Booking details panel

Clicking a booking opens a panel with everything about it: details, actions, and any celebration or safety alerts. It's the same panel wherever you click from, a block on the timeline (Bookings → Planner) or any row of the parties list (Bookings → Diary), so you can change a booking from whichever screen you have open.

The panel has two sides:

• The guest, on the left — who they are, how to reach them, and what they told you.
• The booking, on the right — when, which table, any deposit, and your notes.

Along the bottom are the actions for the booking itself: Cancel booking on its own under the guest, and No-show and Mark arrived under the booking. A request waiting for you shows Approve instead of Mark arrived. Once the guest is here, Undo arrival takes No-show's place and Mark left takes Mark arrived's. On a phone the two sides stack — guest first, then the booking — and the actions stay at the bottom of the screen.

What the panel shows

On the guest side, from the top:

• The guest's name, with their initials beside it.

• Customer tags, as chips right under the name — add or remove a tag on the person, without leaving the diary. It stays on them and shows on every booking they make after this one. Absent when the booking isn't matched to anyone in your customer list, because there's no record to put it on — and not shown at all if your venue doesn't use Customers, which is where guest tags live.

• Any allergen or dietary alert, in a red box under the name and its tags. It's the only red box in the panel.

• Any occasion the booking is marked with — see below.

• Contact details, if the guest left an email or phone number. Press Copy to copy the number or address, Call to ring the number, or the address itself to start an email.

• Edit guest details, to correct the name, email or phone — see below.

• The answers this guest gave to your own booking questions — your question, their answer — for any question that isn't already shown as an allergen alert, an occasion or a package. See below.

• Dogs and High chairs, if you ask those questions, reading as 2 dogs or No dogs — 2 high chairs or No high chairs — rather than a bare number. No dogs is a real answer and it is worth reading: it means the guest was asked and said no, which is a different thing from a booking where nobody asked and the line is absent altogether. The same goes for No high chairs.

  The High chairs line here is the guest's own answer when they booked. It is separate from the High chair visit tag you tick yourself on the day — the two don't update each other, so a party can have one without the other.

• View customer profile, at the bottom. It's closed until you open it, so the guest's history never crowds the top of the panel. Inside:

  • how many bookings this guest has kept, cancelled and no-showed with you — see below;
  • any guest tags on that person — regular, press, whatever your team has set up. These follow the guest, so they show on every booking they make. A tag you add under the guest's name appears here straight away, without reloading the page. (Tags about one evening are visit tags, and they show in the Tags column on the parties list.)

On the booking side, from the top:

• The time, large, with the day and date beside it.
• How many guests and how long the table is held — 4 guests · 1 hr 45 min. That length is set when the booking is made, and it can vary by party size — see turn time by party size. Changing the setting later doesn't move bookings already in the diary; to change this one, drag its right edge in the diary.
• The booking's status and where it came from — Confirmed · booked online, Arrived · booked by phone. Arrived is green; everything else is grey.
• Beside it, the guest's answer to your confirmation request, and a solid Reminded chip once this guest's booking reminder has gone out. Reminded is about you, not them — it does not mean they replied, and it is not the same as No reply. See the parties list.
• The package they chose, if they picked one when they booked — Tasting menu × 4.
• Asked for: Terrace — naming whichever area they chose — if this guest picked one when they booked and they're not in it — either because they've no table yet, or because they're sitting somewhere else. It sits just above the Table row, because that's where you act on it. See below.
• A Table row to assign or change the table. A table marked Held in that list is already being kept for something during this booking's window — a bigger party pushed across it, or a table you've taken out of service. You can still choose it, because sometimes you need to; we just won't let you do it by accident. Under the single tables it also lists the tables that push together that seat this party — see below.
• A Book tables button beside it, to keep several tables for this one booking — a big party across a whole area. See below.
• A Deposit row: the deposit's amount and status if one is recorded (Paid, Refund recorded, Forfeited, Voided), or None recorded yet with a Record deposit button beside it, the same size as Book tables. On a narrower screen — a phone, or a tablet held upright — Book tables and Record deposit sit under the table and the deposit instead of beside them, so the table's name is never cut off.
• A Card row:
  • a dashed Card pending chip if your venue takes card details at booking and this booking's card confirmation hasn't arrived yet. Treat it as a maybe — if the guest abandoned, the table is released automatically within about 40 minutes;
  • a solid Card on file chip when a card really is stored for this booking, with a Remove card link under it. Nobody at your venue ever sees the card number. Once you ask, the chip reads Removing card until our payment provider confirms. If they keep refusing we stop asking, the chip reads Removal stuck, and a Try again link appears — that chip means the card is still stored. See Card at booking.
• A Charges row once the card has been charged — the amount, the date and the payment reference, which is what matches the line on your statement.
• A Visit tags row — add or remove a tag for this evening (birthday, window seat). It shows on the booking and in the Tags column on the parties list.
• Cancellation terms agreed, with the date, if this guest ticked your cancellation terms when they booked. Click it to read the exact wording they agreed to — see below. On a cancelled booking or a no-show this comes first, above the deposit, together with whether the cancellation was inside your policy — it's what you open a cancelled booking to check.
• A Notes box you can edit and save, filling the rest of that side.
• Resend confirmation and Guest confirmed by phone, side by side under the notes (one above the other on a narrow screen).

