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Overview

Bella Booking provides three quick-note types on both appointments and client profiles, giving your team fine-grained control over what information stays internal, what is shared with clients, and what clients contribute themselves. Each of these quick-note fields supports up to 500 characters. Client profiles also have a separate, dated Timeline notes log for building up a client’s history over time - see Client Timeline notes below, which is not subject to the 500-character limit.

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Appointment notes

Every appointment has three note fields:

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Private note

Use this for internal information relevant to the specific appointment - preparation reminders, colour formulas, clinical notes, or anything your team needs to know before the appointment. The helper text reads: “Only visible to your team”.

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Note for client

This note is visible to your client when they view this appointment in the booking portal (as “For this appointment”). Use it for pre-appointment instructions (e.g. “Please arrive 10 minutes early”), aftercare advice, or any information you want to share about this appointment. The helper text reads: “Visible to your client on this appointment in the booking portal”. For standing instructions that apply across every appointment, use the client-profile Note for Client - that appears as “From the business” on every booking and on My profile.

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Note from client

When a client books online, they can add a note for your business. The label they see is “Add a note for the business” with the placeholder “Any special requests or information you’d like to share…”. This field is read-only for your team - your team cannot edit client-authored notes. When a note is present, Bella surfaces it to your team on:
  • The scheduler appointment card (amber notes icon) and hover tooltip
  • The notification bell for the new booking
  • Your business notification email and SMS for the booking
  • Connected calendar feeds (iCal description)
It is not included in the client’s own confirmation messages.

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Adding notes when creating an appointment

When creating or editing an appointment in the scheduler, notes appear in the Notes section of the form:
  1. Private note - the first field, with helper text “Only visible to your team”
  2. Note for client - the second field, with helper text “Visible to your client on this appointment in the booking portal”
The “Note from client” field is not shown in the creation form because it can only be authored by the client during online booking.

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Viewing past notes

Each appointment retains its own notes permanently. To view notes from a past appointment:
  1. Navigate to the client profile (via Clients or by clicking a client name)
  2. Open the Appointments tab
  3. Click any appointment to view its full details, including all three note fields

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Client-level notes

Separate from appointment notes, each client profile also has its own set of three notes: Client-level notes persist across all appointments and are ideal for information that applies generally - long-term preferences, allergies, accessibility requirements, or standing instructions.
Client-level notes and appointment-level notes are independent. Updating one does not affect the other. The client-profile Note for Client appears on My profile and on every appointment for that client; the appointment Note for Client appears only on that appointment.

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Client timeline notes

The three quick-note fields above hold a client’s current state - you overwrite them as things change. Separately, every client profile has a Timeline notes tab: a dated, append-only log where nothing is ever overwritten, so you build up a client’s history over time. Each Timeline entry records:
  • Who added it and when - captured automatically.
  • A category - General, Formula, or Consultation - to keep entries organised.
  • Formatted text with bold, italic, and bullet or numbered lists for longer consultation notes.
  • Optional file or photo attachments (PDF, Word, Excel, image, or text) added directly to the entry.
Pinning an entry surfaces it on the scheduler tooltip and the new-appointment form, so the team sees key information (allergies, preferences, alerts) without opening the client record. Timeline notes live in the business dashboard only - they are never shown to clients online. Timeline notes are not subject to the 500-character limit that applies to the quick-note fields. For the full walkthrough - categories, pinning, locking, amendments, and attachments - see Timeline notes in the Clients guide.

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What clients see

On an appointment in the online booking portal, clients see:
  • “From the business” - the client-profile Note for Client (standing note for that client, shown on every booking)
  • “For this appointment” - the appointment Note for Client your team added to that booking
  • “Your notes” - the note they submitted when booking
On My profile, clients also see:
  • “From the business” - the same standing client-profile Note for Client
Private Notes are never shown to clients - they are stripped before any data is served to the booking portal. A Receipt note typed at checkout (or corrected later via Edit sale) appears on the client’s receipt and sale-receipt email - not on the appointment or profile page. See Receipts.

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Notes are not sent in notifications

Appointment and client quick notes do not appear in SMS or email notifications (confirmations, reminders, or follow-ups). Clients see them when they open the appointment or My profile in the booking portal. The exception is the Receipt note, which is included on the sale receipt (and the sale-receipt email when that message is enabled). If you need to communicate specific instructions to a client ahead of their appointment, consider sending a manual message or including the information in your automated message templates.

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Editing and overwriting

When your team edits an appointment that is still Booked or Confirmed:
  • Private note and Note for client can be updated freely. The new text replaces the previous content - there is no version history.
  • Note from client cannot be edited by your team. It remains as the client originally submitted it.
Once an appointment is checked out (Completed), appointment notes can no longer be edited from the scheduler. Write aftercare into the appointment Note for Client during Edit or Checkout before completing, use the client-profile Note for Client for standing instructions, or add a Receipt note for text that belongs on the receipt.

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Cancellation notes

When cancelling an appointment, your team can record a cancellation note. This is a separate field from the three standard note types and is:
  • Internal only - visible to your team, never shown to the client
  • Recorded at the time of cancellation and stored permanently on the appointment record
  • Useful for documenting the reason or circumstances around a cancellation beyond the standard cancellation reason

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Character limits

The three quick-note fields - Private Note, Note for Client, and Note from client, on both appointments and client profiles - have a maximum length of 500 characters each. A character counter is displayed in the online booking form to help clients stay within the limit. The 500-character limit does not apply to Client Timeline notes, which are designed for longer, dated entries and support formatted text and attachments.