How to build your pre-booking intake form as a solo beauty pro

June 18, 2026 · 22 min read · back to blog

Most solo beauty pros discover client history at the chair. The consultation happens live — the pro asks about previous color, the client says "oh, I had a box dye six months ago," and the appointment that was booked as a single-process color is now a color correction that requires two hours she does not have. The consultation is a recovery conversation rather than a planning conversation. That sequence — book first, discover later — has a real cost in overtime, in under-priced services, and in clients who leave disappointed because the result they expected was never achievable in the appointment slot they booked. A pre-booking intake form moves the discovery to before the appointment. What the client submits in the form is what you use to set the price, block the time, and decide — before the deposit clears — whether this is an appointment you can do as booked or one that needs to be restructured before it begins.

What the intake form actually is

The intake form is not a health questionnaire. It is not a liability waiver. It is not a formality you bolt onto the booking flow because a coaching program said you should "look more professional." It is the professional qualification conversation that used to happen at the beginning of every consultation — moved upstream, into the booking flow, so that the chair time you reserved can be used entirely for the service rather than partly for discovery.

In a multi-chair salon with a senior colorist, the new-client consultation happens before the booking is confirmed. The colorist or a coordinator asks about history, pulls up a form, notes the answers, and adjusts the appointment type and price accordingly. Solo booth renters skip this step — because there is no coordinator, no front desk, and no natural moment in a DM thread to conduct a structured consultation. The intake form creates that moment in the booking flow, between "I want to book" and "my deposit is confirmed," when the client is engaged and motivated to provide accurate information.

The information changes two things: (1) whether the appointment proceeds as booked, is restructured before the deposit clears, or is declined; and (2) who holds the discovery risk. Without the form, the pro holds the risk — she learns at the chair that the appointment needs to be repriced or extended, and she has to make that call in front of a client who is already seated. With the form, the client holds the disclosure obligation — she acknowledged that the booking is contingent on accurate disclosure and that the price and time block may change based on her answers. That shift does not eliminate difficult conversations. It moves them to a moment where they are easier: before the appointment begins, before the client drove to the shop, before the pro has touched the hair.

The two types of questions to include

Intake form questions fall into two categories: history questions and expectation questions. Both matter, but they accomplish different things.

History questions: what has happened to this hair

History questions establish the chemical and mechanical state of the client's hair or skin before the pro touches it. For color services, the key history questions are: (1) what color services have been performed in the last 12 months and by whom; (2) whether any home color, including box dye, has been applied and within what timeframe; (3) whether any chemical services — relaxer, keratin, perm — are present in the hair that could interact with the planned service; (4) current hair health self-assessment (the client's own report on breakage, texture, scalp sensitivity); and (5) photos — specifically, a current photo in natural light of the hair as it is today, not the best photo she has.

The photo requirement is not optional for color clients. A client describing "light brown with some highlights I got last year" may be describing anything from a clean canvas to a multi-year accumulation of overlapping box dye and faded salon color that will require a multi-step correction process. The description sounds the same. The photo does not.

For nail, lash, and PMU services, history questions shift accordingly: for nails, current enhancement type (gel, acrylic, dip) and how it was removed; for lashes, current set type and fill history, and any known adhesive sensitivities; for PMU, current state of any previous PMU work, medications that affect healing, and history of allergic reactions to topical products. The categories are service-specific, but the logic is identical: establish what exists before you begin so the appointment can be planned around the actual starting point.

Expectation questions: what the client believes the outcome will be

Expectation questions surface the gap between what the client imagines and what the appointment as booked can produce. The most effective expectation question is not "what are you hoping for?" — which produces vague answers — but "please share an inspiration image that represents the color/result you are looking for, and describe in 2–3 sentences what you are hoping for from this appointment."

This question does two things. First, it makes the expectation concrete and documentable before the appointment begins. If the client submits an image of platinum-blonde lived-in color and her history answers indicate years of dark box dye, the gap between expectation and achievable outcome is visible in the form before any money changes hands. Second, it gives you the information to have the expectation-alignment conversation in the booking confirmation or pre-appointment message — not at the chair, where the client is already seated and the conversation is constrained by the cost of sending her home.

