixed amount to charge.
Penalty fees require Stripe to be connected for the studio, and the client must have a saved default payment method.
How Cancellation Penalties Work
Cancellation penalties only apply when the penalty is configured to apply to cancellations.
- Outside the cancellation window: If a client cancels with enough notice, their credit is returned and no penalty applies.
- Inside the cancellation window: If a client cancels too late, Clovo checks your penalty rules.
- Direct purchase bookings: No penalty applies, even if the cancellation is late.
Example: If your cancellation window is 12 hours, a client who cancels 14 hours before class avoids the penalty. A client who cancels 2 hours before class may receive the configured penalty.
How No-Show Penalties Work
No-show penalties only apply when the penalty is configured to apply to no-shows.
A booking may be treated as a no-show when:
- The class has ended
- The no-show grace buffer has passed
- The client has not been checked in
- The booking was not cancelled
- The class occurrence itself was not cancelled
- The class is not exempt from penalties
- The booking is not a direct purchase booking
The no-show grace buffer gives your team time to check clients in after class. For example, if the grace buffer is 15 minutes, Clovo will wait until 15 minutes after class ends before applying no-show penalties. If the client is checked in before then, the no-show penalty is avoided.
Penalty Actions
Keep Credit
This means the credit used for the booking is not returned.
For late cancellations, this works as a forfeited credit. For no-shows, the booking has usually already consumed the credit, so Clovo records the penalty and sends the usual penalty notifications, but there may not be an additional credit action to take.
Charge Penalty Fee
This charges the client a fixed fee using their saved default Stripe payment method.
The original booking remains consumed. The penalty fee is an additional charge.
If the fee cannot be charged because the client has no saved payment method, Stripe is not connected, or Stripe declines the payment, Clovo records the failed penalty attempt in the client’s penalty history. Clovo does not automatically retry failed penalty fee charges.
Exempting Classes From Penalties
Some classes may need more flexibility than others. In Clovo, you can mark specific classes as exempt from penalties, meaning cancellation and no-show penalties will not apply to bookings for those classes.
This is useful for community sessions, trial classes, events, workshops, or any class where you do not want clients to be penalised for cancelling late or missing the session. If a class is exempt, Clovo will skip penalty processing for that class, even if the client cancels inside the cancellation window or does not have a check-in recorded.
How Penalties Work In Practice
- A client cancels early: Their credit is returned and no penalty applies.
- A client cancels too late: The matching cancellation penalty may keep their credit or charge a fee.
- A client does not attend: After the class ends and the no-show grace buffer passes, Clovo may apply a no-show penalty if no check-in exists.
- A client paid by direct purchase: No penalty applies for either cancellation or no-show.
- A class is exempt from penalties: No penalty applies for that class.
Tips For Penalty Policies
- Be clear with your clients by including your policy in your waiver, welcome message, booking terms, and studio signage.
- Keep the policy fair and easy to understand so clients know exactly what happens if they cancel late or do not attend.
- Choose cancellation windows that match the class type. A large group class may suit a shorter window, while a small reformer class may need more notice.
- Use the no-show grace buffer to give staff enough time to check clients in after class.
- Consider whether a fee is appropriate for your studio before enabling penalty fees.
- Pair penalties with waitlists so cancelled spots can be filled whenever possible.