Booking setups

A booking setup is a bookable type of service — for example "Restaurant", "Bar" or a private function. You build a setup once, attach the sections of your floor it covers, and it then takes bookings for just those sections. Open Booking settings → Booking setups.

A section can be in as many setups as you like — breakfast, lunch and dinner can all book the same tables, each with its own hours and rules. A section that no setup claims is never offered online. There's no catch-all default — you decide what's bookable by attaching it to a setup.

The setup page is ordered the way you fill it in. Sections, Opening hours and — on Pro — Booking flow come first: what this setup books, when, and through which flow. The rules that govern each booking follow underneath.

Every card opens and closes

The setup page is a stack of closed cards, so you can open one, set it, close it and move on rather than scrolling past everything at once. Click a card's name to open it; click again to close it.

A closed card tells you what it is set to. Under the name you'll see the current value — "Max 40 covers per slot", "24 hours' notice", "£10.00 per cover from 8 guests" — so you can read the whole setup down one screen without opening anything.

The Sections row also mentions guests choose an area when you've turned "Ask guests where to sit" on and the setup has more than one section — the default, not asking, stays quiet like every other default.

A card you haven't changed shows nothing under its name. That's how you tell at a glance which parts of a setup are doing something and which are still on their sensible defaults. "Nothing under the name" always means the normal behaviour: opening hours follow the location, there's no deposit, no pacing limit, no cancellation window, every table is bookable.

Two things always speak up, in red:

• Sections, when the setup has none. That's the one thing that stops a setup working, so it's also the only card that starts open on a new setup.
• Rules, when Accepting bookings is switched off — otherwise a closed setup could sit there looking normal.

A card with edits you haven't saved yet is marked Unsaved, and pressing Save opens every card that has work in it, so you can see what's about to be saved. If a card can't save, it opens itself and shows you why.

Which cards are open isn't remembered between visits — the page always opens the same way, for you and for everyone else on your account.

Create a setup

1. 1

   Click Create a booking setup

   Give it a name (for example "Restaurant"). If you run more than one site you'll also be asked which location it belongs to; with a single site there is no such step.

2. 2

   Attach its sections

   Open the setup. Sections is the first card on the page, and on a new setup it's the one card already open — nothing below it can be answered until it is. Tick the sections this setup books. A section another setup already books can be ticked here too — the row just notes "also used by Breakfast" so you can see what shares it.

   If you have no sections yet, name your first one right there and it is created and attached in one go — you don't have to go anywhere else first.

3. 3

   Set the rules

   Open the Rules card to control how the setup behaves — see Booking setup rules. Its closed row always shows the four numbers a booking is made on, because every setup has them from the day it's created.

4. 4

   Switch it on

   Tick Accepting bookings on the setup to make it live.

5. 5

   Save

   Click Save at the top of the page. There's one Save for the whole setup — it stays greyed out until you change something, and shows "Unsaved changes" while you have work waiting. You don't need to open a card to save it; closing a card never loses what you typed.

You can reorder setups by dragging them, rename them, or delete them. Deleting a setup takes it off its sections — a section no other setup books won't be offered online again until one does.

Sections and opening hours

The Sections card is where you attach or remove sections. A section can be in several setups at once: a pub that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner on the same tables runs three setups over the same sections, each with its own hours, and a table is only ever booked once at a time whichever setup the booking came through. A section another setup books shows "also used by" and that setup's name on its row; it's information, not a lock — tick it and this setup books it too. If you use floor plans, you can quick-add every section on a floor plan in one go; the only sections it leaves out are the ones already in this setup.

If you haven't made any sections yet, the card gives you a name box and an Add section button. The section is created and attached to this setup in one step. Sections are shared with your till — a section is where a tab opens — so the one you make here is the same one your staff see on the till. To rename, reorder or archive a section later, go to Sections.

Ask guests where to sit

At the bottom of the Sections card is Ask guests where to sit. It is off, and it is off for every venue.

With it off, a guest picks a date, a party size and a time, gives you their details and books. They are never asked which part of the restaurant they want, and you seat them wherever the table is.

