Table bookings

Table bookings gives each venue its own public booking page, which one line of code also puts on your own website. A guest picks a party size, a date and a time from the times that still have room, gives their details and gets a confirmation email with a link to change or cancel the booking. Your team runs the day from a diary: arrive, seat, complete, no-show, cancel, and bookings taken by phone or at the desk. Every booking is also a reservation, so a booker who connects to your venue WiFi is marked arrived without anyone touching a screen, and follow-ups, segments and the review gate work as they do for Reservation check-in.

Table bookings is included on the Growth plan and above.

Switching it on

Table bookings is off by default. The account owner switches it on:

1. In the dashboard, go to Integrations.
2. Under Dashboard features, find the Table bookings card and switch it on.

A Bookings group then appears in your sidebar, after Events, with Diary, Bookings, Enquiries, Reports and Bookings settings. The card's own note points you at Bookings settings to publish your booking page, then at the Diary to run the day. A team member sees the switch locked with the line "Only the account owner can switch Table bookings on or off." On a plan below Growth the card carries an Upgrade to use badge and the line "Table bookings is included on Growth, Pro and Multi-Location." Switching the feature off hides the pages and keeps every booking and setting.

Opening a Bookings page when the feature is not available shows one of three cards instead of the page: Table bookings is not on your plan, Table bookings is switched off (with an Open Integrations button) or, for a team member without View guest data, Bookings are restricted.

Before your first booking

1. Set the venue's time zone under My Locations. Booking times are worked out on the venue's own clock, and the booking page cannot go live while the time zone is missing. The settings page tells you when this is the case: "Set this venue's time zone under My Locations first."
2. Add at least one service under Bookings settings. A page with no service has no times to offer.
3. Switch Page is live on and save.

Deposits are optional and need more; see Deposits.

Setting up a venue

Everything a venue needs is on one page: Bookings then Bookings settings. If you have more than one venue, choose it in the Venue list at the top of the page first; the page reads "Your booking page, services, areas, closures and deposit terms, one venue at a time."

Services

A service is a window in which you take bookings: Lunch on Mondays from 12:00 to 15:00, Dinner every day from 17:30 to 22:00. The Services card reads "When you take bookings and how many covers each time slot holds." Until you add one it says "No services yet. Add one before publishing the page."

1. Click Add a service.
2. Name: for example Dinner.
3. Day: Every day, or one weekday from Mondays to Sundays. Services on the same day must not overlap.
4. Opens (HH:MM) and Closes (HH:MM), on a 24-hour clock in the venue's time zone. A close at or before the open runs past midnight, so a Late service from 22:00 to 01:00 works.
5. Covers a slot: how many guests can start in one booking time. A party's covers are counted against every time it occupies for its turn time, so a party of four at 19:00 with a two-hour turn is counted at 19:00, 19:30, 20:00 and 20:30.
6. Parties a slot (optional): a cap on the number of bookings that can start in one time, on top of the covers.
7. Areas (optional): tick the areas this service takes bookings for. Leave every area unticked for the whole venue.
8. Taking bookings: switch it off to keep the service without offering it.
9. Click Add service.

Each service is listed with its day; Edit and Remove sit at the end of the row. Removing a service is held to confirm: bookings already in it keep their time and covers, new bookings cannot be taken in it, and any closure set for that service alone goes with it.

Areas and tables

Areas and tables are optional. An area bounds the party a guest can book for and can be kept for staff; a table is a note on a booking saying where the party sits. Neither holds capacity of its own: capacity is the covers a slot on the service.

1. Click Add an area.
2. Name, for example Main room or Terrace.
3. Smallest party and Largest party (optional): a guest can only pick this area for a party within the bounds.
4. Guests can choose it online: off keeps the area for staff bookings.
5. In use: off retires the area without removing it.
6. Click Add area.

To add a table, click Add a table and give it an Area, a Name (T1, Window 3), Seats at least and Seats at most, and leave In use on. Removing an area takes its tables with it and strikes it off every service that named it; bookings that named the area or a table keep everything else.

Closures and one-day limits

A closure closes a date, or one service on a date, or keeps the day open with fewer covers. The card reads "Closed days and days with fewer covers. Existing bookings are never cancelled by these."

