How do birthdays work?

The whole birthday story — capturing dates of birth, the greeting email and text, the loyalty gift, birthday promotions, and the Birthdays page that runs it all.

The Birthdays page — in the sidebar under Customers — runs the birthday story: the loyalty gift, birthday promotions, the live timeline and the birthdays-on-file count. The greeting's on/off switches, timing, treat line and wording live with your other automatic emails on Marketing → Automations, inside the Birthday email row (the page links there). It's Available on Pro plan and above, and comes with the standalone Loyalty product too.

At the top you'll see a live timeline of what each customer's birthday looks like — for example "1 week before → Greeting email sends → Birthday offer lands in their account → 30 days after it lands → the offer expires". The greeting legs reflect your saved notification settings; the gift legs update as you edit below, before you even save. Next to the page title there's a count of how many customers have a birthday on file — select it to see exactly who, in the customers directory — and a Send me a test email button that sends a sample of your birthday email to your own address (transactional emails are unlimited on the plans and products that include birthdays, so it costs nothing).

Getting birthdays on file

Birthday features only reach customers with a date of birth saved on their profile. Dates arrive four ways:

• Staff add one on the customer's profile (Customers → open a customer → edit).
• Customers add one themselves in My account (the customer portal): open My details and click Edit.
• Loyalty members without a birthday see a small dismissible prompt on their portal loyalty card — "Add your birthday — there might be a treat in it" — that jumps them to the profile edit.
• The loyalty join tick-box on your booking, event and waitlist pages (whichever your venue has) reveals an optional Birthday field once ticked — filled in, it's saved to the customer's profile when they join (it never overwrites a birthday that's already on file).

The greeting (email and text)

The greeting's switches live on Marketing → Automations, inside the Birthday email row (the page's The greeting card summarises the current state and links there with Manage the birthday email →).

• Birthday message (email) — sends at 9am on the day you pick under When the email sends: on their birthday, or 1/2/3 days, 1/2 weeks or 1 month before. An early timing works as a "come and celebrate with us" nudge; picking one reveals Also send again on the actual day.
• Birthday treat line (optional) — free text like "A free glass of fizz on your birthday", shown as a highlighted treat box in the email, with an optional Treat small print line.
• The SMS toggle — the text always goes on the day itself, and needs SMS set up.
• The email's subject and wording are edited inline in the same Birthday email row on Marketing → Automations (with a live preview); the SMS wording in Settings → SMS templates.

Birthday emails only go to customers who are opted in to marketing (and haven't turned off occasion emails in their portal preferences), and they count towards your marketing email allowance.

The gift (loyalty members)

The gift (loyalty scheme) section is your loyalty scheme's birthday gift — it needs a loyalty scheme, and it's managed here (Settings → Loyalty points to it: under Set on other pages, its Birthday gift row has Manage on your Birthdays page).

• Birthday gift — once a year, automatically, for members with a birthday on file. Choose What they get: Bonus stamps / Bonus points, or An offer from a promotion (one of your claimable promotions — a member coupon when your venue has Loyalty without the Pro or Complete plan — saved straight to the member's account — it shows in their portal and on their wallet card, and your team redeems it in the Scanner).
• When it lands — the same timing choices as the email, from "On their birthday" to "1 month before". If a member is missed on the day (say the promotion was paused), the gift catches up for up to a week afterwards.
• Offer expires (optional, offer gifts only) — "N days after it lands". The offer stops working after that day and the date shows on the member's portal; if the promotion's own end date is earlier, the earlier date wins.

The email announces an offer gift. When the gift is an offer AND the greeting email is on, the two are timed together: the offer lands the same morning the email sends, and the email's treat box becomes "A birthday gift, on us" naming the promotion — "We've added it to your loyalty account…". The gift's own timing control shows "Lands with your greeting email" while they're linked. The birthday email never names a members-only promotion — it reaches non-members too, who would be refused it — and the customer portal's "add your birthday" prompt only appears while your venue actually runs a birthday gift or greeting email, so customers are never promised a treat that doesn't exist.

