Business Hours
When you're open, and what that changes.
On this page
Your business hours tell your receptionist when you’re open. They do not control when it answers — it answers 24/7 regardless.
What hours actually control
- Which slots it can offer
- It will never book a time outside your hours, so you're never committed to a job you wouldn't work.
- Whether it says you're open
- Outside hours it tells the caller you're closed rather than implying someone is there.
- When after-hours rules apply
- Emergency handling, transfers and different alert routing all key off these hours.
It always answers
Availability moves your booking rate
Hours are the biggest single lever on your booked rate that isn’t about what your receptionist says. Callers offered a slot this week book far more often than callers offered one next week.
Owners regularly discover they’ve been losing Saturday work for months because Saturday was never entered — even though they work most of them.
How to set them
- 1
Check your time zone first
Get this wrong and every hour below is wrong. It’s the most common setup mistake by a distance.
- 2
Enter the hours you actually work
Not the hours on your website. If you take Saturday mornings, enter Saturday mornings.
- 3
Include half days properly
A 1pm Saturday finish means nothing gets booked at 2pm.
- 4
Leave a buffer at each end
If you don’t want an appointment landing at 5:55pm, end at 5. Your receptionist takes your hours literally.
Don't list hours you won't work
Holidays and one-off closures
Set closures for public holidays and any day you’re shut. On a closed day your receptionist still answers and still captures the lead — it simply won’t offer that day and will book the next open one.
- Public holidays you don't work
- The days between Christmas and New Year
- A week you're away, if nobody is covering
- Any day you've blocked out for a big install
What the caller hears
A Sunday evening call
It never pretends you’re open, and it never leaves the caller with nothing. That combination is what turns an out-of-hours call into a morning job.
Only if you’d genuinely work them. A better move is usually to keep honest hours and set up after-hours handling properly — see After-Hours Calls.
That’s your calendar, not your hours. Once a calendar is connected under Connections, it only offers times that are genuinely free.