1. Click Add a closure.
2. Date.
3. Service: Whole day, or one service.
4. Leave Closed on to close the day or service. Switch it off to keep the day open with a lower cap, and set Covers a slot that day.
5. Reason (optional), for example Private hire. The reason shows in the diary on the day.
6. Click Add closure.

Bookings already on the day are never cancelled by a closure or a lower cap. The day shows as over capacity in the diary and the cap applies to new bookings only. When you save a closure, a lower cap or a smaller service on a day that already has bookings, the page accepts it and shows a warning naming the times that are now over capacity.

Times and parties

The Times and parties card sets how often a booking can start, who can book online and how long a party holds its table.

1. Booking times every: 15 minutes or 30 minutes.
2. Smallest party online and Largest party online: the party sizes a guest can book for on the page. Staff bookings ignore these bounds.
3. Larger parties email: parties above the largest can send an enquiry to this address from the booking page. The enquiry also lands on your Enquiries page.
4. Earliest booking, minutes from now: how much notice you need. A guest cannot book a time inside this lead time; staff can.
5. Last booking, minutes before close: the cut-off before a service ends. A 22:00 close with 90 here offers 20:30 as the last time.
6. Bookable days ahead: how far ahead a guest can book.
7. Turn times by party size: how long a party holds its table, as bands. Each band has Parties up to and Minutes; leave Parties up to empty on exactly one band, for the largest parties. The starting bands are 90 minutes for parties up to 2, 120 for parties up to 6 and 150 above that.
8. Click Save settings. One save covers the booking page, the times and parties and the messages cards together.

Messages to the guest

The confirmation goes by email as soon as a booking is made; the reminder follows before the visit. Both are the booking's own messages and never need marketing consent. What they say is in What your guests receive.

1. Reminder, hours before: 24 to begin with, up to 336. 0 turns the reminder off for the venue.
2. Text the confirmation and reminder too: on to begin with. When the guest gave a mobile number, the confirmation and the reminder also go as texts, using your SMS Marketing credits. Switch it off to keep your credits for marketing. Nothing is texted while the venue has no SMS Marketing or no credits.
3. Click Save settings.

Deposits

The Deposits card is the account holder's own. A team member sees "Only the account holder can change the deposit terms." and no amounts. Amounts are in your venue's currency, shown as the symbol on each field.

1. Deposits: Off, or Charged when the booking is made. The line under it says "Card on file for a no-show fee arrives in a later release."
2. Deposit per cover: the amount charged for each guest in the party.
3. From a party of: the smallest party a deposit applies to. Leave it empty for every party.
4. Free cancellation, hours before: a guest who cancels before this many hours gets the deposit back in full. A later cancellation or a no-show keeps it.
5. No-show fee: the amount kept from a party that does not turn up.
6. Click Save deposit terms.

Charging a deposit needs the venue's Stripe account connected and the booking fee terms accepted, both under Events then Events settings; see Connecting Stripe and Accepting the fee terms. Until they are done, saving with deposits on is refused with "Deposits need the venue's Stripe payments account live first." and the mode drops back to Off.

The terms can be saved now; taking the payment on the booking page is part of a later release. Until it lands, a party your deposit terms cover cannot finish a booking online. Those party sizes are greyed out in the Party size list on your booking page, under the line "A deposit of [amount] per guest applies to parties of [n] or more. Deposits cannot yet be paid online, so send an enquiry for a party of that size and the venue will confirm your table." and a Send an enquiry link that opens the enquiry form with that party filled in. A venue with no Larger parties email shows the same line ending "please contact the venue to book a party of that size." instead. Parties below the deposit line book as usual.

Your booking page

The Booking page card at the top of Bookings settings is the public page guests book from and what they agree to.

1. Page address: the last part of the page's web address, after app.captifi.io/book/. It starts as your venue name; lower-case letters, numbers and dashes only. An address another venue holds is refused.
2. Page is live: guests can book once this is on and saved. While the venue has no time zone the line under it reads "Set this venue's time zone under My Locations first." and the switch cannot stay on.
3. Introduction: a line or two at the top of your booking page.
4. Marketing consent wording: the sentence shown beside an unticked box on the booking form. Leave it empty for the standard wording. A guest who ticks the box is added to your guest list with marketing consent; a guest who does not is added without it.
5. Note on the confirmation: parking, dress code, how to find you. It goes into the guest's confirmation email as "A note from [venue]".
6. Click Save settings.