Upcoming birthdays and sending a gift early

Under the timeline, the Upcoming birthdays list shows every customer with a birthday in the next 30 days, soonest first. When a gift is set up, each loyalty member's row carries the real state: Gift scheduled (with the day the automatic send fires) or Gift sent (with when it went). Whether the birthday email was opened isn't shown — ResoFlow never records opens. Customers who aren't loyalty members are labelled so you know the gift won't reach them.

Tap a name to open them — beside the list on a wide screen, or in a window on a smaller one (the whole screen on a phone). You see the day it falls on, whether they're a loyalty member, their gift in words (for example "2 bonus stamps land on their card on Tue 29 Sep, on their birthday — automatically, once a year."), their email address, Send now (with the same permission as the row's button) and Open their profile. Their visits and the day they last booked for show under their name. If they've booked around their birthday (up to a week either side), the row says Booked in and the panel shows the booking under Coming in, with Open their booking; a fourth figure at the top, Coming in for it, counts how many of the next 30 days' birthdays have booked. The profile or booking you open says "Back to the birthday" at the top left, which brings the birthday back as you left it. (Open their profile shows for staff who can open the Customers page.)

Staff with the loyalty balance-adjustment permission also see a Send now button per member row:

• Not sent yet — a confirmation explains the gift goes immediately and replaces the scheduled automatic send (the automatic run skips that member for the year), then sends on your confirm.
• Already sent this year — the confirmation says so, with when, and offers a deliberate Send again (for example if the customer asked). That's an extra gift on top of the yearly one; the automatic send stays once a year regardless.

Sending is a protected action, so you may be asked to confirm your password first — or, on a shared front-of-house device, a manager who holds the balance-adjustment permission can approve it with their PIN instead (the same approval used for balance adjustments).

At the top of the page, Preview opens the birthday email on screen (Send me a test email is in More (⋯) beside it) — rendered by the same engine that sends it, with your branding and copy, in light or dark mode and at phone or desktop width.

Birthday promotions

The Birthday promotions section lists every promotion with a birthday trigger — its status (live / paused / scheduled / ended), what it gives and its window (for example "A treat · their birthday week · members only"), and whether it's mentioned in the greeting email. Use Edit in the builder on a row to change one.

Making a birthday offer here. Staff who can create promotions see New birthday offer at the top of the page (and under the list). It opens a short step-by-step panel: What — a treat, a percentage off or an amount off, and its name (customers see it); When — their birthday week (3 days either side), their birthday month (15 days either side) or the day itself, and where it can be used (a treat comes with a booking; money off comes off a table, collection or delivery order); Who — Loyalty members only or any customer with a birthday on file, Uses per customer each birthday (once, unless you change it — the count starts again at their next birthday), and whether the greeting email mentions it; then a Review of every answer. Create the offer makes an ordinary birthday promotion — live straight away, shown here and on the Promotions page, where you can pause or change it (at your plan's live-promotion limit it's saved paused instead, and says so). Nothing is sent by itself: it applies when the customer books or orders in their window. See How do promo codes and automatic offers work?.

Gift vs promotion — the difference. The gift is guaranteed: it's banked to each member automatically, once a year, whether or not they visit. A birthday promotion is conditional: it only does anything if the customer actually books during its window — nothing is added to anyone's account, and customers aren't told about it; the discount or treat simply lands on the booking. Run both and a member who books during their birthday week gets both — two treats, by your setup (the page shows a note when that's the case). One special case: if the same promotion is both the gift and a birthday promotion, your per-guest limit on that promotion caps the total a member can use each birthday — the banked offer and the automatic booking discount draw on the same allowance.

Who can change what

The greeting (on Marketing → Automations) needs the operational-settings permission — the treat text needs the edit-templates permission, and the text (SMS) toggle is owner/admin. The gift (on the Birthdays page) needs the "Set up and edit the scheme" loyalty permission; staff without it see the section read-only.

Related: How do I send birthday messages (with an offer)? · How do I set up a loyalty scheme? · How do saved offers work? · How do I create a promotion?