How do I approve or decline online booking requests?

With manual confirmation on, online bookings — all of them, or only big parties and short-notice bookings — arrive as requests you approve or decline, and so do customers' changes.

Online bookings arrive as pending requests when Require manual confirmation (online bookings only) is switched on in Settings → Bookings → How people book, under Approving online bookings. The setting is Available on Plus plan and above. Staff-created and imported bookings always confirm automatically.

Approve every online booking, or only some

With the switch on, every online booking waits for your team — unless you also switch on Approve only some online bookings. Then only the bookings caught by the conditions you set wait:

• Parties of this many or more wait — for example 8, so big tables get a human eye;
• Bookings made less than this many hours ahead wait — counted from when the customer books to the booking's time.

Set either to 0 to turn that condition off. With Approve only some online bookings on and neither condition set, no online booking would wait, and the page says so with a link to approve every online booking instead.

A special date can have its own rule on Settings → Bookings → Special dates (Approving online bookings: Approve every one or Confirm straight away), and it wins on its day. Which wins: "A special date's own approval rule wins on its day; otherwise approving only some bookings works only while approval is on, and a request from a party bigger than your online maximum always waits for approval."

Approving or declining

• Find the request — pending bookings show on the Bookings page's Active tab, each with an Approve button on its row, and under Needs attention on Home (labelled "Awaiting approval"). When only some bookings wait, a chip beside the status says why: Big party, Short notice or Special date.
• Open the booking. Its action bar shows two buttons: Approve and Decline (the Approve button also sits on the row itself in the list and on Home).
• Click Approve to accept — the customer then receives the booking confirmation email (and SMS, if enabled).
• Click Decline to turn it down — this cancels the request. For a request with a customer email, a pop-up titled Decline this booking request? appears first with Add a personal note (optional, max 500 chars) — anything you type appears in the declined-booking email. The confirmation dialog then shows a ticked Notify the customer by … box when the customer can be reached — leave it ticked and they receive the declined-booking email; untick it to decline silently. If they paid a deposit, it's refunded in full automatically, whatever your refund policy says.

Requests from bigger groups

With Let bigger parties send a request on (same section; Available on Plus plan and above), a party bigger than your online maximum can send you a request from your booking page instead of being asked to call. It arrives as a pending booking with a Group request chip — no table and no payment yet. It isn't turned away by your guests limit or pacing rules (you decide), but while it waits it counts towards them, so a group you're about to accept can still be seated. Approve it and arrange the tables, or Decline it. If you'd like a deposit once you've accepted, send a payment link from the booking.

When a customer changes a booking

A customer's change comes back to you for approval when the booking needed approval when it was made — or when the changed booking would need it now (a party that grows past your size, a move to short notice or onto a special date that approves every booking). Only a change of date, time or party size counts — a new note or allergy doesn't. The booking shows a Change to approve chip, and its action bar shows Approve change and Decline change:

• Approve change accepts it, like any approval.
• Decline change keeps the customer's original booking: "Decline this change? … original booking stands … Nothing is cancelled and no money moves." The date, time, party size and length go back to what they were, with the original table if it's still free — if it has been taken, the booking waits in Unassigned and you're told. Leave Email the customer that their booking is unchanged ticked and they're told their booking is unchanged.

While a change waits, the customer can't change the date, time or party size again (they can still add notes), and their manage-booking page says their original booking stands if you can't make the change. On a paid-in-full booking, the refund for a smaller party is held with the change: it's paid if you approve the change, and never if you decline it.

What the customer sees

When their booking will wait for you, your booking page says so before they commit: the button reads Send booking request and a line says "{your venue} will confirm by email" — adding that any deposit or payment is refunded if you can't, when one is taken. After submitting, the booking page shows "Request Submitted!" with "Your booking request has been sent for manual confirmation." — so customers know it isn't locked in until you approve it — and they receive a "request received" email.

Related: How do I choose how people can book? · When can customers book? · How do I cancel a booking (and what happens to the deposit)? · Which confirmations and reminders do customers get?