Before the first save the card reads "Saved with the first save."; after it, "Not live yet." until the page is live. While the account a venue belongs to does not have Table bookings switched on (a venue you reach from another account), the card reads "Not taking bookings." with the reason under it, shows no page link and no embed code, and the page cannot be switched live; a page published before then shows a not-found page to guests until that account switches Table bookings on again. Once it is live the card shows Open the booking page and Copy link, and under Put it on your website the embed code with its own Copy button. The page itself is at app.captifi.io/book/your-venue. It is white, with your splash page's logo, font and button colours, and it records the venue's time zone when it goes live.

While the page is not live, its address shows a not-found page and the form on your website is an empty frame that shrinks to nothing. Switching Page is live on brings both up without touching your website.

Putting the booking form on your website

The booking form can sit on your own website, and a booking made there shows Website embed as its source.

1. Under Put it on your website, click Copy. The code is one line; your own Page address replaces your-venue:

   <script src="https://app.captifi.io/book/your-venue/embed.js" async></script>

2. Paste it into your web page where the form should appear, in your site builder's HTML or code block; a normal text box turns the tag into visible text. The form appears in place of the code and grows to fit its content, so there is no height to set. To choose the spot separately, put <div data-captifi-bookings></div> where the form should go and the script tag anywhere on the page.

3. If your website strips script tags, paste this frame instead:

   <iframe src="https://app.captifi.io/book/your-venue/widget" title="Book a table" style="width:100%;min-height:720px;border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>

   It shows the same form and keeps the height you set: 720 pixels unless you change min-height.

Add data-lang="fr" or data-lang="es" to the script tag to open the form in French or Spanish, where the venue offers that language. Changing the Page address moves the page and the form together, so paste the new code into your website after a change. You can also link to the page from the After connecting promotion on your splash page.

What the guest does

On your booking page, or in the form on your website, a guest:

1. Picks a Party size, from your Smallest party online to your Largest party online. When you have a Larger parties email the list ends with More than [largest], which opens the enquiry form.
2. Picks a Date, up to your Bookable days ahead, and sees the times with room for that party. Times are on the venue's clock, under the line "All times are London local time.", and the page never shows how many covers are left. A date with nothing to offer says why: "No bookings are taken on this date.", "The venue is closed on this date.", "Online bookings for this date need more notice. Please contact the venue." or "Every time on this date is taken for a party of this size."
3. Taps a Time. The table is held for them for ten minutes while they fill in their details, and the page counts down: "This table is held for you for 9 more minutes." A time that filled up as they tapped is refused with "That time is now full for a party of this size. Please choose another." Change time hands the time back at once, and so does leaving the page; a hold that runs out reads "Your hold on that time has lapsed. Please choose a time again."
4. Under Your details, gives a First name, Email and Mobile number. Last name, Occasion and "Anything we should know?" (allergies, access needs, a high chair) are optional. The marketing box is unticked and carries your Marketing consent wording, or the standard "Send me news and offers from [venue] by email."; under it, "Your details are used for this booking only, unless you tick the box above." with a link to the privacy notice.
5. Clicks Confirm booking. The page reads "Your table is booked" with the party, date, time and reference, says the details have been emailed, and offers Manage your booking, Add to calendar (Download .ics, Google Calendar, Outlook) and Make another booking.

One live booking per guest per venue per day is allowed: a second booking on the same date with the same email address, and the same mobile number when they give one, is refused with "There is already a booking at [venue] on this date with these contact details. Check your email for its confirmation, or contact the venue." The held time stays theirs while they correct the details, for up to three refused attempts; after the third the time is released and they pick a time again. A mobile number your venue's country cannot read is refused with "Enter a mobile number the venue can reach you on."

A party above your Largest party online, or one your deposit terms cover (see Deposits), goes to the Larger parties form instead: "For parties of more than [n], send an enquiry and the venue will come back to you.", with Your name, Party size, Email, Mobile number (optional), Preferred date (optional), Preferred time (optional), "Tell us about the occasion (optional)" and Send enquiry. Nothing is held; the enquiry goes to your Larger parties email and lands on Enquiries. Without that email address the page reads "This venue does not take enquiries for larger parties online. Please contact them directly."

