Acuity Scheduling Intake Forms: Setup, Question Types, Limits and Templates

Why intake forms earn their place in the booking flow

Intake forms collect what you need before a client arrives: contact details, preferences, health notes, documents and consent. In Acuity they sit inside the booking flow, so clients fill them in while they book, at any hour, and the answers are waiting on the appointment before anyone walks in. That saves the first minutes of every visit. A massage therapist who collects health notes, pressure preferences and consent ahead of each first visit can start the session within minutes of the client arriving. One who asks the same questions on paper spends a quarter of the first hour on forms.

Intake forms are not a premium feature. Acuity states it plainly when it compares itself with Vagaro, and a September 2025 post repeats that forms come with every plan level ^[1]. Starter users get the same form builder as Premium users, with no limit on the number of questions per form. Only HIPAA mode needs Premium. Online forms also beat paper on the basics: they arrive before the visit, cannot be lost, and can be restricted to staff with the right permissions. A clinic that scans 30 paper forms a day spends hours a week on filing alone. Online wins for almost every business.

How forms attach to your services

Forms are built in the Intake Form Questions panel and attached to appointment types. A form appears each time a client books a service it is linked to, so the mapping between forms and services is the real design decision. One form can serve many services, and one service can use several forms. Plan that structure before you write a single question. A first consultation can carry a long form while a quick follow-up carries none. A studio that attaches a long health form to its first private session and nothing to its regular group class keeps repeat bookings fast, because returning students never see the long form again.

The build itself is simple. Create a form, name it, add questions, then choose which services use it. Order the questions from easy to sensitive, save, and test. Clients with accounts book faster because their saved contact details fill in automatically, but the form still appears for every booking of the linked service. That is why repeat-booking forms should stay short. A returning client should spend seconds, not minutes. Add a second form only when one service needs very different information, such as a medical history for treatments and a short form for retail consultations, and keep a shared contact form underneath both.

Picking the right question type for each answer

Acuity offers a textbox, a drop-down, a single checkbox, a checkbox list, a yes or no question, a file upload and an address field. Choose the type that makes answers consistent. Drop-downs beat free text for anything you plan to sort later, because drop-down answers export cleanly and work in reports. Fewer free-text fields mean cleaner data.

Text, drop-downs and checkboxes

Use text fields for open answers such as goals or notes, and drop-downs for fixed choices such as hair length or skill level. Keep the options short, and add an Other choice with a text field after it. Single checkboxes suit consent and opt-ins, while yes or no questions suit eligibility. Phrase them so yes means yes. Checkbox lists let clients pick several options, such as areas to treat or classes they are interested in, but keep them under ten items for phones. One quirk matters here. To add clients to an email list you must use a checkbox or a yes or no question. A checkbox list cannot drive list sign-ups.

File uploads

A file upload question lets clients send images, documents or other files of up to 5 MB ^[2]. Each upload question takes one file, so add several for several documents. Uploaded files stay behind your login. Accountants, tattoo artists and groomers use uploads most. A tax client with a W-2, a 1099 and last year's return needs three upload questions, and a large scanned PDF may need compressing before the client can attach it. Some tax professionals build forms with multiple upload questions for exactly this reason.

Address fields

An address field can double as the appointment location for in-home services, so mobile massage, cleaning and grooming businesses can set the location per client straight from the form. Note that video links override other locations. If a service carries a video link, the address the client typed will not become the meeting place.

Required questions, character limits and descriptions

You can make a form required, so clients must complete it while booking, or leave it optional. Required questions slow booking, so require only what you cannot work without. Each one adds a reason to abandon a booking on a phone. A form with three required fields and seven optional ones usually collects more complete bookings than one where all ten must be answered first, and optional questions still collect most answers. Questions on internal-only forms cannot be required. Phone numbers are optional by default, but you can make the phone field required. Do that if you send text reminders or call before visits. Ask only if you use it.

Each question can run to 255 characters including spaces, but another help page states a 250-character limit, so plan for 250. Long legal text belongs in the form description, not in the question. The description is also where instructions, policies and links go, and it accepts HTML for a more polished link. Link your full cancellation policy or waiver there and keep the visible text short, because clients skim on phones.

Consent checkboxes and the signature gap

The simplest no-show tool in Acuity is a checkbox. You can require clients to tick a box acknowledging that they agree to your policy, and they must do so to complete the booking. Acuity's own cancellation advice suggests the same thing. Pair it with deposits. A checkbox accepting a 24-hour cancellation policy, combined with a saved card or a deposit, gives a business both a record of consent and a practical way to charge a late cancellation, at no extra cost on any plan.

What Acuity forms cannot do is capture signatures. Collecting one means using a third-party program that supports e-signatures and sending clients a link to that form ^[3]. Waivers for fitness, tattoo or medspa services need that extra step. A pilates studio that needs signed liability waivers can link a signing tool in the form description and add a required checkbox confirming the client signed. The booking stays in Acuity while the legal document lives in a system built for signatures.

A second gap catches stores that sell prepaid work. Intake forms do not appear when clients buy packages, gift certificates or subscriptions. You can still require clients to agree to your terms before purchasing, and Acuity suggests a Squarespace form block or another form app for extra details at checkout. The forms then appear when the client actually books.

Internal forms, SOAP notes and referral tracking

In Acuity's words, "Internal forms are never visible to clients, but you and your staff can view and edit them". Staff complete them when booking or editing an appointment, and they suit treatment notes, staff assignments or referral sources. A salon that records formulas, processing times and patch-test dates in an internal form keeps that history on every appointment. Any stylist who sees the client next can repeat a color exactly without asking the client to remember it. Health practitioners can also add SOAP notes (subjective, objective, assessment and plan) to appointment types, and Acuity marks them for internal use automatically. They are lightweight notes, not a full clinical record. Clinics that chart heavily need an EHR.

