Glossary

A quick reference to the terms you'll see throughout Apolaris AI. Knowing these makes the rest of the documentation easier to follow, and helps everyone on your team speak the same language instead of guessing what a label means.

Core terms

Organization (domain)

Your whole business account in Apolaris AI. It holds all your sites, staff, settings, and data in one connected place, so you're never juggling separate spreadsheets or disconnected apps. Sometimes called a "domain" or "tenant." See Organizations & sites.

Site

A single location or branch within your organization (for example, one location). Each site has its own calendar, inventory, and sales, while still rolling up into the same organization. You can move between them from Switching site & organization.

Employee

A member of your team (professional, front-desk, manager). Employees can be assigned to appointments, earn tips, and appear in HR and payroll. Whether an employee shows up as a bookable column in the booking calendar is controlled by a per-employee Visible in booking calendar setting — handy for owners or managers who don't take appointments. See HR: team, leave & documents.

User account

The login an employee uses to access Apolaris AI. An employee record describes the person; the user account is how they sign in. What each account can see and do is controlled by permissions.

Passkey (biometric sign-in)

A sign-in method stored on your device that lets you sign in with your fingerprint, face, or device PIN instead of typing a password. A passkey belongs to the device you register it on (set one up on each device you use), and because the device unlock proves it's you, it also covers the two-factor (2FA) step — no extra code is asked. Your password keeps working as before. See Biometric sign-in (passkeys).

Booking

A scheduled appointment for a customer, with a service, a time, and usually an assigned employee. You manage these on the Appointments & calendar.

Booking statuses

The stage an appointment is in. There are six:

Status	Meaning
Booked	Scheduled for the future (the default for a new appointment).
Confirmed	The customer has confirmed they're coming.
In progress	The service is happening right now.
Completed	The service finished.
Cancelled	The appointment was called off.
No show	The customer didn't arrive.

Statuses keep your calendar and reports accurate, so move an appointment along its stages as the day unfolds. See Appointments & calendar.

Service category

A grouping your organization defines for its services (used by the services list, its filters, and search). Each organization manages its own categories under Bookings → Service Categories — new organizations start with none, and a service must belong to a category, so create at least one before adding services. See Service catalog.

Sale

A recorded transaction at the point of sale: services, products, tips, and any discount, paid by the customer. See Sales & point of sale.

Receipt

The itemized proof of a sale you can print or send to the customer, showing what was bought, any discount, the tip, and the total paid.

Tip

An extra amount the customer leaves for staff. Tips are recorded separately and are not counted as taxable sales revenue.

Discount code

A code (for a promo or influencer) that lowers the price at checkout. Each use is tracked so you can measure what each campaign really earned. See Discount codes.

Loyalty account

A customer's digital loyalty card. It collects points as they spend or visit, and those points move them up through tiers (levels) that can unlock better rewards. See Loyalty program.

Inventory item

A product or supply you track stock for, such as a polish or a retail product. See Inventory.

Central warehouse (HQ)

The franchise stock point that holds material centrally and supplies your sites. Often called HQ (headquarters). An organization can run one or more central warehouses (for example, regional hubs). HQ controls the order catalog — which articles a site may order, at what price, and within which limits. There is no separate "HQ" account type: an operator becomes an HQ user purely by holding the Manage Material Requests privilege (can_manage_material_requests). See Material ordering (franchise).

Material request / order

A movement of material between a central warehouse (HQ) and a site. A site can request stock from HQ, and HQ can send stock out to a site; each direction has its own approval and shipping workflow. This is the franchise feature behind phrases like "order from HQ." See Material ordering (franchise).

Expense

Money your business spends (rent, supplies, services). Recording expenses keeps your profit numbers honest. See Expenses.

Payroll run

A batch that calculates what your team is paid for a period, pulling from hours, sales, and tips automatically instead of by hand. See Payroll.

Data Explorer

A self-service report builder for slicing and combining your data — sites, sales, bookings, inventory, and more — into ad-hoc tables and charts you can save, schedule, and export. It is a separate feature from the Analytics & Reports dashboard (which gives fixed dashboards); Data Explorer is for building your own views. Access is gated by the Use data explorer privilege (can_explore_data); managers always have it, and everyone's results stay scoped to the sites they can see. See Analytics & reports.

Competitor scan

A background discovery run, started from the Analyze competitors page (managers only), that finds nearby same-industry businesses around each of your sites from public map data and plots them on a map alongside your own locations. The stored results feed per-site scorecards, reports, and AI recommendations. See Competitor & market intelligence.

Module

A feature area that can be switched on or off for your organization, such as Loyalty, Cameras, the AI Copilot, or the Contact Center. Which modules are active is configured by Apolaris (the platform operator) for your account — it is not a setting you self-toggle. If you want a module turned on or off, contact support. You only ever see the modules that are on. See Modules.

Privilege

A specific permission that lets a user account do something (for example, manage discounts or view the schedule). Privileges keep sensitive actions in the right hands. See the Privileges reference.

Portal (Caja)

The simplified employee workspace, often called the Caja, where front-desk and staff handle day-to-day tasks like checkout without the full admin view. See Employee workspace (Caja).

AI Assistant (Copilot)

The in-app AI helper, called the Copilot. You chat with it to ask questions about your business, get proactive insights, and (with the right privileges) carry out actions like drafting a booking. The module that powers it is labelled AI Copilot & Automations, because the same area also runs your automations (below). See AI Assistant (Copilot).

Automation

A rule that runs on its own — on a schedule or when something happens — so routine work gets done without you. For example, an automation can nudge customers to cut down no-shows. Automations are part of the AI Copilot & Automations module and share the AI Assistant's home. See AI Assistant (Copilot).

Contact Center (CCaaS)

The built-in messaging hub that handles customer conversations across channels in one place. CCaaS stands for "Contact Center as a Service." See Contact Center (CCaaS).

Customer AI memory

Durable notes the customer-facing AI keeps about each customer — such as preferences and facts they've shared — so the WhatsApp assistant remembers returning customers across separate conversations instead of starting from scratch each time. The notes refresh automatically after each exchange. See Contact Center (CCaaS).

Public website

The customer-facing website Apolaris can build for your business from your own data — your public services, locations, brand colours and photos — and host for you. It has a draft you edit and a published copy visitors see; the two only meet when you press Publish. See Your public website.

Web address (subdomain)

The address your public website lives at, made of a label you choose plus the Apolaris domain — for example yourbusiness.apolaris.net. Only the public website is served there; your CRM and staff portal are never reachable from it. See Your public website.

Public showcase

The screen where you choose which of your services face the world — which are public (shown and bookable online), which few are featured, and in what order. Everything else stays fully usable internally but invisible to customers. See Service catalog.

Ambient motion

An optional calm animated backdrop behind your whole public website (Cosmic, Constellation, Aurora or Particles — or None, the default). It sits behind your content, never over it, and switches itself off for visitors whose device asks for reduced motion. Separate from the per-section entrance animation that plays once as a section scrolls into view. See Your public website.

Enquiry (site lead)

A message a visitor sends through your public website's contact form. Enquiries are listed in your account so you can work through them and mark each one handled. See Your public website.

Voice channel

An optional Contact Center channel where phone calls are answered live by an AI voice agent and then filed into the same inbox as your other conversations — one message per spoken turn, with the recording attached. Voice ships off and is enabled per organization. See Voice channels.

API token

A secret key that lets an outside system connect to your Apolaris AI data securely. Mainly used by developers; see the REST API overview.

Tips