There are four ways to block out time in Styler, and picking the wrong one is a common cause of availability looking odd. Here's which to use when.
Quick guide
What you need | Use |
Lunch, a meeting, admin time | Break |
One person off for a day | Staff not working |
Everyone off for one day | Close business |
Closed for a week or more | Closed Dates |
Breaks
A break blocks time for one staff member on a given day.
On the Calendar, click + Add.
Choose Break.
Give it a Title, set the Date, Start & End, the Staff member and the Location.
The time stops being bookable and appears on the calendar.
Recurring breaks
Breaks can repeat. Set a Frequency and an End Type and Styler creates the series.
💡 Set lunch up once as a recurring break. It's the single most effective thing you can do to stop customers booking over it — far more reliable than remembering to block it each week, or narrowing working hours and losing the flexibility.
👀 Creating breaks is a separate permission from creating bookings, so staff can block their own time without being able to make appointments. See adding staff accounts.
One person off for the day
Use Staff not working rather than a day-long break.
Go to Staff → Working Hours.
Click that person's cell on the day concerned.
In Options, click Staff not working.
The cell shows NOT WORKING and the day isn't bookable for them. Everyone else is unaffected.
Closing for one day
A bank holiday, or a day you're shut for training.
Go to Staff → Working Hours.
Click any cell on that day.
In Options, click Close business.
Every cell for that day shows CLOSED. Use Open business to reverse it.
👀 This affects the whole location, not one person.
Closing for longer
For anything more than the odd day — a refurbishment, Christmas, a fortnight off — use Closed Dates.
Go to Settings, then under Business click Closed Dates.
Set a Start Date and an End Date.
The whole range is closed in one action, and you get a list of your closures rather than hunting through the calendar.
💡 Add next Christmas now. Closing dates in advance stops customers booking appointments you'll only have to cancel later — and cancelling on someone is a worse experience than never offering the slot.
Staff holiday
Booked holiday shows as HOLIDAY on the Working Hours grid, so you can see at a glance who's away.
⚠️ Blocking time never moves existing bookings
This catches people out, and it's the same for all four methods.
Closing a day, adding a break or marking someone as not working does not cancel appointments already in the diary. The time stops being bookable going forward; anything already booked stays exactly where it is.
💡 Always check the calendar for the period you've just blocked, and move or cancel anything caught in it. Cancelling properly means the customer is told — see booking statuses explained.
FAQs
❓ Can I block time for everyone at once?
Closing the day does exactly that. Breaks are per person, so blocking the same hour for five staff means five breaks.
❓ Do customers see why we're closed?
No — the time simply isn't offered. If you're closing for a while, say so where customers will see it.
❓ A closed day is still showing as bookable.
Check you closed the right location — closures apply per location, so a multi-site business needs each one closing separately.