A secondary expectation question that consistently surfaces risk: "Is there a specific occasion you are preparing for, and if so, on what date?" A client who is preparing for a wedding in three weeks has a risk profile that is entirely different from a client with no event on the horizon — because the consequence of a result that requires correction or follow-up is much more severe. Knowing this before the appointment shapes how you communicate about achievable outcomes, whether you recommend a consultation appointment before the service, and whether you accept the appointment as booked.

When in the booking flow to present the form

Timing matters. The intake form has three possible positions in the booking flow: before the deposit, simultaneous with the deposit checkout, or after the deposit. Each has a different effect on completion rate and data quality.

Before the deposit: lower completion, higher quality

Presenting the form before the deposit step — as a required step before the client reaches the calendar or the payment page — produces the highest quality responses because the client has not yet committed financially and is still in the active decision phase. She is motivated to provide accurate information because she is still deciding whether to book. The risk is completion rate: a client who encounters a multi-question form before she can see your calendar may abandon the booking flow before she begins. The abandonment rate on pre-payment forms is roughly 20–35% for longer forms (eight or more questions) and 5–15% for shorter forms (four to six questions).

For services with high color correction risk — balayage, lightening, color corrections — the before-deposit position is the correct choice, because the cost of accepting an under-scoped appointment is higher than the cost of losing a booking. A client who abandons the booking flow because she does not want to disclose her color history was not a client you could successfully serve as booked.

Simultaneous with deposit: moderate completion, good quality

Presenting the form as part of the deposit checkout page — integrated into the same step as the payment — produces moderate completion rates and reasonably good data quality. The client is already in the purchasing mindset and the marginal cost of answering a few additional questions before submitting payment is low. The risk is form length: adding too many fields to a checkout page increases abandonment.

The simultaneous position works well for services with moderate discovery risk — new clients for nail or lash services, first-time cut clients — where the history questions are short (four or fewer) and the photo requirement is optional rather than mandatory. The data quality is adequate because the client's financial commitment is immediate, and clients who have already committed to paying tend to answer intake questions more thoroughly than clients who have not yet decided.

After the deposit: highest completion, lowest quality

Presenting the form after the deposit — as a follow-up link in the booking confirmation — produces the highest raw completion rates (because the client has already committed and the form completion is framed as a next step in the process) but the lowest data quality. Clients who fill out the form after paying have less motivation to be thorough, and clients who do not fill it out are already confirmed in your calendar. The post-deposit form does not give you the information in time to restructure the appointment before the booking is confirmed.

The post-deposit position is the correct choice only for returning clients with known history, where the form serves as an update mechanism ("anything new since your last visit?") rather than an initial qualification. For new clients, the form needs to be in the flow before or during the deposit step.

How it changes the color correction conversation

Color correction is where the intake form pays for itself most clearly. The color correction scenario — a client booked for a color service who arrives with a history the pro did not know about — creates a specific set of problems that have no clean solution in the chair: the appointment cannot proceed as booked, the repricing conversation happens in front of a seated client, and either the pro absorbs the cost of the additional time (by undercharging) or the client is surprised by a price increase she did not anticipate when she booked.

The intake form does not eliminate color corrections. It eliminates chair-side color correction discovery. The correction is still a correction, but the pro knows it before the appointment begins, can price it correctly at booking, can block the additional time in the calendar, and can have the expectation-alignment conversation before the client is seated. The conversation changes from "I need to let you know this is going to require additional time and cost more than what you paid the deposit for" (reactive, uncomfortable, client feels ambushed) to "based on the history you shared, I've adjusted the service to reflect the actual scope — here is the updated price and time estimate, and here is what we will accomplish in this appointment" (proactive, professional, client arrived knowing what to expect).

The dollar impact is straightforward. A color correction that was booked as a single-process color at $150 and requires two additional hours and $80 of additional product has a real cost. If the pro absorbs it, she made $150 for three hours of work instead of 90 minutes — a meaningful hourly rate reduction. If she reprices at the chair, she has a confrontational conversation with a client who did not budget for the difference. The intake form converts that situation into a correctly-scoped booking at the correct price from the beginning — which means the three-hour service was priced as a three-hour service before the appointment began.

Beyond the individual appointment economics, consistent intake forms across all new color bookings produce a different kind of client portfolio over time. Clients who disclose incomplete history tend to be the same clients who arrive with unrealistic expectations, push back on correction pricing, and leave negative reviews when the result is not what they imagined. A form that surfaces these patterns before the deposit is paid is also, functionally, a client filter — not by design, but by outcome.