The page follows the language the guest's browser asks for, where the venue offers it (English, French or Spanish), and the confirmation goes out in the same language. Each venue's page takes up to 60 online bookings an hour; past that a guest reads "[Venue] is taking a lot of bookings right now. Please try again in a little while, or contact the venue."

The confirmation email and what the guest can do from their own page are in What your guests receive.

The diary

Bookings then Diary shows one venue's bookings for one day, grouped by service in time order. The page reads "Every table booking at this venue on the day shown, grouped by service. Mark guests arrived, seated and completed as the day runs, record no-shows, and take a booking by phone or at the desk. Times are on the venue's own clock."

1. Pick the venue in the header if you have more than one. The diary opens on the venue you last picked, or your first venue.
2. Move between days with Previous, Next and Today, or pick a day in the date box. Today is on the venue's clock, so a venue in another time zone shows its own today. The day and the venue sit in the page address, so a day can be bookmarked or the link shared.
3. Read the day's figures across the top: Bookings, Covers, Arrived, No-shows and Cancelled.
4. Each service is a group headed by its name and, for example, "6 bookings, 18 covers". Each row shows the time, the guest with their contact details and any area, table or occasion, the party, the status and the reference, with the action buttons at the end.

Two notices appear above the groups when they apply. A closure on the day reads, for example, "Closed for Lunch: Private hire." or "Dinner limited to 40 covers a slot." An over-capacity notice reads "Over capacity at 19:00 (30 of 6 covers). Existing bookings are kept; the cap applies to new ones." It appears when a cap was lowered, or a closure added, after bookings were already taken for that time. Each time is checked against the cap of the service it falls in. A time over the service's Parties a slot counts parties, for example "19:00 (3 of 2 parties)", and a time after midnight in a service that runs late carries "next day", for example "00:30 next day (12 of 10 covers)".

All bookings at the top of the diary opens the bookings list for the same venue.

Taking a booking by phone, at the desk or as a walk-in

1. Click New booking. The form is headed Take a booking.
2. Under How, choose On the phone, At the desk, for later or Walk-in, seated now.
3. Party: any size. Staff bookings are not held to the online party bounds, the lead time or the booking window, and can use an area kept off the page. They are still held to closures, the last booking cut-off and the covers.
4. Date and Time. The time list holds only the times with room for this party on that day, each with the service and the covers left. The line under it reads "Times with room for this party. A full time is refused when you book, not before." For a walk-in there is no time to pick: the booking is made for now on the venue's clock and recorded as arrived.
5. Area: optional.
6. First name, Last name, Email, Phone and Occasion. Guest details are optional on a staff booking; a booking with an email address gets the confirmation email, and one with an email address or a mobile number can be matched from your WiFi. Tick Guest agreed to marketing only when the guest said so.
7. Guest notes (allergies, access) and Staff notes. The guest never sees staff notes.
8. Click Book. The diary confirms with the reference, the guest, the party and the time.

If the connection drops as you click Book, the form reads "No answer came back, so the booking may have been taken. Book again from this form: it will not book the party twice." Click Book again. When the first click did make the booking, the diary confirms it with "This booking had already been taken." Any guest details or notes you corrected in the meantime are saved onto that booking, and the diary adds "The details from this form have been saved onto it." If you corrected the email address, the confirmation went to the earlier one, so the diary asks you to resend it from the booking's page. The guest's marketing choice cannot be changed after a booking is taken: if you changed Guest agreed to marketing before trying again, the diary says which choice the booking kept. If you changed the party, time or area before trying again, the form reads "A booking from this form may already have been taken. Check the diary before you book this party again."

A booking taken here shows its source as On the phone, At the desk or Walk-in in the list and on the booking's page, beside Booking page, Website embed and WiFi splash for bookings guests made themselves.

Arrived, seated, completed, no-show and cancel

The buttons at the end of a row are the moves the booking can make from where it is. Each is confirmed first.