Actions you can take

From the panel you can:

• Arrived · T12, the black button at the bottom right, when the guest turns up. It names the booking's table and seats the party there in one step — table and arrival together — and their bill is tied to this booking when a waiter opens it on the till. If they are sitting somewhere else, tap Change table first and pick where they are. Only when the table is already busy (a bill is open on it, or another party is sitting there) it asks, for example "T12 already has an open bill (opened 18:40 · £23.50). Are they sitting at T12?" — answer Yes, T12 or Change table. A booking with no table yet shows Mark arrived, as before. Arriving starts the visit: the table shows as Seated on the table plan until the bill is settled at the till, and the visit counts towards that guest's history.
• Approve, in Mark arrived's place on a request that is waiting for you. The guest is sent their confirmation email. Once it's approved, Mark arrived is back for when they turn up.
• No-show, beside it, if they don't. You'll be asked to confirm first. It isn't offered once a guest has arrived — use Undo arrival instead.
• Undo arrival, in No-show's place once a guest has arrived, if you tapped arrived by mistake. See below.
• Mark left, in Mark arrived's place once they're here, when the party has gone. Their table is free straight away, for a walk-in or the next booking. See below.
• Cancel booking, at the bottom under the guest. You'll be asked to confirm first.

• Change date, time or guests, under the time at the top of the booking side, to move the booking to a new time or another day, or change how many people it's for. See below.
• Resend confirmation, under the notes, to email the guest their details again (only if they have an email on file). A walk-up was never sent one in the first place, so on a walk-up this sends the first.
• Reinstate a booking you cancelled, or a no-show you tapped by mistake — it takes Mark arrived's place at the bottom right. See below.
• Guest confirmed by phone — record an answer a guest gave you on the phone, so it shows like any other confirmation. See below.
• Record a deposit, a refund, a forfeit or a void, if deposits are enabled for your account. Record refund writes down a refund you have already given; it does not send any money itself, and the panel says where to give it next to the button. Once the deposit has been deducted from the guest's bill, the refund and forfeit buttons are replaced by a line explaining that the money is already on the bill — see Deposits and prepayments.

The bill on a booking

Once a guest has arrived, the panel shows a Bill row under Deposit. It tells you which bill on the till belongs to this booking — and it is how the guest's spend reaches Customers: everything rung up on that bill counts towards their total there.

• Open on T12 · £84.50 — the bill is open on the till, with what is on it so far, when it was opened and for how many covers.
• Paid · £84.50 · closed 20:41 — the bill has been paid.
• No bill yet — nothing has been rung up for this booking yet.

Under an open or paid bill, a short line says how it was tied to the booking: Linked automatically, Linked by hand, Linked from the host stand, or Linked when the till seated them.

A big party can run more than one bill (say, one per table on the loft). Each one shows on its own. The party only counts as left — and their tables are only freed — when the last of their bills is paid.

When the bill is the wrong one

• Not their bill takes the bill off this booking. Everything it added to the guest's spend comes off again, exactly. The booking and that bill are never matched up again automatically. Loyalty points the guest already earned on it are not taken back.
• Pick a different bill opens Which bill is …'s? so you can choose the right one; the old one comes off.

When no bill has been linked

• Pick bill opens Which bill is …'s?. It lists the bills open right now — the guest's own table first, then other tables, then bar tabs — and bills closed in the last hour. A bill that is already somebody else's shows their name and can't be picked. Choose one and tap Link bill.
• No bill says this party really had nothing rung up (they only had a drink they paid for at the bar, say). It takes them off the planner's Seated, no bill yet list. Undo puts them back.