The client-as-expert positioning effect

There is a less quantifiable but important effect of the intake form: it positions the pro as the expert before the first in-person interaction. When a client books through a DM thread and shows up to the chair without submitting any information in advance, the implicit frame is that the pro will assess the situation and make the plan at the appointment. The pro is reactive. The client is, in some sense, evaluating.

When a client completes an intake form before the appointment, the implicit frame is different. The pro has already reviewed the information, already made preliminary assessments, and arrives at the consultation with a plan based on what the client disclosed. The pro speaks first with observations and recommendations rather than questions. The consultation becomes a confirmation and refinement of a plan the pro has already begun to develop, rather than a live discovery process happening in front of the client.

This framing effect is largest with new clients — clients who have no prior relationship with the pro and are evaluating competence from the first interaction. A pro who sends a structured intake form, reviews the responses, and opens the consultation with "based on what you shared, I think the best approach is..." has established professional credibility before the client sat in the chair. A pro who asks "so what are you thinking?" and discovers the color history live has not.

The framing effect compounds over time. Clients who experience a structured intake process from their first appointment have a different mental model of what the pro is and what she does than clients who book through a DM and arrive to an impromptu consultation. That mental model affects how clients respond to price increases, how they describe the pro to friends, and how they write reviews.

How deposit-first booking integrates with the intake form

Deposit-first booking and the intake form solve adjacent problems. Deposit-first booking solves the no-show and casual-commitment problem — the client who books verbally and either forgets or finds something better. The intake form solves the under-scoped appointment problem — the client who commits sincerely but arrives with a service that cannot be delivered as booked. Neither solves the other's problem, but they are most effective when combined.

The combination works as follows: the client reaches the booking page, selects a service, and is presented with the intake form before or as part of the deposit checkout. She fills out the form, pays the deposit, and receives a booking confirmation. The pro reviews the intake submission and does one of three things within 24 hours: (1) confirms the appointment as booked (the submitted history matches the service and the stated expectations are achievable); (2) contacts the client to restructure the appointment (the history indicates a different service is needed, the price and time block need to change, the deposit remains applied); or (3) declines the appointment (the submitted history indicates the pro cannot achieve what the client expects, the deposit is refunded in full, and a clear explanation is provided).

Option 3 — declining the appointment based on intake form review — sounds drastic. In practice it is rare (roughly 2–5% of new color bookings for a pro who has been doing this long enough to have calibrated her form) and it is far less costly than the alternative. A client whose color history indicates that the platinum color she booked cannot be achieved safely in one appointment, and whose expectation is that she will leave looking like her inspiration image, is a client who is very likely to be disappointed at the result, request a redo, and leave a negative review. Declining the appointment before it begins — with a full deposit refund and an explanation of why — produces a better outcome for both parties than accepting an appointment that has a high probability of ending in a dispute.

The 24-hour review window is the operational lever. A deposit-first booking system without intake form review gives you no information window between booking and appointment. With intake form review, you have a structured window to assess the appointment before it is locked. That window is worth building into the client-facing booking confirmation: "I review all new-client forms within 24 hours and will confirm your appointment or follow up with any questions." This sets the expectation that the confirmation is a two-step process and that the pro's review is part of the booking protocol, not a sign that something is wrong.

Form length, format, and delivery

Form length is a completion rate problem. The research on web form abandonment consistently shows that completion rate drops as field count increases, with the steepest drop occurring between five and eight fields. For a pre-booking intake form embedded in a deposit checkout flow, five to seven fields is the practical ceiling for most service types.

The five essential fields for a new color client:

1. Color history (checkbox: never had color / salon color only / box dye / both / not sure) + open text field for details and approximate date of last service
2. Chemical service history (checkbox: relaxer / keratin / perm / none) + approximate date
3. Photo upload — current hair in natural light (required, not optional)
4. Inspiration image or description of desired result (image upload + 2–3 sentence text field)
5. Any special occasion, date, or constraint the pro should know about (open text, optional)

The color history field is the single most important field in the form. A checkbox answer — "box dye" or "both salon and home color" — tells the pro within two seconds that the consultation will need to address color history before the service begins. An open text field lets the client elaborate without requiring it. For the 40–50% of new color clients who have never used home color and had their last salon service within the year, the text field will be short. For the clients with complex history, the text field gives them space to explain — and clients with complex history who feel they have been given space to explain tend to be more forthcoming than clients who were asked a binary yes/no.