Move	Offered on	What happens
Arrived	Confirmed, No-show	The booking becomes Arrived and its reservation is marked attended. On a No-show it is the reversal for a party that turned up late
Seated	Arrived	The booking becomes Seated
Completed	Arrived, Seated	The booking becomes Completed
No-show	Confirmed	Takes an optional note, stored as the reason. The booking becomes No-show and its reservation is marked no-show. The deposit, when one was taken, is kept
Cancel	Holding, Confirmed	Held to confirm, because a cancelled booking cannot be reinstated. Takes an optional note. The covers go back on sale and the guest is emailed a cancellation notice

The confirmation for No-show and Cancel has a Note (optional) box; the button reads Mark no-show or Cancel booking. If the booking changed under you, for example the guest cancelled from their own page while you were marking them arrived, the page says "This booking changed while you were working on it. Refresh and try again."

Statuses

Status	Meaning
Holding	A time a guest is holding on the booking page, for up to ten minutes while they give their details. A hold that carries a deposit step reads Awaiting deposit instead, once deposits can be taken on the page
Confirmed	Booked; the confirmation has gone
Arrived	The party is in, marked by staff or matched from your WiFi
Seated	Marked seated by staff
Completed	The visit is over
No-show	Nobody came, marked by staff or once the booking window closed with no WiFi match
Cancelled	Cancelled by the guest, by staff or by CaptiFi
Expired	A held time the guest never finished booking

The bookings list

Bookings then Bookings lists every table booking at your venues. The page reads "Every table booking at your venues: upcoming, past, cancelled and no-shows. Open a booking for its details, history and the messages sent. Times are shown on each venue's own clock."

1. Choose when: Today and upcoming (the default), Today, Past, Everything, or Dates with a From and To of your own.
2. Narrow by status with All statuses, and, when one venue is on screen, by service with All services.
3. Search by reference, name, email or phone.
4. The columns are When, Guest, Party, Status and Reference, with Venue added when every venue is on screen. The row actions are the same as the diary's.

Click a row to open the booking. Open the diary at the top takes you back to the diary.

A booking's page

The page is headed with the guest and the party, the status, the source and the reference (in the form TB-7F3K9Q), with the same move buttons as the diary and Back to the diary, which reopens the diary on the booking's venue and day.

• Booking: Venue, Service, Area, Table, Duration, Taken by (a team member's name, or "The guest"), Booked, Occasion, and Cancelled, Arrived or No-show with the time and how it was marked. Guest's manage link is the guest's own page, with Copy link, so you can send it to a guest who lost their email. Whoever holds the link can change or cancel the booking as the guest, so it shows only to the account holder and to team members with Manage table bookings.
• Guest: Name, Email (with Copy email), Phone, Marketing consent and the Consent text they were shown. A guest whose details have been erased shows as Anonymised, with the line "This guest's details have been erased."
• Deposit, when one applies: Mode, Charged and Refunded in the booking's currency.
• Notes: Guest notes (allergies, access) and Staff notes, edited in place and saved with Save notes. Saving a note changes nothing else about the booking, and sends only the note you changed, so a note another team member saved while you were editing is kept. The editor says so when that happens: "Someone else has changed these notes since you opened them." Once guest notes have been cleared 90 days after the booking, the card reads "Guest notes are cleared 90 days after the booking and cannot be added again." and only staff notes can be edited. An anonymised booking's notes cannot be edited at all.
• Messages sent: each Confirmation, Reminder or Cancellation, by email or by text, with when it went. "Nothing sent yet." until the first.
• History: every change with When, Change (for example "Confirmed to Arrived"), who made it and the Note.

Sending the confirmation again

1. Click Resend confirmation. It is offered on a booking that has an email address and is confirmed or has arrived, seated or completed; a cancelled, expired or no-show booking, or one whose guest has been erased, does not offer it.
2. Confirm with Send again.

The confirmation is sent to the address on the booking, up to three times an hour per booking. A booking with no email address says "This booking has no email address to send the confirmation to."

Enquiries

A party larger than your Largest party online cannot book on the page. It can send an enquiry, which is emailed to your Larger parties email and listed under Bookings then Enquiries. The page reads "Parties larger than your online maximum can send an enquiry from your booking page. Reply to the guest, and book the table from here once a time is settled."

