How to book the studio

Open Appointments on the site. Pick the conversation you need — discovery, a working session, a review — and choose a slot. We confirm through Square. You do not need a SYCGeeks account to book. You do not need to invent a password to hold a Tuesday. If you already have an account, the booking appears under Appointments next to projects, workflows, and purchases. That is the whole path. The calendar is the product, not a contact form that promises a callback.

Service names are in plain language. “Discovery conversation” means we talk about the conversion, the deadline, and the systems you already pay for. It does not mean a free build. Put the length in your head before you click: a discovery hour is for facts, not for watching us design a homepage live. If you only have a brief, writing admin@sycgeeks.ca is faster than booking an hour so we can watch you search for the price list. Book when you want to speak. Write when the page is ready to price.

We have used Square for studio appointments since the calendar, the payment, and the hardware could live together. The same idea applies if you cut hair in Burnaby or run a showroom. Your booking should show a CAD price next to the name when the service has a price. Nobody should be surprised at the card screen. Processors we already work with — Square, Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Interac e-Transfer, optional ETH — are for invoices and checkout. The appointment itself is a Square slot on our side.

Appointments run on Pacific time from Vancouver. We have been in this city since 2015. If you are in Toronto, the slot you pick is three hours later on your kitchen clock in winter, and two or three depending on the DST weekend. If you are in Montreal, same idea. If you are in Halifax, the overlap is thinner. We will not pretend a 9 a.m. Atlantic meeting is a normal studio morning. Check the timezone on the Square confirmation. Write it on your own calendar as Pacific, then convert once.

Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax clients are welcome. The overlap is the only constraint. If your approver can only meet at 8 a.m. Eastern every Tuesday, say so in the booking note or in the email. We would rather offer a late morning Pacific slot than have you join from a car and miss the first twenty minutes. We will not hold a 6 a.m. studio start as a default. National work is normal. Pretending geography does not exist is how people double-book a Tuesday.

Daylight saving weekends are when Eastern and Pacific drift. If you book across that weekend, read the confirmation again. We will not argue with a calendar that silently shifted. If the thing is on fire — checkout down, launch today, student locked out — do not book a slot three days out. Call +1 (672) 200-7924 on a weekday. That line is for heat. Booking is for a conversation that can wait for a listed hour.

We work English and French. Book in the language you want to speak. If the session will review bilingual pages, say which language we start in and who will approve the other. A Montreal retailer and a Vancouver designer can share an hour if both know the clock and the language. We will not run two clocks and two languages without a note. Put the note on the booking.

You can book before you have a project, a quote, or a login. That is deliberate. A Burnaby salon owner should be able to hold a Thursday without creating a merchant account first. After you approve a CAD quote, we open the project and the same Square booking habit continues for working sessions and reviews. New work does not require a new phone tree. It requires a slot and the facts.

If you already signed in — email or wallet — the booking lands in the dashboard. Wallet login is a signed message, not a password. Pick client, merchant, or student before you connect a new wallet. Existing wallets keep the role they already have. Students still finish orientation before the hour log will save; booking a mentoring hour does not skip that. Merchants see the appointment beside the project they should have written notes on. Do not book a “quick chat” and then paste a second brief into an old project.

Guests who never make an account still get the Square confirmation. Keep that email. If you later register, tell us the booking time so we can attach it. We will not hunt six “info@” inboxes to find a Thursday. The dashboard is the file once you have one. Until then, Square and admin@sycgeeks.ca are the file. Two files that disagree are how people arrive in the wrong hour.

Bring the same facts you would put in a brief. What you sell. Who must finish a task. The date that matters. The systems you already pay for. Screenshots of the page that fails. The languages that must be correct on day one. GST in BC versus HST if you sell into Ontario. We will not spend the hour asking what the company does while you flip a pitch deck. If you do not have those facts yet, write first. Booking an empty hour wastes the slot for someone whose checkout is in review.

If the session is a review, open the dashboard first. Status, progress, and the notes field should already say what is true this week. “Waiting on product photos from the Montreal warehouse” is a review agenda. “Looks good!!” is not. We will walk the workflow step that is current — structure, design, build, content, bilingual review, launch — not the step you wish we were on. If you want a new page or a second language you did not buy, that is an add-on conversation, not a surprise in minute fifty.