For nail services, the five essential fields are different:

1. Current enhancement type (natural / gel / dip / acrylic / other) + how it was most recently removed
2. Any known sensitivities to adhesives, acrylics, or gel products (yes / no + text)
3. Desired service and length/style description
4. Inspiration image (upload, optional but strongly recommended)
5. Any occasion or constraint

Format matters as much as content. A form that lives inside the booking platform (integrated into the checkout flow) has higher completion rates than a form that arrives as a separate Google Form link after the deposit is paid. If your deposit-first booking link cannot embed a form natively, the least-friction alternative is to present the form link immediately after the deposit page confirms — as the redirect URL or as the first line of the booking confirmation message — framed as a required step: "Your deposit is confirmed. Please complete the pre-appointment form here [link] — your appointment is not fully confirmed until I review your responses."

Mobile-first design is not optional. Over 80% of beauty service bookings happen on a phone, often in the fifteen-minute window between deciding to book and the next distraction. A form with file upload fields needs to support camera-direct upload from a mobile browser. A form with text fields needs large touch targets and no autocorrect interference on service-specific terminology. Test your form on a phone before you make it live.

What to do with the responses

The form is worth nothing if you do not review the responses before the appointment. This sounds obvious. In practice, a solo pro managing her own calendar, booking system, and client communications may receive an intake form response and not review it before the appointment — because the booking system confirmed the appointment automatically and the client is already on the schedule. The intake form review has to be a scheduled part of the booking confirmation workflow, not an optional step.

The review workflow: within 24 hours of each new-client booking, open the intake form response. Flag any answer that requires follow-up before confirming the appointment: complex color history, chemical services, an inspiration image that indicates the result may not be achievable in the booked slot, or a special occasion with a date that constrains the acceptable result range. If none of the answers require follow-up, send the appointment confirmation with a note that you have reviewed the form and the appointment is confirmed as booked. If any answer requires follow-up, contact the client before sending the confirmation.

The follow-up message when a form response requires restructuring is a template worth writing and saving before your first intake form goes live:

"Hi [name] — I've reviewed your intake form and I'm looking forward to working with you. Based on your color history, the service that will give you the result you're looking for will take closer to [X hours] than the [Y hours] we have booked. I want to make sure we have the right amount of time so the result is what you're expecting. I can [offer adjusted slot options] — which works best for you? Your deposit applies to the updated appointment."

Note what the message does not say: it does not say "your appointment is going to cost more," though the adjusted price may be higher. It focuses on time and result first. The price conversation comes after the client has agreed to the restructured slot — because a client who has agreed to the scope is far more receptive to a revised price than a client who received a "longer appointment = higher price" message as her first follow-up.

Client record note-taking from intake form responses is a compounding investment. The color history the client disclosed in the intake form, the photo she submitted, the inspiration image, the occasion — all of this is client record material that you would otherwise be recording at the chair in real time. When it exists in the intake form before the appointment, it is available before the appointment (to prepare), during the appointment (to reference), and after the appointment (to note what was done and what the starting point was for the next service). A pro who reviews and records intake form data consistently for 12 months has a client database that is qualitatively different from a pro who does not.

The client-filtering effect over time

A structured intake form is a passive client filter. The clients who complete it accurately and thoroughly — who upload clear photos, answer the color history question with specific detail, and describe their expectation in full sentences — are disproportionately the clients who show up prepared, listen to the consultation, and leave satisfied even when the result required compromise from their original inspiration image. The clients who abandon the booking flow at the intake form, submit vague or incomplete answers, or claim the form is "too much work" are disproportionately the clients who would have been difficult appointment-day conversations.

This filtering effect is not immediate. In the first two or three months, a pro who adds an intake form will lose some bookings she would have otherwise accepted — bookings from clients who do not want to disclose their history or who find the form inconvenient. Those are real lost revenue events in the short term. Over six to twelve months, the client portfolio shifts toward clients who expect a structured booking process and value the thoroughness it represents. That portfolio shift is not visible in any single appointment. It is visible in the rebooking rate, the review quality, and the price increase trajectory.

