The diary

The timeline lays one day out against your tables, so you can see who's coming, when, and where they're sitting.

The parties list beside the timeline opens on today with no end date, so you land on what's still to come rather than on everything you've ever taken. Clear the From date to look further back.

One row above the timeline holds everything you need to move around the day: the back and forward arrows (each labelled with the day it takes you to, like Thu 28), the date picker between them, and the date, booking count and total covers written out beside them. A Today link appears as soon as you've moved off today, and disappears again once you're back on it.

A day with no bookings still shows the full timeline with every table free, so you can see exactly what's open before anything is booked.

Covers by time

Above the timeline is one block per time slot. Each block shows how many covers are booked in that slot as a number, with a bar underneath it — so you can read the exact figure without hovering, and still see the shape of your day and where the pressure is at a glance. The line above them names your busiest slot. Hover a block for the parties count as well.

If you have set a pacing limit on the setup, the bars are drawn against it and any slot at the limit is ringed. If any slot has gone past the limit, a dashed line crosses the blocks at the limit so you can see which ones went over and by how much.

Hiding the covers chart

Hide covers chart, in the row above the timeline, folds the chart away and gives its space to your tables. Show covers chart brings it back. It is the same button on the ordinary planner and on the full-screen page.

It's a way to get more floor in front of you, not a setting — the chart is back the next time the page loads.

Full screen, for running service

Full screen in the row above the timeline opens the planner on a page of its own — one bar and the floor, with the nav shrunk to its icon rail. It is built for the screen a venue leaves out through service: a laptop on the pass, or a Mac at the host stand that nobody is sitting at.

It shows the same day and the same bookings, and everything works the same way — drag to move, drag the edge to change the turn, click for details. The day's cancelled bookings are in Cancelled under the floor, folded to one line; open it to bring one back with Reinstate.

Scroll down and the covers chart rolls off the top, leaving the window to the floor. That is what scrolling is for here: when you want to see tables rather than numbers, scroll, and when you want the numbers back, scroll up. The bar at the top stays put however far you go, and so do the times across the top and the table names down the left — so the day is always in the same place when you walk past, and you never lose track of which row you are reading.

Paging to another day, or switching site, keeps you on the full-screen page. Exit full screen takes you back to the ordinary planner on the same day.

It has its own web address, so you can bookmark it, pin the tab, or set it as that machine's home page and have it come back to the same screen every morning.

Today by service

If you run more than one booking setup — say Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner — and your venue has bookings by service switched on, a Today by service panel sits beside the timeline (under it on a narrow screen). For each service it shows its hours, whether it's In service, starting soon (In 2h 20m) or Finished, its bookings and covers, a small chart of covers arriving every half hour, and how many parties have arrived. On any other day it reads, for example, Fri 9 Oct by service.

The booking colours on the timeline don't change — they still show where each party is in their visit. Walk-ups and anything else not booked through a service show under Other. The panel's covers leave out no-shows, so on a day with no-shows it can be a little lower than the covers figure above the timeline.

Reading the timeline

Tables run down the left; time runs across the top. Each booking is a block sitting on its table's row, at its time. However many tables you have, the day still fits across the screen — you scroll down through your tables rather than sideways through the day.

The timeline always shows your whole day, not just the booked part of it. That's deliberate: the empty stretches are the ones you're planning into, so a quiet day looks quiet rather than looking full. It runs across your opening hours for that weekday, and if a booking sits outside them — an early lunch on a dinner-only day, a late private hire — the timeline stretches to include it rather than cutting it off.

If you haven't set your opening hours yet, the timeline assumes a 09:00 to 23:00 day so you still have something to plan against. Setting your real hours under Booking settings makes it match how you actually trade.

Only one state is coloured, and it's the one happening right now:

• Arrived — green. The guest is in.
• Confirmed and Pending — plain white with a thin border.
• No-show — greyed out. It's a record of what happened. If you tapped it by mistake, open the booking and press Reinstate.

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.

Colour here always means a live state or a warning, never decoration, so a green block is the only one asking for your attention.

A block shows the time, the guest's name, and — where the booking is long enough to have the room — the number of covers. A warning icon means the booking carries an allergen or dietary alert. Open the booking and the alert spells the allergens out in full — Peanuts, Tree nuts — using the same names your guests saw when they chose them, so there is nothing to decode mid-service. A celebration marker means the booking is an occasion — see Booking details panel. A dog marker means the guest told you they're bringing a dog, and a high-chair marker that they need one, so you can put them somewhere that suits before they arrive; hover either for the number. Each only appears when there is one — a guest who told you they need none doesn't get a marker, because a marker on nearly every booking is one nobody reads. Their answer is still on the booking itself. If a booking has no table yet, it sits in an Unassigned row at the top.

