How do I mark a no-show (and charge the fee)?

Mark a no-show, optionally charge the saved-card fee with its safety delay, refund a charged fee, and set up automatic marking.

Once a booking is flagged late, a No-show button appears on its action bar — click it to mark the customer as a no-show. Charging a no-show fee needs no-show protection (*Available on Plus plan and above*) with Stripe connected, and the fee is only ever armed by a staff member — automatic marking never charges anyone.

Marking a no-show

• Open the late booking and click No-show.
• If no fee applies, a simple pop-up asks Mark as no-show? — click Mark no-show.
• If the customer saved a card for no-show protection, the pop-up is Mark no-show & charge fee? instead. It explains the flat fee and the safety window, and offers three buttons: Cancel, Mark no-show, don't charge, and Charge £X & mark no-show.
• Choosing to charge asks you to confirm your password (or approve with a manager's PIN where offered) — this arms a real card charge.

Paid-in-full bookings: if the booking was paid in full, there's no fee to charge — the customer's payment is simply kept (that's the point of prepayment), and the "money kept" email to the customer says "payment" rather than "deposit". The no-show fee never applies to those bookings.

Mark the no-show while the booking is still live. As a privacy protection, the customer's saved card is released automatically the moment a booking is marked completed, cleared or cancelled — so a booking that's already been completed or cleared can't be switched to a no-show afterwards and charged. Make the no-show call (and the charge decision) directly; marking a no-show itself never releases the card.

The safety delay

The fee isn't taken immediately. It's charged after your Safety delay before charging (set in Settings → No-show protection; default 3 hours, range 0–168). Until then the booking shows "No-show fee of £X scheduled" — restore or re-seat the guest before the deadline and the pending charge is cancelled automatically. Nothing is ever charged to a customer who showed up.

Refunding a charged fee

Once charged, the booking shows "No-show fee of £X charged to the customer's card" with a Refund fee button. Confirm the pop-up — you'll be asked for your password (or a manager's PIN where offered) — and the fee returns to the customer's card. This needs the refund permission.

Restoring a no-show

Click Restore on the booking to put it back to confirmed — this also cancels a still-pending fee.

Automatic marking

In Settings → Alerts & sounds, switch on Automatically mark no-shows and set the No-show threshold (default 30 mins, options 15–60). Online and staff bookings that still haven't been seated by then are marked automatically — walk-ins and waitlist entries are excluded, and auto-marked no-shows are never charged a fee.

Related: How do I charge no-show fees? · What does the customer see when paying a deposit or saving a card? · How do I control dashboard alerts and sounds? · How do approvals with a manager's PIN work?