1. Use the tabs All, New, Replied, Booked and Closed, and search by name, email or phone. New enquiries are listed first.
2. Each row shows Received, From (the guest with their email and phone, and their note), Party, Wanted (the day and time they asked for), Status, Venue when every venue is on screen, and Booking once one exists, with a link to it and who handled it.
3. Replied marks the enquiry replied once you have answered the guest by email or phone. The reply itself is yours to send.
4. Close marks an enquiry you will not book. The confirmation reads "The enquiry is marked closed and drops out of the new list. It can still be booked later from the Closed tab."
5. Book it turns the enquiry into a booking. The form opens with the enquiry's Party and Date; Time lists the times with room for that party on that day, with the wanted time picked when the day still offers it, and Area is optional (Any by default). Click Book it. The guest's details come across, their note becomes the booking's guest notes, the confirmation is emailed and the enquiry shows as Booked with a link to the booking.

The guest's note on an enquiry is shown as they wrote it and cannot be edited, since it often holds allergy or access needs. A time that filled up while you were on the phone is refused with "That time is now full for a party of this size." An enquiry another team member has just handled is refused with "This enquiry has already been handled."

Reports

Bookings then Reports shows how your bookings ran over a period, for one venue or all of them. The page reads "Bookings, covers, arrivals, no-shows and cancellations for a period, per day and per service, and where the bookings came from. Covers count bookings that hold a table; a cancelled or expired booking counts in its own column only. Every date is on the venue's own clock."

1. Pick a venue, or All venues.
2. Pick the period with From and To, or a preset: This month, Last 30 days or Next 30 days. The last 30 days is the default; a period can be up to 366 days. The period sits in the page address, so a report can be bookmarked or shared.
3. Read the totals: Bookings, Covers booked, Covers arrived, No-shows, No-show rate and Cancelled.
4. Below them, By day (date, bookings, covers, arrived, no-shows, cancelled), By service (bookings, covers, arrived, no-shows) and Where bookings came from, split by source.

Export CSV

Click Export CSV to download the bookings in the period as a spreadsheet. The columns are Reference, Status, Venue, Date, Time, Ends, Party, Service, Area, Table, Guest, Email, Phone, Occasion, Source, Marketing consent, Arrived at, Arrived via, No-show at, Cancelled at, Cancelled by, Deposit, Currency and Booked at. Text cells such as names, emails and the occasion are written so that a spreadsheet cannot run them as formulas. The button is shown to the account holder, an admin, or a team member with Export data as well as View guest data, for up to ten exports a minute.

What your guests receive

Every message goes to the email address on the booking, in the language the guest booked in, with times on the venue's own clock. They are the booking's own messages: no marketing consent is read and nothing counts against your email allowance.

Message	Subject	When it goes
Confirmation	Your table at [venue] on [date]	The moment a booking is confirmed, online or by staff. Not for a walk-in
Booking changed	Your table at [venue] has changed	When a confirmed booking's time, party or area changes, by the guest or by staff
Reminder	Reminder: your table at [venue] on [date]	The Reminder, hours before you set, before the booked time
Cancellation	Your table at [venue] has been cancelled	When a confirmed booking is cancelled, by the guest or by staff

The confirmation is headed "Your table is booked" and lists When, Where (your venue's name and address), Party, Reference, the Area and Occasion when set, Deposit paid when one was charged, and your Note on the confirmation under "A note from [venue]". A Manage your booking button opens the guest's page, with the line "Use the button above to change the time or party size, or to cancel." A calendar file is attached to the confirmation and to a booking changed email. The cancellation ends with "You can make a new booking with the venue at any time."

The reminder goes once per booking. A booking made inside the reminder window, or less than an hour before it, gets no reminder because its confirmation has just arrived; a booking that has started, been cancelled, marked a no-show or arrived gets none. Moving a booking recalculates its reminder: moved into the window, the booking changed email stands as the reminder; moved further out, it is reminded again for the new date.

