Bookings — start here

Bookings is how you take table reservations. Customers book on your own public web page, and the reservations land in a diary your staff work from. You can also add bookings yourself for phone calls and walk-ups.

The row at the top

Whichever screen Bookings opens on, the four things you reach for during service sit as tiles across the top of it:

• Floor map — your room drawn as it is right now, so you can see which tables are taken. See The table plan.
• Diary — the day's bookings by stage. See The parties list.
• New booking — take one yourself, for a phone call or a party at the door. See Add a booking by hand.
• Walk-ins — the queue at the door, if the waitlist is switched on for you. A walk-in is a waitlist entry rather than a booking, so this goes to the queue and not to the booking form. See Keep a waitlist when you're full.

You only see a tile for a screen you can actually open, and never a tile for the screen you are already on — on the diary, the Diary tile isn't there.

With bookings by service switched on for your venue, the diary also shows your bookings and covers per service under the tiles. See The parties list.

Finding your way around

Bookings holds two groups, and which one you want depends on whether you are in service or setting up:

• Bookings — the screens you work from during service: the diary, the planner, the table plan, the waitlist, pre-order menus, guest engagement and reviews. This group is already open when you go in, so the diary is never more than one click away.
• Booking settings — everything you set up beforehand: booking setups, payments, table groups, booking flows, messages, automations, your booking page and location links. It stays closed until you click it, so the setup screens aren't in your way mid-service.

Only one of the two is open at a time. Open Booking settings and the Bookings group folds itself away, and the other way round — so if your diary rows disappear after you've been setting something up, click Bookings to bring them back.

Anywhere below that says Booking settings → Booking setups, that's the path: open Bookings, click Booking settings, then the row you want.

The pieces

• Your booking page — the public web page customers use. See Your booking page.
• Booking setups — a bookable type of service ("Restaurant", "Bar"), with its own sections, rules and hours. See Booking setups.
• Get started — a four-step checklist: your floor plan, your opening hours, your booking page and your booking setup. Bookings opens on this until you have taken your first real booking. See Get started with bookings.
• Guest engagement — how your guests book with you: returning vs first-time, your regulars, and each guest's history. Once a guest has booked, this is what Bookings opens on (with Bookings Pro) — it's the section's front page, so no menu row is highlighted until you pick one. See Guest engagement.
• The parties list — your bookings split into upcoming, seated, finished, cancelled and no-show, one click away under Bookings → Diary. Click any booking there to open it and make changes. See The parties list.
• The timeline — the same day laid out against your tables. See The diary.
• Deposits — ask larger parties for a deposit, track it on the booking, and deduct it from their bill at the till (if enabled for your account). See Deposits and prepayments.
• Card at booking — if your venue stores a card as part of booking, a booking whose card confirmation hasn't arrived shows as Card pending on the list and the diary, and is released automatically if the guest abandoned. A booking that really is holding a card shows Card on file, which you can remove in one click. If our payment provider keeps refusing to delete one, we stop asking and mark it Removal stuck, with a Try again. See The parties list and Card at booking.
• Reminders and confirmations — a booking carries two separate markers, and they are not the same thing: Reminded means their reminder went out, and the answer chips (Guest confirmed / Guest declined / No reply) mean the guest told you something back. A booking can be reminded with no answer chip at all — nobody asked that guest a question. See The parties list and automations.
• Location links — a direct booking link per site. See Location links.
• The waitlist — take a name at the door when you're full, then seat them when a table frees. Seating opens their tab on the till like any other walk-up. Needs switching on for your account. See Keep a waitlist when you're full.

On Bookings Pro

• Booking flows — build the journey once, assign it to as many setups as you like.
• Booking messages and automations — customise the emails guests receive.
• Channels — the sender guests see.

Ask your account manager to add Pro if it isn't switched on.

Getting your first booking online

To go live you need three things:

1. 1

   Choose your public web address

   Under Your booking page, pick the web address your booking page sits on, for example your-venue.tillable.app/book.

2. 2

   Set the hours you take bookings

   Bookings are only offered inside your opening hours. Set them in When guests can book, on the same screen.

3. 3

   Switch online bookings on

   Turn on Accepting online bookings. Your page goes live.

You'll also want at least one booking setup with sections attached, so the system knows which tables to offer.

What you've charged guests

When you charge a guest's card through Bookings — today that means a no-show fee — the charge shows on that booking. In the parties list it's a small Charged chip with the amount on it; open the booking to see the amount, the date and the payment reference. See The parties list.

It isn't your takings. Food and drink sales live in Reports. A charge here is only money charged through Bookings, and most venues will never charge anybody.