Module · Bookings (incl. Experiences, Staff, spaces & equipment, Check-in)

Where to find it in the app

• Use it: Bookings → Bookings
• Turn it on/off: your business name (top-left) → Settings → Modules → Bookings → Bookings

Plan: Solo and Business · Module group: Bookings & schedule · Navigation: Bookings and the related pages Experiences, Staff, spaces & equipment and Check-in in the same group.

Bookings is the heart of HappierBiz. It is really four connected screens:

1. Experiences, what customers can book (you set this up first).
2. Staff, spaces & equipment, the staff, spaces and equipment a booking uses.
3. Bookings, the live list of reservations you manage day to day.
4. Check-in, the door, on the day.

Your wording. "Booking" is renameable per business, your menus and screens may say appointment, class, party, job or lesson. This manual uses "booking" generically.

A. Experiences, what customers can book

A1. Overview

An experience is anything you let a customer book. Each experience has a type that shapes its booking flow and sets smart defaults, while every value stays editable. Set up your experiences before taking online bookings.

The five types:

A2. Required permissions

• Manage experiences & packages (experiences.manage).

A3. Navigation path

Bookings → Services

A4. Step-by-step, create an experience

1. Go to Bookings → Services and choose Add (or pick a type under "What can people book?").
2. Pick the type (Appointment, Class, Group, Event, Rental).
3. Fill in The basics: Name, a one-line summary (shown under the name on your booking page), and the Live toggle ("customers can book this").
4. Set Pricing, choose a pricing model and enter the price:
   • Flat, one price.
   • Per person, price × number of people.
   • Per unit, price × units (set the unit label, e.g. "hour"), for rentals. Then say what one unit is:
     • A length of time (the default, and what hire by the hour or day means): the customer picks how many, and the booking runs that long and holds the whole window, so nobody can book the middle of it. Three hours on a one-hour duration is a three-hour booking.
     • A thing they take (3 kayaks): the price multiplies but the booking keeps its normal length. Customers choose the number before picking a time, so the times offered are only the ones the whole hire fits into.
   • Package, offer selectable packages (each with a name, blurb, inclusions list, price and its own duration).
   • For events/classes you can add ticket types (e.g. Adult, Child) with their own prices, these are named ticket categories on top of (or instead of) the per-person price.
   • Per-staff pricing (optional), override the price for specific staff members (e.g. a senior stylist charges more for the same service).
   • Class passes (classes), sell a multi-session bundle up front: a flexible pass (buy N credits to use on any session until expiry) or a term enrolment (a held seat in specific weekly sessions), with your choice of missed-session policy (forfeit, make-up, refund, or reviewed case-by-case). Passes appear on your booking page alongside single sessions; sold passes are managed from the admin Passes view.
5. Set Time & capacity: duration, capacity, and, depending on type, class times (recurring days + time) or event dates (one-off occurrences). On your public booking page, scheduled types (class/event) show only your real upcoming dates as tappable chips, while rolling types (appointment, group, rental) use an open calendar.
   • Waitlist, for scheduled types, when a session is full customers can join the waitlist; if a spot frees up, the next person in the queue is emailed.
6. What it uses, attach the spaces & equipment this experience needs (a staff member, a room, equipment). This drives availability.
7. Booking rules:
   • Delivery, what the customer gets after booking: A confirmation (date, time, who, a code, best for appointments/rentals) or A ticket with QR check-in (best for events, classes, parties). For ticketed experiences you can also control Individual tickets: every attendee gets their own QR ticket, so a group can arrive separately and each person is scanned in on their own. Events default to one separate ticket per guest, while groups and parties default to one shared group ticket, and you can adjust this per experience.
   • Check-in, how people are checked in at the door: Staff check in, Scan tickets (QR) or Self check-in kiosk. Each shows a "Default for " hint until you override it.
8. Cancellation & reminders: let customers cancel and/or reschedule themselves, set a late-change penalty, and switch on a reminder + confirm message.
9. Booking questions (optional), add your own questions (e.g. "Allergies & dietary needs", "Preferred stylist"), each required or optional.
10. Payment to book, take a deposit or full payment at booking; the deposit can be a fixed amount or a percentage.
11. Optional extras (add-ons), named extras with a price, optionally per person.
12. Terms (optional), terms the customer agrees to.
13. Use the Availability preview to sanity-check open times, then Save.

A4b. Faster, paste your whole price list and let AI set it up

You do not have to build each one by hand. On the "What can people book?" screen there is a box headed "Describe what you offer and we'll set it up". Type or paste your price list in plain English, however you would say it to a new staff member, and HappierBiz drafts the lot for you to check.