When a party leaves early

Parties often go before the end of their booked time. When they've gone, open their booking and press Mark left, at the bottom right where Mark arrived was. The table is free straight away, so you can give it to a walk-in or the next booking without dragging anything on the timeline.

What happens:

• The booking keeps its real time and its table. What changes is how long the table is held: it now ends when they left, and the block on the timeline gets shorter there and then.
• The panel says when they left and when the table is free, for example Marked left at 20:40. T4 is free from now. If another booking is due on that table later, it says until when: T4 is free from now until the 21:30 booking.
• The status reads Left, and the booking moves to the Finished tab of the parties list.
• Nothing is sent to the guest, and it doesn't count against them the way a no-show does.

A booking always holds its table for at least 15 minutes. So if a party leaves within 15 minutes of their booked time, or before it because you sat them early, the table is free from 15 minutes after the booked time, and the panel tells you when.

Pressed it by mistake? Press Undo, in the same place. They're back to seated and the booking gets back the full time it had. Undo stays there whenever the party was marked left — from this panel, the front-of-house screen or the till — so you can close the panel and come back to it. It won't go ahead, and tells you why, if someone else is on that table now (move them first, or leave the party marked left), or if their booked time is already over.

Things to know:

• Their bill is closed but they're still sitting there. Closing their bill on the till marks them as Left, but their booking still holds the table until its booked end. When they actually go, open the booking and press Mark left — it's still there — to free the table.
• Their bill is still open. If their bill was opened from their booking on the till and it's still open — say they've moved to the bar with it — you're asked Their bill is still open on T5. Free the table anyway? Say yes and the table is freed; the bill stays open on the till, and it keeps that table busy until it's closed or moved. The panel reminds you rather than calling the table free: close or move it on the till before you seat anyone else there. More in When a party leaves.
• Another bill on the table. If a bill that isn't linked to their booking is still open on the table, the panel tells you. Close it on the till before you seat anyone else there, because a new booking or walk-in can still be put on that table while it's open.
• A booking without a table. If a later booking that day has no table yet, it may be given the freed table automatically, the same as when you shorten a booking by dragging its right edge on the timeline. The panel names that booking, so you know the table isn't free for long.

Putting a party on tables that push together

If you've told us which tables push together (for example T5+T6, seating 8), the Table dropdown lists them under the single tables — only the ones big enough for this party, at this booking's site.

• Each one shows its seats, for example T5+T6 (8). The one the booking is on now says On it now.
• Choose one and the booking moves onto it straight away, at the same time and for the same number of guests. Every table in it is kept for the party, so nobody else is booked onto T6 while they're there.
• If one of its tables already has someone at that time, it still shows, marked for example T6 booked then. Choosing it asks first and says who has it. Save anyway moves the party there; Cancel changes nothing.
• If the booking is marked Do not move, you're asked that first, as for any table change. Moving to tables led by the table it's already on (T5 to T5+T6) isn't a move, so it doesn't ask.
• A booking holding several tables you chose with Book tables doesn't get this list. Change those tables in Book tables.
• A bill opened on any of these tables is linked to this booking, the same as for its own table.
• Moving a booking off a table can let the diary seat another booking that was still waiting for one, as any table change can.

Keeping a booking on its table (Do not move)

When a guest asks for a particular table — the window table, the booth — tick Do not move under the Table dropdown. Everyone else on shift then sees a pin next to that booking, and nobody moves it by accident while they reshuffle the diary.

• You can tick it on a booking that's still to come or sitting down, once it has a table. With no table yet, the box says Pick a table first.
• A pin shows next to Table in this panel, on the booking's block on the timeline, and beside its table in the parties list.
• If anyone moves the booking to a different table — or to Unassigned — they are asked first: This booking is marked Do not move. Move it from T5 to T9 anyway? Keep it on T5 leaves it where it is and changes nothing. Move anyway moves it, and the pin goes with it, so the next person is asked too.
• Changing the time, the length or the number of guests never asks. Only a change of table does.
• Picking a new table in Change date or time asks the same question. If you choose Keep there, nothing is saved, the new time included.
• Untick Do not move whenever the request no longer applies.
• Write why in Notes (for example asked for the window table). There's no separate reason box.
• The till asks the same question. A till that hasn't been updated can't move a pinned booking to another table: it shows server 409: booking_do_not_move and the booking stays put. Move it from here instead, or update the till.
• If the guest changes their own booking online, they're asked to contact you instead, so their table isn't changed without you knowing.
• Book tables asks the same question if saving would move the booking off its table — when the first table you pick isn't the one it's on. Adding more tables while keeping its own table first never asks.