Internal forms also track where bookings come from. Links can prefill client details and form fields by field ID, including fields on internal forms that clients never see. With one link for Instagram, one for Google and one for the newsletter, each prefilling a hidden source field, a business can run reports showing how many appointments and how much revenue each channel produced. After a month you know which channel brought the most revenue, not just the most clicks.

What happens after the booking

Update your scheduling limits to let clients edit their forms after they book, either at any time or up to a set number of hours before the appointment. When a client changes an answer, any future automated emails pull in the new one. Allowing edits up to 24 hours before lets clients add a forgotten allergy or a new reference photo, while staff still get a full day to read the final answers. When staff book on a client's behalf, they can fill the form themselves or add an Edit Forms button to the confirmation email so the client completes it. The business is not notified when clients submit forms, so check answers before the visit.

Email templates can include form answers through tags, so staff confirmations show what clients wrote without anyone logging in. Attach a form to a confirmation template and the email carries a PDF copy of the answers, which is handy for a clinic that prints each day's appointments. For a class series the PDF is sent only once. Attachments do not work for internal forms, other templates or HIPAA accounts. Texts cannot include form answers at all, and they are limited to 300 characters anyway. Use texts for times and links, and put anything form-related in emails.

Reports, exports and deleting questions

The reports panel includes an intake forms report, and internal referral forms feed revenue by source. Exporting appointments gives you a .csv file with form answers included if you choose. Pick a specific form and only appointments with that form attached are exported. Use exports for marketing analysis or compliance reviews, and store them securely. Be careful with deletions, though. Removing a question does not erase past answers, which stay in the appointment details, but those answers drop out of exports and reports. Plan the questions you want to analyze from the start, and rename or hide a question instead of deleting it while you still need the data.

Privacy, HIPAA and the Booking Assistant

Health data raises the stakes. On HIPAA-enabled Premium accounts, intake forms accept file uploads only from a local computer or device, uploads from Google Docs are disabled, and form PDFs cannot be attached to emails ^[4]. Remove health details from notifications and keep sensitive answers out of emails. Collect health data only in Acuity, never in Squarespace form blocks. Sign the BAA first. A therapy practice moving paper intake online should sign the agreement on Premium, switch on HIPAA mode, and only then publish health questions, because answers collected before that point were never covered.

The AI Booking Assistant on Premium recommends services and times in chat, and the forms still appear in the normal booking flow afterward. The assistant does not request personal information, and its transcripts are deleted after 21 days. Keep forms short so assisted bookings finish. For every account, the privacy basics are the same. Ask only what you need, restrict staff access by role, and remember that uploaded files stay behind login. Clients can ask Acuity to delete their client account data, while businesses keep their own copies. A short privacy note in the form description helps.

What to ask, trade by trade

Ask only what changes how you deliver the service or protects the business, and skip what you can learn in person. Acuity's three free PDF templates (beauty and wellness, therapy and counseling, professional services) make a good starting list to rebuild as online forms. These question sets fit the common trades:

• Health practices: reason for visit, relevant history, medications and allergies, emergency contact and consent, with SOAP notes as an internal form.
• Salons and barbers: service history, allergies, hair or skin type and inspiration photos; the barbershop page suggests style preferences, guard number and scalp or skin considerations.
• Fitness and classes: experience level, injuries, goals, emergency contact and a waiver link, with a form per class type.
• Coaches and consultants: goals, current situation and what success looks like.
• Pet businesses: name, breed, weight, age, temper, allergies and vaccination records as uploads.
• Tax and accounting: filing year, status, a document checklist and one upload per document.
• Tattoo studios: placement, size, style, reference images and allergies, plus a deposit.

The details pay off in practice. A color specialist who asks for two inspiration photos and the date of the last color service can block the right amount of time, which avoids a two-hour job booked into a one-hour slot. A groomer who collects vaccination records before the first visit can turn away an unvaccinated dog at booking rather than at the door. A preparer who asks returning clients the same questions every year can compare answers in exports and spot missing documents before the meeting.

Building, testing and pruning your forms

Your first form takes about ten minutes. Write five questions on paper, then create the form with a consent checkbox, one upload if needed and two drop-downs. Attach it to your main service. Then test it properly. Book each service from a phone and fill every form, check the required fields, upload a file and read the confirmation email. Edit answers through the Edit Forms link, export a test appointment with its answers, and delete the test client.

Common mistakes include requiring every question, using free text for choices, expecting signatures, burying policies in long question text, forgetting that package purchases skip forms, and deleting questions you still report on. Most take minutes to fix. The costly one is asking health questions before HIPAA mode is active, because it cannot be undone. Review forms each quarter. Look at which questions clients skip, which answers staff never read and where bookings drop, then cut or shorten the weak ones. Forms should shrink over time. Dedicated form builders add signatures, logic and payments, and Acuity integrates with one Wufoo form for complex cases. For setup beyond forms, see our guide on how to use Acuity Scheduling.

The bottom line

Acuity intake forms come with every plan, attach per service, accept files, consent checkboxes and addresses, and feed emails, reports and exports. They lack signatures and conditional logic, and they skip package checkout and text messages. For most service businesses they replace paper forms entirely. Keep them short and purposeful, require only what you need, and sign the BAA before you ask a single health question. To see which plan you need for HIPAA, read our Acuity pricing guide.