If the session is about money, bring the processor login owner, not a screenshot of a competitor’s Apple Pay button. We can talk Square versus Stripe versus PayPal for a Canadian cart. We cannot install a wallet we have not quoted. Care — $450 CAD a month or $4,500 CAD a year — can be a line in the hour if you want the reserved studio time and the roughly 25 percent off later add-ons. We will not sell care as theatre. A store that nobody watches is still a Monday problem.

We will not use the hour to collect stock photographs of smiling strangers. If you have no photos, we will talk illustration. We will not use the hour to draft medical or legal claims you did not supply. We will not use the hour to redesign tax because a US theme looked simpler. Bring the constraint. The hour is for decisions, not for mood.

Square sends the confirmation. Read the time as Pacific. If you have a dashboard, open Appointments and confirm the same slot is there. Email-only confirmation is how people double-book a Tuesday — we say that about client sites, and it is true about ours. If the dashboard is empty and Square is full, write us the booking time. Do not assume we saw a forwarded invite from a colleague’s personal calendar.

If you need to move the slot, use the Square path you booked with, then send a note to admin@sycgeeks.ca if a project is already open. Do not silently create a second booking and hope we notice the first. We will not stack two discovery hours for the same brief. One conversation, one quote. If you are a merchant mid-build, put “moving Thursday review” in the project notes so the next person is not waiting on a call that will not happen.

After the hour, the next step is written. A quote in CAD. A list of missing facts. A workflow step that moved. A care decision. You should not leave with “we’ll circle back.” If we owe you a number, you get a number. If you owe us screenshots, it is in the notes. Purchases you make after the call — the quote, care, an add-on — show under the dashboard. We invoice in CAD. GST or HST belongs on that invoice when the work is taxable.

Write if you only have a brief. A page we can price does not need a video hour. Call on a weekday if production is down, a launch is today, or a student cannot get in. Booking a slot for a dead checkout wastes the hour and the client who needed it. We will not diagnose a down processor by waiting for Thursday. +1 (672) 200-7924, Pacific time, weekdays. That is the heat line. It is not a sales line.

Do not book to ask us to start production without a written CAD number. Do not book to negotiate stock photography. Do not book to have us watch you think. Do not book six people who have not read the brief; send the brief to the six people, then book the one who can approve. We refuse hours that are a room waiting for a decision-maker who is “hoping to join.” Name the approver on the booking or write instead.

PIPEDA still applies to a booking form. We collect what Square needs to hold the slot and what we need to start the conversation. We will not add a marketing newsletter checkbox to the calendar because a plugin offered one. If you are booking as a student, use the student role when you sign in later. If you are booking as a merchant with a live store, say which project the hour belongs to. Wrong role, wrong project, wrong hour — that is how notes get lost.

Accessibility applies to the booking path too. Keyboard, labels, contrast, and a time list a screen reader can use are launch work on our site, and they should be on yours if you sell time. If you cannot complete the Square flow, write the times you can attend to admin@sycgeeks.ca. We will not tell you to “just try another browser” and disappear. We also will not fake Apple Pay on a booking page that cannot settle it. The slot comes first. The wallet button is decoration until the processor is ready.

If you have care, one studio hour is reserved. Use it for defects, small copy, a dependency update, or a question that would otherwise rot in email. Log what you want in the project notes before the slot. Care is $450 CAD a month or $4,500 CAD a year. It is not a free redesign. If the ask changes what you bought — a new collection, a second language, a checkout change — that is a published add-on, about 25 percent off with care, paid on the same project. We then reopen the workflow. We do not silently fold extra weeks into the reserved hour.

A booked session is not student orientation. Students work through the studio steps first, then the hour log. A booked session is not wallet support for a blank nonce error; if the database is unreachable, try email login or wait until the studio is online. A booked session is not a substitute for the weekday phone when the live cart is down. Use the door that matches the heat. Three doors, one studio: call, write, book.

Book the studio when you want a listed hour on Pacific time and you will bring the facts. That is how a Vancouver calendar stays honest for a salon, a retailer, and a student in the same week. Pick the service. Choose the slot. Read the confirmation. Show up with the conversion, the deadline, and the systems you already pay for. If you only have the page, send the page. We will still be here on the emergency line if Thursday is too late.