The rebooking rate effect: clients who completed an intake form and had a well-scoped, expectation-aligned appointment rebook at materially higher rates than clients who had a vague consultation and a result that was close to — but not quite — what they imagined. The intake form does not guarantee a better technical result. It guarantees a better-communicated result — which, in terms of rebooking behavior, has approximately the same effect.

The review effect: structured intake pro's reviews disproportionately reference the consultation and the professionalism of the process, not just the technical result. "She reviewed my hair history before I arrived and already had a plan when I sat down" is a review sentence that appears repeatedly in practices that use pre-booking intake forms. That sentence, unprompted, describes a client experience that is qualitatively different from a walk-in consultation — and it is evidence in search results, visible to cold prospects, that the pro operates differently from the field.

How deposit-first booking changes the form completion dynamic

Deposit-first booking and intake form completion interact in a specific way: clients who have already committed financially are substantially more likely to complete the intake form than clients who have not. This is one of the arguments for presenting the intake form simultaneously with the deposit step rather than before it — the client is in a committed mindset, and the intake form feels like the next natural step rather than an obstacle before she can book.

The data quality effect runs in the same direction. A client who paid a deposit to hold her appointment and is now completing the intake form has invested in the appointment — financially and cognitively. That investment produces more thorough answers and more accurate photo submissions than a client who is still in the "maybe I'll book" phase. The client who paid $40 to hold the chair and is now uploading a current photo of her hair is not going to upload a photo from three years ago, because she has skin in the appointment's success.

The combination also changes the consequence of form abandonment. A client who starts the intake form after paying the deposit and does not finish it is a client with an open booking confirmation who has not completed a required step. That is a different situation from a client who abandoned the booking flow before paying — and it is manageable: a single follow-up message ("I need your intake form responses to confirm your appointment — here is the link, please complete it within 24 hours so we can finalize") converts most deposit-paid form abandoners into completers. The deposit creates the accountability that makes the follow-up feel natural rather than like a pressure campaign.

Six common intake form mistakes

Most solo pros who try a pre-booking intake form abandon it within the first month. Here are the six reasons this happens and what to do instead.

1. Building the form after the booking instead of before or during it. A post-deposit form that arrives as a follow-up link has the worst completion rate and the least useful position in the booking flow. Move the form to before or simultaneous with the deposit step.

2. Making the form too long. A twelve-field intake form for a new haircut client is not proportionate. Match the form length to the discovery risk of the service: four to five fields for lower-risk services, six to seven for higher-risk. Remove every field that does not directly affect how you will plan or price the appointment.

3. Not reviewing the responses before the appointment. The form is not a legal document to file. It is a planning input. If you are not reviewing responses before each new-client appointment, the form accomplishes nothing except adding friction to the booking flow.

4. Not having a template for the restructuring conversation. The first time a form response indicates the appointment needs to be restructured, doing it without a template is uncomfortable and tends to come out either too apologetic (which makes the client feel like the restructuring is the pro's fault) or too abrupt (which makes the client feel surprised and charged for it). Write the template before the first intake form goes live.

5. Making the photo upload optional. For color services, the photo is the single most useful field in the form. When it is optional, the clients who need to submit a photo most — clients with complex history and unrealistic expectations — are the most likely to skip it. Make photo submission required for all color services and explain why in the form header: "This helps me understand your starting point and give you accurate expectations for what we can achieve in your appointment."

6. Treating the intake form as a one-size-fits-all document. The form for a new lash client is not the same form as the one for a new color client. Build separate forms for your service categories and link the correct form to each service type in the booking flow. A color-specific form presented to a nail client adds irrelevant questions and reduces completion rate. A nail-specific form presented to a color client misses the history questions that matter most.

Three operational checklists

One-time setup (45–60 minutes)

1. Identify your two or three highest-risk service types (typically new-client color, first-time lash sets, PMU) and build a separate form for each.
2. Write the form questions using the five-field template above as a starting point. Test on mobile before making live.
3. Decide form timing: before deposit, simultaneous with deposit, or after deposit. For color services, default to simultaneous or before.
4. Write the appointment confirmation template that references the form review: "I review all new-client intake forms within 24 hours and will confirm your appointment or follow up with any questions."
5. Write the restructuring conversation template. Save it as a phone note or draft in your messaging app. You will need it within the first month.
6. Write the form-completion follow-up message for clients who paid the deposit but did not finish the form.
7. Integrate the form into your booking platform or add the link as the immediate post-deposit redirect. Test the full flow as a new client before sending any real bookings through it.