Every table gets its own band, and the bands alternate shade, so you can follow one table's row across the whole evening without losing your place on a thirty-table floor. The hours behind them alternate too.

If two bookings overlap on the same table, that table's row grows and the blocks stack inside it, so you can see both at full size rather than one hidden behind the other.

Tables held for another party

A dashed grey band with a padlock is not a booking — it's a table being held. It names what for: "Held for T5 · 12 covers" when the table has been pushed together with another for a party too big for one, or kept for a big booking with Book tables, or the reason you gave when you took the table out of service.

The party itself shows on the main table's row, as an ordinary booking. The held table has no booking of its own, which is why its row used to look empty all evening on a table nobody could sell.

You can't drag or resize a held band — it follows the booking it belongs to, so move that booking instead. More about pushing tables together.

A booking kept on several tables with Book tables stays on them. Drag it to another time and the held tables go with it; drag it onto another of its held tables and the hold moves round. Drag it to a table outside them, or to a time when one of them is taken, and it snaps back with a line under the timeline saying why and naming the tables. To move it somewhere else, change its tables in Book tables first.

If your venue takes card details at booking, a block with a dashed border and a small card icon is a booking whose card confirmation hasn't arrived — a maybe, not a booking. If the guest abandoned the card step, the table is released automatically within about 40 minutes; if the confirmation arrives, the block turns solid like any other.

Open a booking to see and manage its deposit (if deposits are enabled for your account) — record one, or record a refund or a forfeit. Record refund writes down a refund you have already given; it does not send any money, and the booking says where to give it: on the card machine for a deposit you took yourself, while a deposit the guest paid online cannot be sent back from the portal at all yet. Once a deposit has been deducted from the guest's bill at the till, those actions disappear and the diary explains why. See Deposits and prepayments.

Open a booking and you'll also see Asked for: Terrace — naming whichever area they chose — when that guest picked one at booking and hasn't got it — either they've no table yet, or they're sitting somewhere else. A guest who asked for the terrace and is on the terrace shows nothing, because there's nothing to do about it. See Booking details panel.

Open a booking and you'll also see a solid Reminded chip if their booking reminder has gone out. It is not the same as No reply — one is about whether you sent something, the other about whether they replied. The cancelled list below the timeline shows it too, because a guest who was reminded and then cancelled is the one you get asked about later.

Open a booking and you'll also see the answers that guest gave to your own booking questions, each under the question you asked — everything except the allergen alert, the occasion and the package, which have their own places higher up the panel.

Open a booking and you'll also see the set menu that guest chose, priced for the whole table. A party of four on a £34.99 set menu reads 4 × £34.99 · £139.96, because a set menu is charged per person — each of them is eating one. A booking for one shows the plain price, since there is nothing to multiply.

Bookings taken before 2 September 2026 show only the menu price. Those really were charged once for the table, and the diary shows what was actually taken rather than what today's rule would have charged.

Open a booking and you'll also see Cancellation terms agreed, with the date, if that guest ticked your cancellation terms when they booked. Click it for the exact wording they were shown — the words that were live on the day, not the ones on your page today. See Booking details panel.

Open a booking whose guest has a customer profile and you'll also see the profile's note, and a plain line if the booking still lists an allergy their profile no longer does — see Booking details panel.

Card markers on the timeline

If your venue takes card details at booking, a booking can carry a small card icon. A faint one means the card confirmation hasn't arrived yet — treat that booking as a maybe. A solid one means a card really is stored for it. Open the booking to see which, and to remove a stored card.

A booking can also be marked Removal stuck. That means we asked our payment provider to delete the card, they kept refusing, and we stopped asking — so the card is still stored. Open the booking and press Try again, or see them all under Card at booking.

Moving and resizing bookings

You can adjust a booking straight from the timeline:

• Drag sideways to move it earlier or later. It snaps to 15-minute steps.
• Drag up or down onto another table's row to reassign it.
• Drag the right edge to change how long the table is held.
• To put a big party on tables that push together (T5+T6), open the booking and choose them in its Table dropdown. See the booking details panel.

