How to Add a Booking System to Your WordPress Website

We set up booking systems pretty regularly at WLA. It’s a common request for law offices, medical practices, consulting businesses, basically any site where people need to schedule appointments. The setup itself is straightforward. The bigger question is usually what kind of booking system the client actually needs.

In this blog, we would like to share how we typically approach WordPress booking system setup and walk you through the process using the plugin we use most often. 

How Booking Systems Work

A booking system lets visitors pick an available time slot and book it. They get a confirmation email, you get a notification, and the appointment shows up on a calendar. That’s the basic version.

But some setups get more complex. Maybe you need to collect payment when someone books. Maybe appointments need to sync with Google Calendar or flow into a CRM. Or maybe the client already uses scheduling software and just wants it embedded on their WordPress site.

“The solution depends entirely on the requirements,” says Natalia, our Head of Production. “Sometimes clients already have their own booking integrations, or they use a third-party service that we just connect to the site.”

For most straightforward cases, like hourly appointments or basic availability management, we use the Booking Calendar plugin. It handles both full-day bookings and time slots, which covers most scenarios.

Setting Up Booking Calendar Plugin

Let’s walk through how to add a booking system using the Booking Calendar plugin, which is the most common solution we implement at WLA.

Installation

Installing the plugin is straightforward:

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard
2. Navigate to Plugins > Add New
3. Search for “Booking Calendar”
4. Click Install Now, then Activate

Once activated, you’ll see a new Booking menu in your WordPress admin sidebar.

Setting Up Availability

The first thing you need to configure is when appointments can actually be booked. The plugin calls this your availability schedule.

To do this, you can open the Booking settings, and you’ll see options for setting available days and time blocks. If your client only takes appointments Tuesday through Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm, you’d set that here. You can also block out lunch breaks, holidays, or specific dates when they’re unavailable.

The plugin lets you set different rules for different days. So if Friday is half-days only, you can configure that separately.

Configuring Booking Rules

Next, you’ll need to set some basic rules about how bookings work. Below are some basic questions you can think through to help you better configure your settings:

1. How far in advance can people book? Some clients want at least 24 hours notice. Others are fine with same-day appointments. You can set the minimum and maximum advance booking window here.
2. How long are appointments? If every appointment is one hour, maybe setting that as the default would work better. The plugin can handle different durations for different services, but most setups keep it simple.
3. Buffer time between appointments. Back-to-back scheduling usually doesn’t work well in practice. So adding 15 or 30 minutes between appointments can give some breathing room.

Email Notifications

When bookings happen, this plugin can send automatic emails as well. But you’ll need to configure these, so they actually work.

There are typically two types: confirmation emails that go to the person booking, and notification emails that go to staff. The plugin includes default templates for both, but you’ll want to customize them with the client’s business name and any specific information they want included.

We recommend testing these before going live. To do this, you can send a test booking and verify that both emails arrive and look correct.

Adding the Form to Your Site

Once everything’s configured, you’ll need to put the booking form somewhere visitors can actually use it. The plugin generates a shortcode (usually something like [booking]) that you can drop into any page or post. For most of our clients, we create a dedicated “Book an Appointment” page and put the shortcode there.

You can also add a new page in WordPress, and then paste the shortcode where you want the calendar to appear. The booking form will show up on that page.

Customizing the Appearance

Sometimes the default calendar looks fine, but doesn’t match your client’s site design. To help you fix this, the plugin includes settings for adjusting colors, fonts, and layout.

If you want to configure the visuals according to your website’s specifications, you can go under the Booking settings and look for the appearance or styling options. This way you will be able to change:

• Calendar colors to match the site’s color scheme
• Button styles and colors
• Font choices for the calendar text
• Labels for form fields

Some clients care a lot about this matching perfectly. Others are fine with the defaults as long as it’s functional.

Alternative Booking Solutions

Booking Calendar works well for standard appointment scheduling, but some situations need different tools.

“If you’re managing events with tickets rather than standard appointments, The Events Calendar with the Event Tickets add-on works better,” Natalia notes. This combination handles everything from free RSVPs to paid ticket sales.

We’ve also seen cases where clients need industry-specific features. For example, restaurant websites usually require table management, while electrician sites need to handle emergency call-outs and on-site visit scheduling with travel time built in. In those situations, we either find a specialized plugin or connect to a third-party booking service that handles the specific requirements.

Connecting Your Booking System to Other Tools

Most of the time, WordPress booking systems don’t work completely standalone. They need integrations with some other tools. Below, we listed common extensions that come up most often:

• Payment processing. If clients need to collect cash or deposits when someone books, the plugin needs to work with payment methods such as WooCommerce, Stripe, or PayPal. Not all booking plugins handle this well, so it’s worth checking before committing to one.
• Calendar syncing. Sometimes staff want their appointments to show up in Google Calendar or Outlook alongside everything else. Most booking plugins can sync to external calendars, but you’ll need to set up the connection.
• CRM integration. Client information from bookings should ideally flow into whatever CRM system the business uses. This usually requires additional setup or a connector plugin.

Keeping Things Running

Once the booking system is live, it needs occasional maintenance. The plugin will need updates periodically for security patches and new features. It’s also worth checking every few months that bookings are coming through correctly and emails are still sending. Sometimes email deliverability issues crop up, or a plugin conflict breaks something.

Another thing to consider is that the client’s business changes, and booking requirements might shift. Seasonality might affect availability. New services might need different booking durations. That’s why the system should get adjusted accordingly.

Let Us Handle It

Setting up a WordPress booking system involves understanding how your client’s business actually works, not just installing a plugin. You need to know their scheduling preferences, workflow, and what happens after someone books.

At WLA, we’ve worked with 600+ agencies on white-label WordPress projects. Booking systems are just one of the things we set up regularly for client sites. If you need help with appointment scheduling, payment integration, calendar syncing, or any other WordPress development work, we can handle it under your agency’s brand. Schedule a call with our team to talk through your next project.