Per-booking intake review protocol (5 items, under 5 minutes per new-client booking)

1. Within 24 hours of each new-client booking, open the intake form response.
2. Flag any field that requires follow-up: complex color history, chemical services, expectation-to-history gap, occasion constraint.
3. Send the appointment confirmation or the restructuring message accordingly.
4. Add intake form data to the client record: color history summary, photo file, inspiration image, any notes from your review.
5. Log the outcome: confirmed as booked / restructured (note new scope) / declined (note reason, record deposit refund).

Monthly intake form review (5 items, 20–30 minutes)

1. Count the percentage of new-client bookings where the form response required a restructuring conversation. If it is above 20%, the form is surfacing a scope-setting gap in your service menu or booking page description — add more clarity to the service listing.
2. Review any declined appointments. Are there patterns (specific service types, specific inspiration images that consistently exceed what is achievable) that could be addressed by updating the service menu or booking page?
3. Check form completion rate. If more than 15% of deposit-paid clients are not completing the form, the form is too long, the position in the flow is wrong, or the follow-up message is not reaching them. Adjust accordingly.
4. Read through the intake responses for the last month. Are clients consistently disclosing the same gaps or limitations? Update the form if a new category of risk has appeared that the current form does not capture.
5. Compare the rebooking rate for clients who completed the intake form vs clients from before the form was implemented (or clients booked through channels that bypass the form). If the intake form cohort rebooking rate is materially higher, note this as a conversion argument for extending the form requirement to more service types.

The three-year compound

Two solo colorists, same shop, same skill level, same $155 starting average ticket, same booking volume: 35 appointments per week at 46 weeks of full booking per year.

Colorist A does not use a pre-booking intake form. She conducts all consultations live at the chair. In the first year, she absorbs an average of 2.5 under-scoped color appointments per month — appointments where the service scope was larger than what was booked, and she either undercharges or has a difficult repricing conversation. Average revenue loss per under-scoped appointment: $45 (between the absorbed overtime cost, the undercharge, and the occasional redo). She raises her prices once in the first year, in month eight, after the price increase she had been planning for six months. Her rebooking rate from new color clients is 58% — most clients come back, but a meaningful percentage do not, and she attributes this to "clients trying different stylists" rather than to the consultation experience. Her three-year gross at $155 average ticket rising to $165 in year two: approximately $193,000.

Colorist B implements a five-field intake form in month one, integrated into the deposit checkout flow. In the first three months, she loses four bookings to clients who abandon the form before completing it — a total of approximately $600 in lost deposits. In months four through six, the abandonment rate stabilizes at about 8% of new-client booking attempts, which she has calibrated to represent the clients who would not have disclosed their history anyway. Her under-scoped appointment rate drops from an estimated 2.5 per month to under 0.5 per month within the first quarter — because the consultations are happening before the appointment rather than at the chair, and the restructuring conversations happen by message rather than in person. Her rebooking rate from new color clients rises to 72% by month six, attributable primarily to better expectation alignment from the pre-appointment form review. She raises her prices in month seven — one month earlier than Colorist A — because the structured intake process has produced a client portfolio that is less price-resistant (clients who went through the form and had an aligned result are converting at higher rates than clients who had a live consultation). In year two she raises prices again, to $175, supported by a rebooking rate of 78% and a review average that references the consultation quality as a differentiator. Her three-year gross: approximately $243,000.

The three-year cumulative gap: approximately $50,000 more for Colorist B from the same chair, the same starting price, and the same booking volume. The gap compounds from three sources: higher effective utilization (fewer absorbed overtime minutes per booked hour from under-scoped appointments); faster price-increase trajectory (a structured intake process positions her as more expert and her client portfolio is less price-resistant because the form itself is a signal of professionalism); and a materially higher rebooking rate from new color clients (72–78% vs 58%) that means she is re-acquiring fewer clients per year and spending less cognitive energy on acquisition. The intake form setup took 45 minutes in month one. The per-booking review protocol adds under five minutes to each new-client booking cycle. The restructuring template was written in ten minutes and used eight times in the first year.