Holding several tables for one booking

For a big party — a birthday for 30 up in the loft — you can keep several tables for the one booking, so nobody else is booked onto them while the party is there. You can also hold them while you take the booking: see Holding an area for a large party.

1. Open the booking and press Book tables, next to the Table dropdown.
2. Your floor plan opens, with the booking's own tables already green. Tap a table to add it or take it back out.
3. Down the right-hand side: how many seats you've booked against the party's covers, the areas on the floor you're looking at — tap one to take every free table in it — and Tables booked, one line per table with its seats. Tap a line to take that table back out.
4. Press Book 5 tables — the button says how many you've picked.

Every table you pick is green. There's no main table to choose: for a party of 30 across the loft there isn't one, so we don't ask. The booking still shows against the first table you picked, in the diary and on the bill.

Things worth knowing:

• A table that's already in use at that time can't be picked. Another booking on it, a table held for someone else, or a table you've taken out of service is drawn faded. Tap it and we tell you what's on it. Tap an area with some of these in it and we take the rest and name the ones we left out.
• The areas listed are the ones on the floor you're looking at. Switch floor and the list changes with it, so you're never offered the garden while the ground floor is on screen. An area with tables on two floors shows up on both, counting that floor's tables. Tables booked lists everything you've picked, floor by floor, so nothing is taken without you seeing it.
• It isn't closing a section. Closing a section stops new bookings in the whole area for the rest of the day. Booking tables keeps only the tables you picked, only for this booking's time, and doesn't move anyone else.
• If the booking is on a table combination, booking tables replaces the combination for this booking. We say so before you save. You need to keep at least one table picked: to free the combination's other tables, pick just the table the party sits at and save.
• The held tables show as Held for the booking's table on the table plan, the floor plan and the diary. They're let go when the party's last bill is settled, or if the booking is cancelled.
• To stop holding them, open Book tables, tap the tables to take them out, and press Release tables. The booking stays on one table.
• A booking that's holding tables stays on them. You can move it to another of its held tables, from the Table dropdown or by dragging it in the diary, and the hold moves round with it. You can't move it to a table outside them, set it to Unassigned, or move it to a time when one of its tables is taken. We say why and name the tables, and the booking stays where it was. To move it somewhere else, change its tables in Book tables first.
• A booking you reinstate comes back without its tables in use. Reinstating never gives a table back, so Book tables tells you the booking isn't on its held tables. Press Book straight away to hold them again, as long as none of them has been taken in the meantime. Until you do, its time and covers can't be changed.
• If a hold can't be saved, the reason shows inside the Book tables window, in red down the right-hand side. It goes when you close the window, so anything you see there is about the save you just tried, not something from earlier.

Recording a confirmation the guest gave you on the phone

If you ring round before service, press Guest confirmed by phone on the booking. It records the answer exactly as if the guest had clicked the link in their email, so the Guest confirmed chip appears on the parties list and everyone can see the call already happened.

The button disappears once a booking is confirmed — there's nothing left to record, and it stops anyone overwriting the guest's own answer with a later date.

Correcting the guest's name, email or phone

Press Edit guest details, under the guest's contact details, and you can fix the name, add a phone number or correct an email address. You don't have to cancel and re-book any more — and you shouldn't, because cancelling a booking with a deposit on it leaves the deposit behind.

What you change is saved to that guest's customer profile, not just to this one booking. So it also appears on their other upcoming bookings, which is what you want when someone has given you a new mobile number: the reminder for next week goes to the new one, not the old. Bookings that have already happened keep the details they were booked with — they're a record of the evening.

Only the boxes you actually change are saved. If you fix a typo in the name, the email and phone are left exactly as they are.

Edit guest details isn't offered on a cancelled booking. Put the booking back on first, and then correct it.

The guest's profile note

If the guest has a customer profile with something in its Notes box — "regular, wife is coeliac, likes the window table" — it shows on the booking as Profile note, just above View customer profile. It's always open, so you see it before service without having to look for it.

