How do I set the policies customers agree to when booking?

Customise your cancellation, terms and privacy policies — what's fixed, what's filled in automatically, and where customers see them.

Settings → Customer policies is where you control the policies customers see when they book, order or buy: Cancellation & no-show, Terms & conditions, and Privacy. All three are ready to use out of the box — a reviewed legal baseline is always included, so you only add wording if you want to.

Each policy a customer agrees to is captured as a snapshot: past bookings, orders and purchases keep the exact text the customer agreed to, and any edits you make only apply to future ones.

Owners and Admins can edit; other roles can open the page but see it read-only.

How each policy is built

Every policy card assembles three layers, top to bottom:

• A fixed baseline — reviewed wording that's always part of your policy and can't be edited. Open "View the wording that's always included" on any card to read it. On the Terms card this baseline is the universal set — the clauses that are true for every purchase type (who the merchant is, allergens, genuine use); the booking-specific clauses (booking confirmation, table grace period, venue amend/cancel) appear only on booking terms, which you can see under the Table booking purchase type below.
• Clauses added automatically from your settings — shown as small chips under "Added automatically from your settings", each with a Change link to the page that controls it. On the Cancellation card these come from your deposit refund policy, your no-show fee (only when card details are actually required), and your cancellation deadline; on the Privacy card, from your data-retention period.
• Your own wording (optional) — a free-text box for house rules (up to 5,000 characters). Anything you write in the Terms card's box appears in every purchase type's terms. If a box is empty you can click Insert reviewed wording for a professionally worded starting point, then tailor it. A card's status chip reads Baseline until you've added your own text, then Customised.

Use Preview what customers see on any card to read the fully assembled text.

Terms by purchase type

Customers agree to different terms depending on what they're buying, so the Terms by purchase type card lets you work per context. Pick a purchase type from the dropdown — Table booking, and (depending on your plan) Event tickets, Loyalty joining, Gift cards, Paid-in-full bookings, Bookings with extras and Order at the table — and you'll see:

• How customers agree — the real agreement mechanism for that purchase type (agree lines, any required ticks, and where the exact terms are frozen).
• Add wording for this purchase type only (optional) — extra text (up to 2,000 characters per purchase type) appended to the end of that context's terms wherever customers see them and wherever they're frozen. Your general Terms wording still appears everywhere; these additions are for wording that only applies to one purchase type.
• Preview the terms customers see — the genuinely assembled terms for that purchase type, exactly as a customer reads them.

Where customers see and agree to them

Agreement works slightly differently per surface — the "How customers agree" panel above shows each one, in short:

• Online bookings — customers see the full policy and the line "By booking you agree to the cancellation policy and terms." There's no tick-box: completing the booking is the agreement, and the exact terms are frozen to the booking. Pay-in-full and extras clauses are part of that same agreement where they apply, and adding extras later from the booking's manage page re-presents a "By paying you agree to … Booking Terms." line before the payment.
• Bookings taken by staff — staff see the same policy and confirm a "customer agreed (verbal/in-person)" tick when taking a booking on the phone or in person.
• Event tickets — buying is the agreement at ticket checkout; the event-augmented terms are frozen to the ticket. Door-sale payment links show "By paying you agree to … Event Terms."
• Order & pay at the table — the checkout shows "By paying you agree to … Order Terms." plus a required allergy acknowledgement tick, and a required 18-or-over tick when the order contains alcohol (both checked again by the server).
• Gift cards — the checkout shows the Gift Card Terms one tap away and asks for an express tick consenting to immediate delivery; the gift and receipt emails link the same terms.
• Loyalty joining — always an optional tick on the surface offering it; the loyalty small-print rides that surface's terms.
• The cancellation policy is also included in confirmation emails.

Related: How do I take booking deposits? · How do I charge no-show fees? · How long is booking data kept — and what do customers agree to?