How do I create a booking for a customer?

Create a staff booking from the dashboard — customer details, table, time, source tag and confirmation messages.

To create a booking yourself (for example, a customer phoning up), click New booking in the top bar — it's available on Home, Bookings, Timeline and Floor plan. If a pop-up asks "Will this be a scheduled booking or a walk-in?", choose New booking.

You need the booking-create permission (Owners, Admins, Managers and Hosts have it by default), and Enable staff bookings must be on in Settings → Booking rules (it's on by default).

Steps

• Click New booking.
• Enter the customer's name — First Name (required) and Last Name (optional). If your plan includes customer accounts (Pro and above — the standalone Loyalty product also brings them), matching customers appear as you type — pick one and their contact details and preferences fill in automatically, marked with a From profile badge. Without customer accounts the search is replaced by an upgrade hint reading "Upgrade to Pro for customer auto-fill".
• Choose the Table and number of Guests (required). If you leave the table empty, the booking sits in the Unassigned tab on the Bookings page until you place it.
• Set the Date, Start Time and End Time. The end time follows your default booking duration, and duration-by-party-size rules apply if you've set them up. Table availability checks include your turnaround (cleaning) time, so a table that's just been cleared won't accept a new booking until the gap has passed.
• If you've switched on seating preferences, a Preference dropdown appears with your seating types.
• Add the customer's Email and Phone if you have them. When your staff-booking confirmation setting is set to ask each time, Send confirmation email and Send confirmation SMS tick boxes appear so you can choose per booking.
• Pick a Source — Phone, In person, Email, Walk-up or External platform by default. You can edit this list in Settings → Booking rules → Staff bookings.
• Optionally record Occasion, Allergies, Dietary (vegan, halal and the like — kept separately from allergies), Notes (customer-facing) and Staff notes (internal only).
• If deposits or no-show protection are on, you'll see a reminder to tick Customer agreed to the cancellation policy and terms (verbal / in person) — it records their agreement but never blocks the booking. Staff bookings don't take card payments at the desk — money is collected by payment link instead.
• Click Confirm booking. If the same booking made online would have required a deposit or full payment (and the customer has an email address), a Send a payment link? step appears showing the exact amount — choose Send payment link to include a secure "Pay securely" button in the confirmation email, or Skip — no charge to take no payment. Either choice is recorded on the booking and in the Activity Log. When the booking qualifies for pre-ordering, the same step offers an invite the customer to pre-order tick box. If no online payment would have applied, the booking saves straight away with no extra step — and you can still send a payment link from the booking's details at any time.

There's also an Internal-only booking (table block, training, etc.) tick box — internal bookings send no customer emails or SMS, are excluded from analytics, and show as a maintenance-style block on the timeline.

Related: How do I take my first booking? · How do I change a booking — time, table, party or length? · How do I control booking times and durations? · What does the customer see when paying a deposit or saving a card?