It's the note from their customer profile, not this booking's own notes (those stay in the Notes box on the right). You edit it on the profile: the small From … 's customer profile link under it takes you there. Change it there and every booking of theirs shows the new note.

You only see it if your access level lets you see customers — the same as View customer profile.

When their profile no longer lists an allergy

A change to a guest's allergies on their customer profile reaches their upcoming bookings — but only as an addition. If you take an allergy off the profile, their upcoming bookings keep it, and the kitchen keeps being told. Under the red allergy card you'll see a plain line saying so:

Their profile no longer lists Gluten.

If the allergy really has gone, press Remove from this booking. You're asked once — "Remove Gluten from this booking? The kitchen will no longer be told about it." — and Remove takes it off this one booking. Keep it leaves it as it is. Do this booking by booking: it never changes any other booking.

• If someone puts the allergy back on the profile before you press Remove, you're told "Their profile lists Gluten again, so it stays on this booking." An allergy their profile lists can never be removed from a booking here.
• For a written dietary answer, the line says what the profile now says, and the button is Use the profile's answer.
• It isn't offered on a cancelled or no-show booking, or once the party has left.
• If the party is already seated with a bill open, removing it only changes what the kitchen is told from then on. Anything already sent isn't re-printed.
• Every removal is recorded with who did it and when.

Changing the date, time or number of guests

Press Change date, time or guests, under the time at the top of the booking side. Pick the new date and time, or type the new number of Guests, and press Save. It's the same booking, changed: the deposit, the notes and the guest's answers stay with it, and so does its table unless you choose another. So when a guest rings to move from tonight to tomorrow, or to add two people, change the booking rather than cancelling it and making a new one.

The time list goes in 15-minute steps, the same as dragging a booking on the timeline.

Length is how long the table is held for this booking, from 15 minutes to 8 hours. Leave it alone and it follows your setup: if more people are coming and your setup gives bigger parties longer, the booking gets the longer time. Pick a length yourself and yours is kept.

If the booking's table is already in use at the new time — you're told who has it and when — or the day you picked is in the past, you're told before anything is saved. You're also told, and can still go ahead, when:

• the day is marked as closed;
• the time is outside the booking's hours, or falls in a different service (for example "19:30 is in Dinner, not Lunch" — the booking keeps Lunch's rules, so its deposit and length don't change);
• the time would go over your covers or bookings limit for that slot, or your online arrivals limit.

Save anyway saves over exactly what you were shown. If something new comes up while the box is open — the slot fills up in the meantime — you're asked again rather than it being saved over without you seeing it. When it's the table that won't do, the message comes with Move it to: a list of only the tables (and your table combinations) that are free at the new time and seat the party. Pick one and press Save on that table to change everything in one go — or press Save anyway to keep the booking on its table, or pick another time. It is never taken off its table without you choosing.

Tick Email the guest the new details to send them the "your booking has changed" email. It's unticked to start with, and only shows when the guest has an email address on file.

A booking that's holding several tables can't be moved onto a time when one of those tables is in use. You're told which table, and nothing changes — pick another time, or change its tables in Book tables first.

If you move a booking to another day from the timeline, it leaves the day you're looking at. A line under the timeline names the guest and says where they went, with Open that day to follow them.

The "table in use" check looks at the day the booking is on. A booking on the same table that starts after midnight, on the next day's sheet, isn't checked — so for a late booking, glance at the next morning too.

Moving a booking off a time frees its table. If you have bookings on that day with no table yet, one may be given the freed table straight away — the message after you save names them, so you know who has moved onto it.

If the booking changes somewhere else while you have it open — the guest moves it themselves, or someone changes it on the front-of-house screen or the till — the open booking shows the change straight away. If you were already in the middle of changing it, your save is stopped with "This booking changed while you were editing it", so you never undo somebody else's change by accident. Close it, open it again, and you'll see where it is now.

Adding or taking off guests

Type the new number in Guests. If more people are coming and the table (or the tables it's combined with) has fewer seats than the new number, you're told first, with Move it to listing only the free tables that seat the new number. Pick one and press Save on that table, press Save anyway to keep it where it is, or Cancel to keep the old number. If nothing free is big enough, it says so (tables with no seat count set aren't listed). If the table you picked is taken in the moment before you save, you're told and shown a fresh list. If the booking has a deposit, you're reminded how many guests it was taken for and that it stays as it is: nothing is charged or refunded automatically, so sort out any difference with the guest. Afterwards the Deposit row says so too — for example £40.00 Paid · was for 4 guests — until the number of guests matches again.

