
ApproveThis manages your Start Booking Integration approvals.
April 17, 2025
Integration Category: Scheduling
When Scheduling Meets Approval Chaos
Let's be real: scheduling is the necessary evil of doing business. Between clients ghosting meetings, last-minute cancellations, and that one manager who takes three days to approve a simple room booking, you're losing hours each week putting out fires. Start Booking solves half the problem - clean calendars, happy clients. But when you need approvals? That's where the wheels fall off.
ApproveThis isn't another calendar tool. We're the missing piece that stops approval bottlenecks from wrecking your carefully planned schedules. Connect the two via Zapier, and suddenly that "urgent" equipment request sitting in limbo for days gets handled before your 2pm coffee gets cold.
Why This Combo Works (When Others Fail)
Most scheduling tools treat approvals as an afterthought. Start Booking nails the front end - slick booking pages, payment integrations, class management. But when you need human decisions (Can we upsell this client? Does this workshop need a bigger room?), things get manual fast.
ApproveThis adds teeth to your scheduling rules:
- Auto-escalation: That $5k training session request? Routes straight to the CFO instead of clogging the department lead's inbox
- Approval logic: Require facilities + HR sign-off for after-hours bookings without creating 15 separate calendar events
Best part? Approvers don't need Start Booking logins. External vendors approve contract renewals directly from email. Board members okay quarterly planning sessions without learning new software. Your team stays out of the middle.
Real-World Fixes for Teams Who Can't Afford Downtime
1. Corporate Training Groups: Stop Losing Clients to "We'll Get Back To You"
Scenario: A Fortune 500 HR manager books your $20k leadership workshop through your Start Booking page. Without approvals:
- Sales doesn't know to upsell add-ons
- Facilities isn't warned about AV needs
- Legal hasn't vetted the NDA
With the integration:
1. Booking → auto-creates ApproveThis request with all client details
2. Conditional routing:
- Sales lead gets first crack at upselling
- Once approved, triggers facilities checklist
3. Only when all boxes checked does the confirmation email fire
Result: 23% faster client onboarding (actual result from a current customer in edtech)
2. Healthcare Clinics: Compliance Without the Paperwork Nightmare
Multi-location physio chain example:
Patients book specialized treatments online → triggers approval chains:
- New patient? MD approval required before confirmation
- Workers' comp cases → auto-route to case managers
- Equipment-intensive sessions → facility lead confirms availability
Bonus: ApproveThis' audit trails satisfy compliance officers. No more lost Post-its with scribbled approvals.
3. Fitness Studios: Members Hate Waiting. You Hate Refunds.
High-end pilates studio problem:
Clients book $500/month memberships online → front desk manually checks trainer availability → 12hr delay → client books elsewhere.
Fix:
1. Membership booking in Start Booking
2. ApproveThis checks:
- Trainer workload (integrates with payroll system)
- Waitlist status
3. Auto-approve if under capacity, else notify manager
Outcome: 40% reduction in membership processing time (real data from a Chicago-based studio)
Setup That Takes Less Time Than Your Morning Standup
If you can order lunch through an app, you can do this:
- Log into Zapier (free account works)
- Pick your Start Booking trigger:
- New appointment
- Class registration
- Customer signup - Connect ApproveThis as the action
(Pro tip: Use our pre-built templates to skip the busywork)
Biggest time-saver? Approval groups. Pre-load your approvers once (sales ops, legal, facilities), then forget about manual assignments.
Department-Specific Wins
Operations Teams
Kill the spreadsheet trackers. Real-time dashboards show:
- Which bookings are stuck awaiting approvals
- Average approval time per location/department
- Auto-generated reports for lean meetings
Finance Teams
Budget thresholds actually work when they're enforced automatically:
- Bookings over $10k? CFO approval required before confirmation
- Discount requests trigger profit margin checks
- Non-profit sliding scale appointments auto-route to program directors
Customer-Facing Teams
Stop being the messenger:
- Clients see real-time status updates ("Your booking is with legal for review")
- Auto-denials trigger graceful exit emails ("Unfortunately, we can't accommodate...")
- Approvals feed directly into your CRM (Salesforce/Hubspot users, this is your jam)
But Wait - There's Actual Features Under the Hood
We don't do vaporware. Key tools you'll actually use:
Vacation Delegation: CFO out climbing Kilimanjaro? Requests auto-reassign instead of stalling.
Calculated Fields: Auto-flag bookings that exceed monthly budgets or require special resources.
Mobile Approvals: Approve/deny from your phone without downloading another app.
The Bottom Line: This Isn't About Software
It's about losing the "waiting on someone" excuse. When bookings and approvals work in sync:
- Clients stop asking "Did you get my request?"
- Managers spend minutes on approvals, not chasing emails
- You look like you actually have your act together
Start Booking handles the when. ApproveThis handles the who. Together, they make sure the what actually happens.
No More "We'll Circle Back"
Either you keep doing approvals the broken way, or you fix it in the time it takes to drink a cold brew. Your call.
Show me the damn demo or let me break something in a free trial
Integrate with Start Booking Integration and get 90 days of ApproveThis for free.
After you create a Zapier integration, please email us at support@approve-this.com with your account name and we'll add 3 months of ApproveThis to your account. Limit one redemption per account.
Learn More
Best Approval Workflows for Start Booking
Suggested workflows (and their Zapier components) for Start Booking
Create approval requests for new appointments
When a new appointment is created in Start Booking, this integration creates an approval request in ApproveThis. It helps streamline the approval process for scheduling by automating the request creation.
Zapier Components

Trigger
Appointment Created
Triggers when a new appointment gets created.
Action
Create Request
Creates a new request, probably with input from previous steps.
Create approval requests for new class joins
This integration monitors when customers join a class in Start Booking and automatically creates an approval request in ApproveThis. It ensures that class enrollments requiring approval are processed without delay.
Zapier Components

Trigger
Customer Joined Class
Triggers when a customer joins a class.
Action
Create Request
Creates a new request, probably with input from previous steps.
Create approval requests for new customers
When a new customer is registered in Start Booking, this automation triggers an approval request in ApproveThis. It helps maintain a controlled customer onboarding process by ensuring each new registration is vetted.
Zapier Components

Trigger
New Customer
Triggers when a new customer is created.
Action
Create Request
Creates a new request, probably with input from previous steps.
You'll ❤️ these other ApproveThis integrations
-
Let's Calendar
Published: April 17, 2025Let's Calendar - Automate Sending mass calendar invites for your events & webinars, and block recipients calendar automatically
-
Enki
Published: April 17, 2025Persona Intelligence to improve the conversion rate and accelerate the sales cycle
-
K Factors
Published: April 17, 2025Use K Factors to create notification widgets that convert.