It reads and sets up, in one go:

• Several offerings at once (up to 12), one per thing you named. Price variants that are really separate bookings, small dog vs large dog, 30 min vs 60 min, come out as separate offerings.
• Prices, including Adult / Child / Concession ticket types on a class or event, and named packages on a group booking.
• Times, the set start times you offer ("we only start these at 9, 11, 1 and 3"), a class timetable ("Tue and Thu 6pm, Sat 10am"), and an event's dates.
• Paid extras ("+ $15 nail trim, $20 teeth clean") on the offering you described them against.
• Deposits, notice periods, approval, cancellation terms and the questions you want asked at booking.

Then you get a review list showing exactly what it read, with the times, extras and deposits spelled out on each row. Untick anything you do not want and press Save. They are saved turned off so you can check the detail first, unless you tick "Put them straight on my booking page". Nothing is saved until you press Save, and you can open any of them afterwards and fine-tune.

If your list is longer than it can read in one go, it says so and asks you to send it in two goes, rather than quietly setting up only part of it. It never invents a price, time or capacity you did not give: anything missing is called out in the note at the top of the review list, so you know what still needs your attention.

Drafting uses your business's shared monthly AI allowance (see AI assistant).

A5. Examples

• Beginner (salon): an Appointment called "Cut & style", flat $55, 45 min, attached to the stylists, confirmation delivery, staff check-in.
• Real-world (venue): a Group booking "Kids' party" with two packages (Standard/Deluxe), a $110 deposit, an add-on "Extra pizza /person", a booking question "Allergies", and a QR ticket + staff check-in.
• Advanced (studio): a Class "Yoga" with recurring class times (Mon & Wed 9:30), Adult/Concession ticket types, full payment to book, and a kiosk for self check-in.

B. Staff, spaces & equipment (staff, spaces & equipment)

B1. Overview

Staff, spaces & equipment are the bookable things an experience consumes, staff, spaces (rooms/areas) and equipment. They control availability and prevent double-booking.

B2. Required permissions

• Manage spaces & equipment (resources.manage).

B3. Navigation path

Bookings, then Staff, spaces & equipment

B4. Step-by-step, add a space, staff member or piece of equipment

1. Choose the kind to add: staff, space or equipment.
2. For staff, pick the team member (add them in Team → Staff list first); optionally give them a colour. A staff entry linked to a team member can take its availability from the roster.
3. For space/equipment, give it a name (e.g. Party room, Kayak #3).
4. Set capacity and the capacity mode (e.g. people, or simultaneous bookings).
5. Set Hours, leave Custom hours off to use your venue's opening hours, or turn it on to give it its own hours.
6. Set Active (available for bookings) and Save.

B5. Example

A gym adds two staff trainers (roster-driven) and one space "Studio A" (capacity 12). A class experience attached to Studio A can't be over-booked past 12.

C. Bookings, the live list

C1. Overview

The Bookings screen is your working diary: every upcoming reservation, who owes money, your history, and incoming requests to approve.

C2. Required permissions

• View bookings (bookings.view) to see it; Create bookings (bookings.create), Edit bookings (bookings.edit), Delete / cancel bookings (bookings.delete) and Approve booking requests (bookings.approve) for the corresponding actions. Marking a balance paid uses Take / charge payments (payments.charge).

C3. Navigation path

Bookings

C4. What you'll see

• A summary band: Today, Upcoming, Balance due, Requests, and a Next booking chip.
• Six tabs:
  • Upcoming, an agenda grouped by day (reads like a diary even at 30+/day).
  • Past, searchable history (by name, phone or email, with a date range), loaded a page at a time.
  • Balance due, everyone who owes, oldest first.
  • Pending approval, incoming approval requests and custom enquiries.
  • Waitlist shows the join-the-queue waitlist for full sessions, where you see who's waiting and manage the queue.
  • Insights shows booking trends and figures (visible when the payments/money module is on).
• A New booking button.
• Each row shows the customer, date & time, party size (your attendee word), and Deposit / Balance pills (Paid / Deposit / Pending / Unpaid). A ✓ confirmed flag shows when the customer has confirmed.

band.

C5. Step-by-step tasks

Create a booking (staff-made):

1. Select New booking.
2. Choose the experience/customer, date and time, party size and contact details.
3. Save. It appears under Upcoming.

Open & manage a booking: Select any row to open the detail drawer, which shows Payment, booking details (name, contact, attendee count, theme, allergies/notes), and status. From here you can:

• Mark as paid (cash / eftpos), if you can charge payments and a balance is owing.
• Reschedule, pick a new date; for experience-based bookings you choose from available time slots, otherwise enter a time. The customer is notified.
• Cancel booking, with an optional reason; the slot is freed and the customer notified.
• Invitations, if invitations are on, manage the booking's invite/RSVP from here (see the Invitations & day plan module).