The guest's own booking page

The Manage your booking button in the confirmation email, the link in the confirmation text and the button on the booking page all open the guest's own page at app.captifi.io/my-booking/..., a link unique to the booking. It shows the status (Confirmed, Arrived, Completed, Not arrived or Cancelled), the reference, When, Party, Where with your address, the Area and Occasion when set and Deposit paid when one was charged, on the venue's clock. From it the guest can:

• Change your booking: a new date, time or party size, under the same rules as a new online booking (your party bounds, days ahead and lead time, and only areas offered online). The form says "Changes are open until [time] on [date]": your free-cancellation line when you set one, and never later than your lead time before the start. After that, or when the booking as it stands could not have been made online (a party of twelve a staff member took at a venue whose online maximum is eight), the page reads "This booking can no longer be changed online. Please contact the venue." The guest's own time stays offered on its own date, so a full slot never hides the table they already hold. A change sends the booking changed email.
• Cancel your booking: open until the booked time, whatever the free-cancellation line says, with a reason from a fixed list: My plans have changed, Someone is unwell, I have booked somewhere else, My party size has changed and I will rebook, Another reason. The reason is recorded on the booking. When a deposit was charged the page adds "Free cancellation until [time] on [date]. Your deposit of [amount] will be refunded in full." or "The free cancellation window closed at [time] on [date]. Your deposit of [amount] will be kept if you cancel now." Once the booking has started the page reads "This booking has started. Any change is now with the venue."
• Add to calendar: Download .ics, Google Calendar and Outlook, each on the venue's clock. Not offered on a cancelled booking.
• Send the confirmation again: by email, up to three times an hour per booking. The fourth reads "The confirmation has been sent three times in the last hour. Check your spam folder or try again later."
• Book another table at [venue]: back to your booking page while it is live.

A cancelled booking still opens, read-only, with "This booking was cancelled at [time] on [date]." A booking whose guest details have been erased no longer opens.

Texts

With Text the confirmation and reminder too on, a guest who gave a mobile number also gets the confirmation and the reminder as texts, for example "[Venue]: your table for 4 guests is booked for Sat 3 Oct at 19:00. Ref TB-7F3K9Q. Change or cancel: [link]". The confirmation text goes once, with the first confirmation; a guest who asks for the confirmation again from their own page gets it by email only, so that resend spends none of your credits. Each text uses your credits at the usual rate; nothing is sent while the account has no SMS Marketing or no credits. A reminder text is held through the venue's quiet hours and is dropped if the booking starts first.

Marketing messages around a booking, such as a thank-you on the day or a "sorry we missed you" after a no-show, are automations you create; see Messaging, segments and webhooks.

Arrivals from WiFi

Every table booking is also a reservation, so the WiFi matching that Reservation check-in does for imported bookings works for these without any setup:

• Every 15 minutes CaptiFi compares confirmed bookings against connections to the venue WiFi. A booker whose email address or mobile number connects during the booking window is marked Arrived, with the history reading "seen on the venue WiFi". The window opens 30 minutes before the booked time and closes an hour after the party's turn time ends.
• A booking that sees no matching connection by the time the window closes is marked No-show automatically. Staff can reverse it with Arrived if the party turned up late.
• A booking made with an email address is matched only to that guest's own WiFi sign-in. Someone else in the household who connects with the shared phone number under their own email address does not arrive the booking.
• A booking staff mark Arrived or No-show by hand keeps that mark; a WiFi arrival is never thrown away by a later amend.

Bookings and reservations

Each booking writes one row to your Reservations page the moment it is confirmed, with Table booking as its source, the reference as its confirmation number and the party size. The booking is the record: arrive, seat, no-show and cancel on the booking update the reservation, and a WiFi arrival found on the reservation marks the booking arrived. Change a booking from the Bookings pages.

Because bookers are reservations, everything that reads attendance reads them too: the Attended a booking segment condition, the Only ask guests with an attended reservation rule on Google Reviews, the When a booking turns up automation trigger, and the reservation.attended webhook. A booker is added to your guest list when they book, tagged from the booking, with marketing consent only when they ticked the box, and does not count as a visit or against your monthly guest allowance until they connect to your WiFi. Each guest's profile shows their bookings on the Bookings card.

Messaging, segments and webhooks

With Table bookings on, your bookers plug into the same tools as your WiFi guests. The details are on the pages linked here.

