Consultation first

A consultation rule says a treatment can only be booked online once the patient has had a consultation with you. It works in three stages, and only the last one changes anything for your patients:

You set the rule on a treatment or a whole category.
Your team sees it in the diary straight away, as a warning on any booking with no valid consultation behind it.
You switch it on for online booking when you are ready. Only then do patients booking online see it.

Setting a rule

Go to Settings, Treatments and open a treatment, or a category to cover everything in it. Under Online booking, set Requires beforehand:

A treatment, such as your New Patient Consultation, or Any treatment in a category, such as everything in Consultations. A category is the better choice if you have several consultation variants.
Valid for (days). Leave it blank and a consultation never expires. Set it to 365 and a patient needs a fresh one after a year.
At least (hours) before. The gap the consultation must leave before the treatment. Leave it at 0 to allow both in the same visit. Consultations are recorded per London day, not to the minute, so this rule can over-block by up to a day: for example, a 24-hour rule can behave like up to 48 hours around a day boundary.
Existing patients may be assumed to hold this. Tick it if a patient you have treated before can safely be taken as consulted. It decides whether the bulk "assume" action is offered when you switch on (see below). It is ticked for you when the prerequisite's name mentions a consultation, and you can change it either way.

A treatment's own rule wins over its category's. To let one treatment in a gated category be booked freely, set that treatment to Nothing, even though its category requires something.

Two warnings can appear as you save: the consultation is not bookable online, so a patient who needs it is asked to call you; or the rule is circular, for example a category that requires a consultation which sits in that same category, so nobody could ever book either. A circular rule is not saved.

What counts as having had a consultation

A completed or confirmed booking for the consultation. A confirmed booking in the future counts too, so a patient can book the consultation and then the treatment, as long as your lead time allows.
A recorded clearance: a consultation you have noted on the patient's record, in the Clearances card, including one done elsewhere or before you used AesthetiClinic.

Cancelled bookings, no-shows and bookings still waiting for their reservation fee do not count.

In the diary

When you open or create a booking for a gated treatment, a chip reads No valid consultation on record (with the consultation's own name) if the patient does not hold one for that time. If the problem is only the lead time, it says when a slot would be valid from.
Record one on the chip notes the consultation on the patient's record, exactly as the Clearances card does, when you know it happened.
The chip is a warning. It never stops you saving a booking.
The day sheet shows the same warning beside the patient.
If a consultation is cancelled, missed or moved later, and a treatment booked after it no longer has a valid one, an alert is added to the patient: "... no longer has a valid one. Check before the visit." Nothing is cancelled for you.

Before you switch it on

Go to Settings, Clinic. Under the Online booking policy card is a preview of what switching on would mean for the patients you already have, for each rule:

how many patients already hold the consultation, through your diary or a recorded clearance;
how many patients you have treated but have nothing on record, who would be asked for a consultation next time they book online;
visits brought over from a previous system with no treatment attached whose title looks like the consultation, with a count per title;
a warning if the consultation cannot be booked online.

Two actions close the gap. Both record one clearance per patient, need you to tick a confirmation box, and are listed afterwards with an Undo that removes exactly what that run recorded and nothing your team recorded by hand:

Assume from a prior visit treats every patient with a completed visit before a date you choose as consulted, dated to their last visit. It is only offered for a rule with "Existing patients may be assumed to hold this" ticked.
Count these as [your consultation] turns the migrated visits with that title into real clearances. Only use it for a title that really was a consultation.

Only the clinic owner can see this panel or run either action. Nobody is emailed about any of it.

Switching it on

Tick Require a consultation before patients book gated treatments online in the Online booking policy card and save. From the next page load on your booking page:

A gated treatment shows a line such as "New Patient Consultation required before booking". Your listing on the AesthetiClinic directory can take up to 15 minutes to show it.
A patient signed in to their account who holds a valid consultation books exactly as before.
Anyone else is offered the consultation first, with a Book this first button, or asked to call you if the consultation is not bookable online.
A returning patient who is not signed in can choose Already had your [consultation] with us?, which shows your consultation's own name, and confirm it is them with a code we email to the address they are booking with. We then check their record, and if they hold a valid consultation they book as normal. The page gives the same answer whether or not we know the email address, so it never reveals who your patients are.
Joining the waitlist, taking a freed-up slot and moving their own appointment all follow the same rule.

Nothing already in your diary is cancelled, moved or emailed. To stop, untick the box and save: your booking page works as before from the next page load, and every clearance you recorded stays on the patient's record.

Moving from another system

If your spreadsheet records consultation dates, map that column when you import. See Importing patients from a spreadsheet.

When our team moves your clinic across, consultations your old system recorded in a form we can read, such as a completed consultation booking or a treatment record written up against one, are carried over as clearances. The preview above counts those patients as already holding a consultation, and your migration checklist shows how many were carried over under Consultations already done. Anything that could not be carried over can be recorded on the patient's Clearances card, or covered by the two bulk actions.

Software connected through the API

If you use other booking software connected with an API key, it can read each treatment's consultation rule and whether a patient meets it, but it cannot record a consultation or change a rule. A booking made through it is never stopped for a missing consultation, whether or not you have switched the rule on, so the software needs to check first. Point your developer at API keys and webhooks (connecting other software).