With it on, a guest with a choice to make gets an extra page before their details, asking which area they'd like. They see your floor plans — "Ground floor", "Garden" — never your individual room names, and Any area is always the first option.

Off is the default because of what happens next. A guest who chooses the garden and gets moved to the ground floor feels let down by a promise you never made, and on a busy night that move is often the only way to seat everyone. Ask only if the areas genuinely differ for a guest — a terrace, a private room, a different menu.

The setting is per setup, so you can ask on Dinner and not on Lunch. It does nothing at all on a setup whose tables are all on one floor plan: one plan isn't a choice, so there's no page to show.

The Opening hours card sets when this setup takes bookings. By default it follows the location's opening hours. You can instead point it at a different hours profile — useful if, say, your bar takes bookings at hours the kitchen doesn't.

Assign a booking flow (Bookings Pro)

If your account has the Bookings Pro add-on, the setup has a Booking flow card. You build a flow once in Booking flows and assign it to as many setups as you like. Use this card's dropdown to pick a flow, or No custom flow to use the standard booking journey, then Save at the top of the page. The Edit flow link opens the flow in the Booking flows section.

The biggest party you take online

The Rules card carries Largest party (guests) — the biggest table size a guest can book on your booking page. It starts at 20, and you can set it anywhere from 8 to 20.

Parties above your number don't get turned away with a shrug; they simply aren't offered online, so they ring you and you take the booking yourself. Set it low if big tables need a conversation first. Set it high if you're happy to take them straight off the page.

Turn time by party size

Directly under Rules, the setup carries Turn time by party size — three boxes (1–2, 3–4, and 5 or more guests) that say how long each size holds a table. A table of two and a table of ten don't eat for the same length of time, and one turn for both is wrong in both directions. Leave a box blank and that size uses the setup's default turn from Rules. Set none of them and nothing changes. Full guide: Booking setup rules.

Protect a table before a booking

Under Turn time, the setup carries Protect a table before a booking — the same three boxes (1–2, 3–4, and 5 or more guests), saying how many minutes of clear table each size needs before a booking is due on it. It stops a walk-in being sat at a table someone has booked for ten minutes' time. The size is the party you're sitting down, not the one who booked. Leave a box blank and that size can be seated at any time. Full guide: Booking setup rules.

Pacing — cap how full any one time gets

Under Rules, the setup also carries a Pacing card. Online allocation decides how many TABLES go online; pacing decides how many guests and how many bookings any one time may be carrying, whatever the tables allow — for when the kitchen is the limit rather than the room. A booking counts for its whole turn, not just its start time, so a table booked at 19:00 on a 120-minute turn is still counted at 20:00. Leave both boxes blank for no limit.

The same card has an Arrivals (online only) box: Max new guests starting per slot. That one counts only guests whose booking STARTS in the slot, so with 15-minute slots and a limit of 16, four tables of 4 at 19:00 fill 19:00 while 19:15 stays open. Your own phone and till bookings count towards it but are never refused. The one exception is Max covers per slot at a venue switched to stop staff overbooking: there, the New booking page won't take a time past it — see When a time is full. Full guide: Booking setup rules.

Cancellation window

Under Pacing sits a Cancellation window — how much notice a guest has to give for their cancellation to count as in policy. It records; it never blocks, so a guest can still cancel at the last minute. Leave it blank if you don't have a window. Full detail in Booking setup rules.

Deposits for larger parties

If deposits are enabled for your account, the setup also has a Deposits card: turn on Require deposits, pick the party size it applies from, and choose per-cover or a flat amount — then Save at the top of the page. Deposits are recorded and tracked on the diary; the guest isn't charged on the public booking page yet. Full guide: Deposits and prepayments.

Coming here from the bookings checklist

Opening this list from Get started with bookings puts a black bar across the top with a button back to that checklist — and clicking through into an item keeps it, so you can get back from the editor too. Reaching this page any other way leaves it exactly as it is, with no bar.

What's next

• Booking setup rules — slot interval, turn time, online allocation, notice and window.
• Which tables fill first — the auto-assignment order per party size.
• Booking flows — build the journey a guest walks through (Bookings Pro).
• Your booking page — go live and share your link.