How a spa runs waivers with Waiver.com

A spa collects the most sensitive answers of any activity business. An intake form asks about conditions, sensitivities and recent treatments, and the guest is answering in the expectation that only the therapist will read it. That expectation shapes every decision in this walkthrough, which describes how a spa or wellness business could run intake and waivers with Waiver.com. It is illustrative, not a real customer's account, and it puts privacy before speed at every step.

Setup

The spa starts from the health and wellness intake template rather than a general waiver template because its structure already expects intake questions and a private handoff. The approved participation wording goes in as rich text at the top. Guest details follow, then a question asking which service the guest has booked, then the intake questions the therapists actually use.

Each intake question is reviewed against a simple test: who reads the answer, and what do they do with it? Questions that fail the test are removed. The ones that remain are marked required only where the therapist cannot proceed without an answer, and each carries a flag rule so that an answer needing attention is routed to the therapist. A short privacy paragraph explains who will see the answers and why. A required acknowledgment sits above the signature.

The spa reads choosing waiver fields before finalizing and decides against any photo or identity capture, because it has no operational use for one. Roles are set up before the form is published: reception can search, confirm identity and check in; therapists can view answers for guests assigned to them for the day; the manager reviews flags, exports and publishes. The manager publishes the version after a therapist tests the form on a phone, and keeps a change note. The guide to what a liability waiver is framed the difference between the participation wording and the intake questions during the spa's conversation with its adviser.

Signing

The spa's goal is that the guest completes intake at home, in private, before the appointment. The booking confirmation carries the public signing link with a sentence explaining that the form includes health questions the therapist will review, and roughly how long it takes. Nothing about the guest's answers ever appears in a confirmation, reminder or receipt. The reminder message the day before repeats the link and nothing else.

The intake is also embedded on the spa's booking page beneath the service descriptions, with a direct link for guests whose browser struggles with the embed. The embed was tested on a phone with the site's cookie banner in its normal state, following testing a website waiver embed, because a banner covering the signature field is the kind of failure a desktop preview hides.

For a guest who arrives without having completed the form, a tablet runs the kiosk workflow in a quiet corner of the reception lounge, screen facing away from other guests and away from the desk. Reception hands the tablet over rather than standing beside the guest, and the kiosk resets between guests so no answer is left visible. A QR code is deliberately not posted in the public lounge, because the spa prefers to hand each guest the private tablet or send the link to their phone.

What the guest sees is the participation wording, their details, the service question, the intake questions with the privacy paragraph, the acknowledgment and a finger-drawn signature. Completion shows a confirmation code and a short note that their therapist will review the answers before the service.

Check-in

Reception's job at arrival is identity and status, not content. The receptionist searches by name or scans the confirmation code, confirms a second detail such as the phone number on the booking, reads the status and checks the guest in. The record's intake answers are not opened at the desk. The spa designed this deliberately, following designing a private front desk review.

Flags are handled away from the counter. When a guest's record carries a flag, the therapist assigned to the service sees it before the appointment and raises it privately in the treatment room. Reception knows only that the therapist has been notified. An expiring status prompts reception to mention that the spa will send a refreshed intake before the next visit; an expired status means the guest completes the current form on the private tablet before the service.

Couples and small groups arriving together are checked in individually, each against their own record. A guest who says they completed the form but does not appear in search is looked up by an alternative email or phone before being asked to complete it again, because a duplicate intake creates more confusion than it resolves.

Records

Each record holds the guest's details, the intake answers, the signed PDF with its version and a history that includes who has opened the record. The manager reviews that access history periodically to confirm that answers are being viewed only by the therapist for that day's appointments. Search by name, contact detail or confirmation code is available to reception, but reception's role stops at the summary and status.

Expiry rules mean intake is refreshed on the schedule the spa's policy sets. The refresh uses the returning-participant workflow, so the guest reviews earlier details and updates what has changed rather than starting blank, and the earlier record is kept with its own version. Retention follows the spa's written policy, and deleting a downloaded copy is understood to be a different action from anything done in the workspace, as described on the records service page.

Exports are rare. When a specific guest's signed document is required for an authorized purpose, the manager retrieves that single PDF. CSV exports of intake answers are avoided entirely; if a structured export is ever needed, it is scoped to the minimum fields and stored in the approved location. Staff accounts are individual, and a departing therapist's access is removed the same day.

What to adapt

A spa with several treatment types might run distinct intake templates per service so that a massage guest is never asked questions meant for a facial. A wellness center offering group classes would add a short class form without intake questions for participants who are not receiving a personal service. A group with multiple locations adds each as a location and keeps the same intake template only where the therapists' review process is genuinely the same.

The principle that does not move is that the answers stay inside the workspace, are seen by the fewest people who need them, and are never repeated in a message or at a counter. See pricing for plan options.