A drag saves as soon as you let go. So you can see what it did, a line appears at the bottom of the window for about ten seconds, such as Moved Owen Rees to 19:45, Moved Owen Rees to T9 or Owen Rees now stays 2 hr. If that wasn't what you meant, press Undo and the booking goes back to the time, table or length it had before. A booking that was on tables pushed together goes back onto the same tables.

A booking marked Do not move has a pin on its block. Dragging it to another table's row asks first — Move it from T5 to T9 anyway? — before anything is saved. Keep it on T5 puts the block straight back, time and all, even if you dragged it sideways too. Move anyway saves the move, and the pin stays on. Dragging it sideways only (same table) never asks, and neither does changing how long the table is held. Undo after a confirmed move asks again, because putting it back is a move too. See Keeping a booking on its table.

Its old table may have been taken in the meantime: moving a booking to another time, or changing how long it stays, frees the slot it left, and Tillable can seat a waiting online booking there straight away. So Undo checks first, and if putting it back would double-book a table it tells you, for example T1 is in use between 18:00 and 19:00, so undoing would double-book it. Press Keep the move to leave it where it is, or Undo anyway to put it back regardless.

Undo never overwrites a change made since the drag. If someone has moved the booking again in the meantime, on the till, from the guest's own booking link or on another screen, Undo leaves it as it is and tells you, so reload the page to see where it is now. If Undo can't go back for any other reason, the line says why, and if only part of a move could go back (the time but not the table, say), it says which part.

The line waits while your pointer is over it, and while you have a booking open, so it won't disappear as you reach for Undo. Closing it with the × keeps the change. Your next drag replaces it with its own, unless that drag couldn't be saved. Neither the drag nor Undo emails the guest.

Rather type it? Open the booking — from the Diary list or the timeline — and press Change date, time or guests. That's also how you move a booking to another day, set exactly how long it's held (Length), or change how many people it's for — and if its table won't do at the new time or size, it offers the free tables that fit, so you can move it there in the same step. Moving a booking off a time can give its freed table to a booking on that day that had none; the message after you save says who. See Booking details panel.

Party gone before their time is up? Open the booking and press Mark left. Its block ends there and then and the table is free for the next party, with the booking still at its real time. That's quicker than dragging the right edge back to now, and it marks the visit as finished too. A party whose bill has closed still holds the table until their booked end, so press Mark left for them too when they actually go. Pressed it by mistake? Undo stays on the booking. See When a party leaves early.

Click a block (without dragging) to open its details: the guest on the left, the booking on the right, and Arrived · T12 — or Mark arrived for a booking with no table — (Mark left once they're in), No-show and Cancel booking along the bottom. See Booking details panel, including what the Notes box does and doesn't reach, the Customer tags under the guest's name for tagging the person and the Visit tags row for tagging that evening, Guest confirmed by phone for recording an answer somebody took on a call, and Edit guest details for fixing the name or adding a phone number — which saves to that guest's customer profile and their other upcoming bookings, not just to the one you have open.

The same panel opens from any row of the parties list, for when it's quicker to find a booking by name than by table.

Seeing what a booking was charged

Once you've charged a booking, opening it shows a Charged block with the amount, the date and the payment reference. The Card on file chip goes at the same time, because the card has been used. See Booking details panel.

In the list underneath, the same charge appears as a small Charged chip with the amount on it; click the chip for the date and the reference. See The parties list.

Seated, no bill yet

When a party has been marked arrived but nothing has been rung up on their table yet, they appear in Seated, no bill yet, above the timeline:

Owen Davies · 2 guests · T7 · arrived 19:12

Most of the time the list empties by itself: when a waiter opens a bill on the till for a table where exactly one arrived party is sitting, that bill is tied to their booking. If two parties are on the same table, or the bill was opened before the guest was marked arrived, nobody can know whose it is — so the party stays here until you say:

• Pick bill — choose the bill that is theirs. A bill already open on their table is offered first.
• No bill — they really had nothing rung up.

Tying the bill to the booking is what makes the guest's spend show in Customers. See Booking details panel.

Bookings by service on the Bookings page

With bookings by service switched on, the Bookings page shows a card for each of your services (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner…) with its bookings and covers, and clicking one filters the list to that service. See The parties list.

What's next

• Booking details panel — the info and actions inside a booking (arrived, no-show, notes, occasions).
• Add a booking by hand — for phone bookings and walk-ups.
• The bookings list view — searchable table of bookings (Bookings Pro).
• Booking setups — the rules that govern what the public page offers.