Approve a request:

1. Open the Pending approval tab.
2. For each pending item, choose Approve or Decline. The customer is notified; approved experience-bookings become live, and approved enquiries can be sent a deposit link.

If an approved deposit is never paid. By default nothing happens: the booking keeps its time until somebody cancels it by hand. To put a deadline on it, open Settings, find the Bookings card, and under Unpaid deposits choose how many days the customer gets. The clock starts when the payment link is emailed, not when the booking was made, so a booking you never asked to pay is never affected. Before the deadline we send one reminder; if it passes we cancel the booking, put the time back on sale, tell the customer plainly that nothing was charged, and let you and anyone on the waitlist know. Changing this only affects bookings approved from that point on, never ones already in the diary. While a deadline is running, the booking's Payment panel shows the date it expires.

Find a past booking:

1. Open the Past tab.
2. Type a name, phone or email and/or set a From/To date range.
3. Use Load more to page through results.

C6. Examples

• Beginner: take a phone booking with New booking, then Mark as paid when the customer pays the deposit at the counter.
• Real-world: each morning, work the Balance due tab oldest-first to chase outstanding balances before the booking date.
• Advanced: a customer asks to move their function, open the booking, Reschedule to a date with open slots; the system frees the old slot, re-checks availability and notifies them.

D. Check-in, the door, on the day

D1. Overview

Check-in is the live door list for today (and other days). It tracks each arrival through three states, Expected → On-site → Left, and offers faster modes for busy doors: a continuous QR scanner and a self-service kiosk.

Privacy note (set by your business). HappierBiz deliberately does not record who collects a child; if you need to note something, use the free-text notes. The kiosk shows only first name + last initial for privacy.

D2. Required permissions

• Use day-of check-in (checkin.use).

D3. Navigation path

Bookings → Check-in (with Scan tickets and Self check-in buttons in its header).

D4. What you'll see

• A search box, an experience selector (including All experiences), and filter chips: Everyone, Not arrived, On-site now, Left.
• A live list of attendees, each with Arrive / Leave / Reset controls, an allergy badge where relevant, and (for on-site bookings without a guest list) a headcount stepper.
• A summary of expected / on-site / left.
• A walk-in form to add someone who turns up without a booking.
• The list refreshes automatically so multiple staff can work the door together.
• If your business requires a waiver (set the text in Settings → Check-in), anyone whose waiver isn't recorded as signed shows a flag at the door. It's a prompt, not a block, staff can tick it off or check them in anyway.

arrival controls.

D5. Step-by-step

Staff check-in (default):

1. Open Bookings → Check-in. Pick the experience or All experiences.
2. As people arrive, select Arrive on their row (they move to On-site).
3. Adjust the headcount if the number differs from the booking.
4. When they leave, select Leave. Use Reset to undo a mistake.
5. For someone with no booking, use the walk-in form to add them as arrived.

Scan mode (ticketed events):

1. From Check-in, choose Scan tickets.
2. Allow camera access. Point the camera at each ticket's QR, valid tickets check in automatically (with a beep), with duplicate-scan protection and a running session count.

Kiosk mode (classes/gyms):

1. From Check-in, choose Self check-in and set it on a tablet at the door.
2. Customers tap their own name to check in; a full-screen success message confirms. The kiosk shows expected arrivals only, with privacy-safe names.
3. Choose Exit kiosk (staff) to leave kiosk mode.

D6. Examples

• Beginner (party venue): open Check-in for today's party and tap Arrive as guests come in; correct the headcount to the kids who actually showed.
• Real-world (event): put Check-in into Scan mode at the entrance and scan each QR ticket as people arrive.
• Advanced (gym): run the Kiosk on a wall tablet so members self-check-in to the 6am class, freeing staff for the floor.

Common mistakes (all of Bookings)

• Taking online bookings before setting up Experiences, there's nothing to book until at least one experience is Live.
• An experience with no spaces or equipment attached, availability can't be worked out; attach the staff/space it uses.
• Marking an experience Live while still drafting it, untick Live until it's ready.
• Choosing "ticket" delivery but "staff" check-in (or vice-versa), that's fine and common, but make sure the door method matches how you actually run it.
• Editing a booking expecting the customer to know, reschedule/cancel notify them, but manual field edits may not.

Troubleshooting

Error messages

The Bookings screens use inline toasts (e.g. "Booking created", "Booking cancelled, the customer has been notified.", "Moved to …"). Action failures return a short message in the same toast (e.g. a reschedule clash), read it and adjust. Camera-unavailable on Scan shows a graceful fallback explaining the device has no usable camera.

Related: Calendar · Payments · Invitations & day plan · Customers