• Email automations gain four triggers: When a table is booked, Before a table booking (at the venue's Reminder, hours before, alongside the guest's own reminder), When a booked party arrives and When a booked party does not turn up. All four go only to bookers who ticked the marketing box. See Email Automations.
• Text automations gain the same four, each with a ready-made message. See SMS.
• Seven merge tags put the booking into any email or text: the reference, date, time, party size, venue, area and the guest's manage link. See Table booking triggers and Bookings in your texts.
• Segments gain Booked a table (at any venue, at one venue, or within the last N days) and Table booking no-shows (a count). See Segments.
• Webhooks can subscribe to booking.created, booking.amended, booking.cancelled, booking.attended and booking.no_show. See Webhooks.

Who can do what

The account holder can do everything on this page. For team members (set up under Team members):

• View guest data is needed to see the Bookings pages at all, because a booking carries the guest's name, email address and phone number. Without it the Bookings group is not in the member's sidebar and each page shows Bookings are restricted.
• Manage table bookings (in the Operations group, included in the Manager and Operations roles) lets a member take, amend and cancel bookings, run the diary, handle enquiries, and add, edit and remove services, areas, tables and closures. A member with View guest data alone reads every page, and where the buttons would be sees "Only team members with the Manage table bookings permission can take or change bookings." The settings page reads "Your team role does not include managing table bookings, so these settings are read-only."
• Export data, with View guest data, is needed for Export CSV on Reports.
• Switching the feature on or off, and the deposit terms, stay with the account holder and cannot be granted to a member.

On the Pro plan and above the bookings list and the enquiries can show every venue at once; on Growth they show one venue at a time, with the line "Showing one venue. Seeing every venue at once is part of the Pro plan."

Data retention and erasure

Guest notes routinely hold allergy and access needs, so they are emptied 90 days after the booking ended. The booker's name, email address, phone number, occasion, notes and manage link are erased 24 months after the booking ended, whatever its status, and the same goes for enquiries 24 months after the wanted date. The booking itself stays: its reference, party size, times, status, source and any deposit amounts remain in your lists and reports, with the guest shown as Anonymised.

Deleting or anonymising a guest under Delete (GDPR) or Anonymise (GDPR) on the Guest Visits page erases their details from every table booking and enquiry they made at the same time, and a scrubbed booking is never emailed or texted again. See GDPR & Compliance.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Likely cause	What to do
Page is live will not stay on	The venue has no time zone	Set it under My Locations, then save Bookings settings again
Bookings settings reads "Not taking bookings."	The account the venue belongs to does not have Table bookings switched on	That account turns it on under Dashboard features on its Integrations page, on the Growth plan or above
The booking page shows no times	No service covers that day, the day is closed, or every time is full or inside the lead time	Check Services and Closures and one-day limits for the venue
A guest says they could not book their party	The party is above Largest party online or below the smallest	They can send an enquiry; or take the booking from the diary, which ignores the online bounds
The diary shows "Over capacity at ..."	A cap was lowered or a closure added after bookings were taken for that time	Nothing is cancelled. Raise the cap with a one-day limit, or leave it and take no more for that time
A booker was not marked arrived	They connected with a different email address or phone number, or outside the booking window	Mark Arrived from the diary; see Arrivals from WiFi
No reminder went out	Reminder, hours before is 0, the booking was made inside the window, or it was cancelled, arrived or started first	Set the hours on Bookings settings
No text went out	The switch is off, the guest gave no mobile number, or the account has no SMS Marketing or no credits	See Who receives your messages
The form on your website shows nothing	The page is not live, or the Page address changed after the code was pasted	Switch Page is live on and save, then paste the current code from Put it on your website
A guest says their second booking was refused	They already hold a live booking at the venue that day under the same email address, and the same mobile number when they gave one	Take the second booking from the diary, or ask them to change the first from their own page
"This booking changed while you were working on it"	Someone else, or the guest, changed the booking first	Refresh and look again
Deposits will not switch on	Stripe is not connected for the venue, or the fee terms are not accepted	Both are under Events settings; see Ticket payments

Related pages

• Reservation check-in: the page every booking appears on, and how WiFi matching works
• Email Automations: the table booking triggers and merge tags
• SMS: credits, consent and the text automations
• Webhooks: the booking events and their payloads
• Ticket payments: Stripe and the fee terms that deposits need
• Team members: the Manage table bookings permission
• Events and tickets: the sister feature for ticketed nights