You're also told, before anything is saved, when:

• the new number reaches the size your booking setup asks a deposit for and there's no deposit yet — "Parties of 8 or more pay a deposit at this setup." Nothing is charged; use Record deposit if you want to take one;
• the new number is more than your setup lets guests book online — "Online bookings stop at 12 guests at this setup." You can still save it.

Each of these asks once, and Save anyway goes ahead.

Fewer guests on a bigger table. If you take people off and the booking's table has more seats than it now needs, you're offered a smaller table that's free and still seats them — Move it to a smaller table — so the bigger one is free for someone else. It's only offered when a smaller table really is free (a table with a walk-in on it isn't), and it's never forced: press Keep on this table to leave it where it is (for example, if the guest asked for that table). It isn't offered to a party that's already sitting down, or when the booking's own table is in use at the new time — then you're shown every free table that fits instead.

If your booking setup gives bigger parties a longer stay, the booking's length follows the new number, and the message after you save says the new length. A length someone set by hand is kept, and so is the length of a party that has already arrived. If the longer stay runs into the next booking on the same table, you're told before anything is saved.

If the booking was changed somewhere else while you had it open — say the guest moved it themselves online — you're asked to close it and open it again, so your change never undoes theirs.

A booking that's holding several tables can have guests added, but not taken off: release tables in Book tables first — you're told straight away, before anything else is asked. If the new number is more than its tables seat, you're offered Book more tables, which opens Book tables so you can add one, or Save anyway to keep it as it is. While a guest's online deposit payment is still going through, the number can't change until it finishes.

Has this guest turned up before?

Open View customer profile, at the bottom of the guest side, and you'll see three numbers: how many bookings they've kept, cancelled and no-showed with you.

The profile is a customer record, so a team login whose access level has bookings but not customer records sees the booking without it — the same as a guest who has no profile yet.

• Kept counts every booking they turned up for, including ones from months ago that are long finished.
• Cancelled and no-showed are counted separately on purpose. Ringing to cancel is a courtesy; not turning up isn't, and lumping the two together would tell you the wrong thing about a guest who always rings ahead.
• Bookings still to come aren't counted either way — nothing has happened yet.

A guest you've never seen shows no line at all, rather than three zeroes.

Putting a booking back on

A cancelled booking, and a no-show marked by mistake, can both be brought back. Open it and press Reinstate.

Use it when a guest rings back to say they're coming after all. Reinstating keeps the same booking, so the notes, the guest's answers to your booking questions, any card on file and any deposit all stay exactly as they were — which is why it's better than making a new booking for them.

Where to find it:

• A cancelled booking is on the Cancelled tab of the parties list. Click it and the panel opens with Reinstate on it. On the planner it's in the Cancelled list underneath the timeline.
• A no-show is on the No-show tab of the parties list, and it stays on the timeline too. Click it in either place and the panel opens with Reinstate on it.

A booking that was holding several tables for a big party can't come back if any of those tables has since been booked, sat at or blocked off. We tell you which tables are now unavailable (or, if we can't look up their names, how many), and the booking stays as it was.

Reinstating does not email the guest. It's a change you make while you're already on the phone to them.

Approving a request, and undoing a mistake

Approve a request from its panel. The guest is sent their confirmation email. If that email doesn't go, the booking stays approved and we tell you, so you can press Resend confirmation.

Undo arrival puts a guest you marked as arrived by mistake back to confirmed. The table plan stops showing them as seated, and the time you first approved the booking is kept. You can't undo an arrival:

• once they're marked as left — press Undo under Mark left first;
• once their visit is over (their bill has been paid and closed);
• when a bill is linked to the booking — unlink it first.

No-show asks before it does anything. A no-show (or a cancellation) frees the table, and that can seat other bookings that day which were still waiting for a table — so check the timeline afterwards. Brought back by mistake? Press Reinstate.

None of these undos email the guest. Only approving a request sends one.

Notes are not an allergy record

The Notes box is free text for your team — occasion, seating preference, anything worth knowing. It is read by people, not by the kitchen: nothing typed there reaches a kitchen ticket, and it never raises the allergen alert under the guest's name.

