Reservations

What it is#

Your ordering page gets a second address: your-restaurant.flavoso.com/reserve. There a guest picks the party size, the day, the time and leaves a name and a phone number or email address.

Only times inside your opening hours are offered, and only those where there is still room for exactly that party size. Special days and holidays count here just as they do for orders.

Reservations belong to the Pro plan, together with table QR and the kitchen screen.

Switching it on#

In the dashboard under Settings, tab Reservations. While the switch is off, the booking page says nothing is available right now; entering bookings by hand always works anyway.

1. 1

   Switch it on

   Set “Accept reservations” to on.

   Dashboard, Settings, Reservations

2. 2

   Pick the flow

   Confirm only, or with arrival and finish. Confirm only means you click at most once per booking, and what is over moves down by itself. That is the default and the right one for most restaurants.

3. 3

   Set the duration

   How long a table counts as occupied. 90 minutes is usual.

4. 4

   Choose the grid

   In what steps times are offered. 30 minutes means 18:00, 18:30, 19:00 and so on.

5. 5

   Set the lead

   The earliest number of hours ahead a booking is allowed, and the maximum number of days ahead.

6. 6

   Check the tables

   Under Tables and QR, enter the number of seats on every table. Flavoso works out from that which party fits where.

7. 7

   Decide about combining

   Off means only what fits at a single table is bookable online. On means tables may be pushed together, up to the number next to it.

8. 8

   Hand out the link

   Copy the booking link and put it on the flyer, into your Google listing and into your social media profile. Or put the embed code on your own website.

How occupancy is calculated#

In tables. A party is only bookable online if it fits at a free table. Two tables for four do not make a table for eight, even when eight seats are free.

You enter a table's seats under Tables and QR, right in the table row. A table without a number counts with the default from the reservation settings.

Combining tables is allowed as soon as you switch it on, and only up to the number you set next to it. Before that a larger party reads please call, and you decide on the phone.

How many people can book online at most is written as a sentence under the fields. Enter more under largest party online than your room can hold and the box tells you right away.

Seats at the same time is an additional cap for the whole evening, for instance when the kitchen reaches its limit before the room does. Without a table list it is the only limit there is.

A reservation occupies its whole duration, not just its start time. A party from 19:00 to 20:30 therefore also blocks 19:30 and 20:00.

The evening in the dashboard#

Under Reservations every day is its own tab, with the count next to it. Today is preselected, and the bar starts at today. Past days sit behind the tab Earlier, fourteen days back.

A day's list is split into sections. Expected is at the top, so everything still to come. Below that, collapsed, is Over, and at the very bottom Cancelled and no-show. That way nothing that is not coming stands between the bookings that are.

Anyone expected and more than ten minutes overdue gets an amber border and the word overdue. From three bookings on there is also a bar per hour above the list with the number of guests, so you can see when it gets tight.

The search field above the list covers all loaded days, not just the selected one. It searches name, phone, email, booking number and note. On a hit the date is shown in the row.

Per reservation you see the time, party size, name, contact and the guest's note. How many buttons appear depends on the flow you chose in the settings. With confirm only it ends after confirming, and a booking counts as over once its occupancy duration has run out. With arrival and finish there is a button for the next step (open, confirmed, seated, done), and four dots show where the party currently is.

Everything that is not that path sits behind the three dots next to it: cancel, no-show, set back to open and delete. The states Seated and Done are there in any case, even if you chose the short flow.

Cancelling and deleting are two different things. Cancelled means: the guest gets a mail, the row stays as a record, the table becomes free again. You delete what should never have existed, for instance a reservation you typed in twice while on the phone. Nothing goes out to the guest for that.

You assign tables with the button on the left, and you assign several. If you switched combining on, this is exactly the case it is meant for: a party of eight gets table 3 and table 4. Next to the selection stands the sum of the seats, so you can see whether it is enough.

Phone bookings go in at the bottom of the same page. They count exactly like a booking from the website, so occupancy is in one place and not on a note beside it. No capacity limit applies to you here: you see the room, we see a number.

Only times you are really open are offered. For the exception, a private party for instance, there is a checkbox below with which you can type in any time.

The phone form also has a field for the email address. Enter one and the guest gets the same confirmation as with an online booking, cancellation link included.

What the guest gets#

On the booking page we ask for their email address and, optionally, their phone number. The address is the required field, because that is where the confirmation and the cancellation link go; without it they have neither a record nor a way back.

They get a confirmation straight away with the date, the party size and a booking number.

If the settings say you confirm every booking yourself, they first read we will get back to you. As soon as you tap Confirm in the dashboard, a second mail goes out telling them their table stands. If you cancel, they learn that by mail too, instead of standing at the door.

Every one of those mails carries a cancellation link. A guest without an account can cancel themselves with it, instead of calling or simply not turning up. A table that comes back in time is real money.

The link cancels immediately and says so. There is no second button to press: whoever taps Cancel in the mail has cancelled, and the page confirms it to them. That the cancellation still does not happen from merely fetching the address (mailboxes check links on their own) is the same mechanism as the account confirmation link.

The guest cannot move a booking. For that they should call: changing a time means replanning the evening, and that is your call.