Because of that, the box asks for different things depending on how your account is set up:

• If you have a custom field flagged as an allergen or dietary alert, the box stops mentioning allergies. Allergies belong in that field, where they show as the red alert under the guest's name and reach the kitchen.
• If you have no such field, the box still says Allergies, occasion, seating preference… — with nothing structured set up, it's the only place anyone writes it down, and your team does read it here.

If you type something that looks like an allergy, a line appears under the box reminding you that notes don't reach the kitchen ticket. It's a reminder only — it doesn't change or move anything you've written.

Occasion bookings

If a booking carries an occasion — an anniversary, a birthday, an engagement — the diary flags it so your team spots the celebration at a glance: a celebration marker on the block in the timeline, an Occasion panel here when you open the booking, and a badge on the booking's customer profile.

Occasions come from your custom fields: a value on a field flagged as an Occasion shows here as a badge. On Bookings Pro accounts an Occasion field (Birthday / Anniversary / Engagement / Special event / Business) is set up for you. When a guest tells you it's a special night, the answer is saved to their customer profile too, so it's there the next time they book.

When a guest asked for a particular area

If your booking page lets guests pick an area — terrace, garden room, the bar — the booking remembers which one they chose. You'll see Asked for: Terrace on the booking only when they haven't got it:

• they've no table yet, so they haven't got the area either; or
• they're sitting in a different area from the one they asked for.

Either way it's the same thing to do: put them on the terrace if you can.

Areas come from the sections on your booking setups. Guests only get the choice if your booking page offers it.

The answers this guest gave

If your booking flow asks your own questions — how did you hear about us, high chair needed, parking space — the answers show on the booking, each under the question you asked.

You'll see every answer except the ones that already have their own place in this panel: an allergen alert, an occasion, and a package. Those are shown in their own places in the panel, in the ways that make them stand out, and repeating them here as ordinary text would make an allergy look like a preference.

Questions and answers come from your custom fields, and they show on the parties list as columns too.

The cancellation terms the guest agreed to

If your booking flow asks guests to tick your cancellation terms, the panel shows Cancellation terms agreed with the date they ticked. Click it to read the exact wording that guest was shown.

This is the wording that was live on the day they booked. If you change your terms afterwards, older bookings keep the words their guests actually agreed to — which is the point of it: if a no-show charge is ever queried, you can show what the guest signed up to rather than what your page says today.

What's next

• The diary — the timeline this panel opens from.
• The parties list: it opens from every row there too.
• Add a booking by hand — enter a phone booking or walk-up.
• Custom fields — set up occasion and alert fields.

Charging a no-show fee

If a guest saved a card when they booked and then didn't turn up, you can charge them a no-show fee.

1. Mark the booking as a No-show.
2. Open the booking. Under the Card on file chip you'll now see Charge no-show fee.
3. Type the amount and press the button. It repeats the amount back to you before it charges, so you can check it.

Two things worth knowing:

• The box shows the exact terms that guest agreed to when they booked, right next to the amount. If you've changed your terms since, you'll still see the old wording — because that's what they actually agreed to, and it's what matters if they ever dispute the charge.
• If the booking didn't come through your booking page (you took it over the phone, or it was a walk-in), there are no saved terms to show. The box says so. Check what the guest was told before you charge them.

If you press it twice, the guest is only charged once. We work out a single reference for each charge, so a double-click, a slow connection or a second try all land on the same one. If we ever can't tell whether a charge went through, we say so and ask you not to try again — we'll confirm it for you.

You can only charge a booking that's marked as a no-show, and only while the card is still stored. Once you've charged it, or removed the card, the button goes.

Charges on this booking

If this booking's card has been charged, the panel shows a Charged block with the amount, the date and the payment reference.

That reference is the point of the block. It's the string our payment provider and your bank statement both carry for the charge, so it's what to read out if a guest rings up querying it.

Nothing here is behind a click, and that's on purpose: this is the screen you're reading from with the guest on the phone. In the parties list the same charge is a small chip showing just the amount, because a whole record on every row makes a busy evening unreadable — click that chip and you get the date and the reference there too.

The Card on file chip and the Charge no-show fee button are both gone by then, and that's right — the card was used, so there's no longer one to hold, to remove or to charge again. The Charged block is the record of what happened.

If a block says the charge isn't matched to this booking, that's a guest who paid on your booking page and never pressed Confirm. That money may need refunding — talk to us.