Bookings — Cairn

Start hereBookings and membersBookingsTake bookings on your website and by phone: tables, rooms, classes, appointments or hire. This page covers setting up what can be booked, putting the booking form on a page, and running the day.Before you startBookings is a module that whoever set up your site switches on. When it is on, Bookings appears near the top of the sidebar and Settings has a Bookings tab.Each service decides how it is paid: on the day, a deposit when booking, or in full when booking by card. Card payments need your site's Stripe keys; without them every service is paid on the day.The Bookings screen has five tabs along the top: Day sheet, All bookings, Services, Tables, rooms & staff and Closures. When requests are waiting for you, a waiting for an answer count appears beside them.Setting up what can be bookedA service is one thing guests can book: "Dinner", "Double room", "Saturday yoga". Go to Bookings → Services and press New service. Under Start from, pick the nearest — Restaurant or café table, B&B or holiday room, Class, tour or event, Appointment or Equipment hire — and the form is filled in for you, hours included. Change anything after. If a service saves but nobody could book it (no tables ticked, no hours), it says why at the top of the service and on the Services list.

Basics: the Name, a Description shown with the booking form, and Taking bookings to open or close it.

What is booked: A time slot (tables, classes, appointments) or Nights (rooms, cottages).

Capacity: Shared places, a number of places shared by everyone at once, or Whole tables, rooms or staff, where each booking takes one whole table or room.

Times or Nights: how long a booking lasts and which start times are offered, or check-in and check-out times and the shortest and longest stay. Bookable hours can be the service's own, or your site's opening or kitchen hours.

Who can book: party sizes, the Notice needed (hours) and how far ahead people can book.

Confirmation & cancellation: Confirmed straight away, or You confirm each one, and whether Guests can cancel online up to a number of hours before.

Price and Extras are optional. Extra questions asks a form's questions as part of the booking. Show a Book button on this catalogue page puts a booking panel on a room's or class's own page. What guests need to know goes in the confirmation email.Editing a service.Tables, rooms and closuresIf a service books whole tables or rooms, add them on Tables, rooms & staff. Give each a Name, a Kind, Seats from and Seats up to, and tick which services it is Booked by. One table can serve lunch and dinner, and it is never booked twice at once.Something that has been booked before cannot be deleted, only archived, so old bookings still say which table they had.Use Closures for holidays, a private party or a room being redecorated. Choose From and Until, and in What closes pick everything, one service, or one table, room or person. Press Add closure.A closure does not cancel bookings already inside it. You are told how many there are, so you can contact those guests or move them.Putting the booking form on your siteAdd the Booking form block to a page, such as /book, in the page editor. In its settings, tick the Services it offers (none ticked offers them all), and change any of its wording. Four more blocks bring booking onto your other pages: Book button, Bookable services (cards with pictures and prices), and Booking availability (the next free time, or a calendar) all send guests to the page with the booking form, with the service already chosen; Booking details is the guest's own booking (below). Until you choose them in Settings → Bookings, the site uses the first published page holding each block.Guests choose a date, time and party size from what is actually free, then give their details. Depending on the service, they are booked straight away or told their request will be confirmed by email.What your guests see: only times that are actually free.The guest's confirmation, change and reminder emails carry a link to their booking. It opens the page with your Booking details block, where they can see the booking, pay anything left to pay, add it to their calendar, and cancel it if the service allows. If a service takes a deposit or the full price, the time is held for 15 minutes while they pay; unpaid, it is let go.Running the dayDay sheet shows one day's bookings: time, guest, party, table or room, status and phone number. Use the arrows or Today to move between days. A request waiting for you has Confirm and Decline buttons on its row.All bookings lists every booking. Filter by status, service or dates, or search by name, email, phone or reference.Open a booking to change the guest's details, add a Staff note only staff see, or move it in Move or change. The Status card has the next steps: Confirm, Decline, Cancel booking, Mark as arrived (or Mark as stayed) and No-show. Guest's link lets you copy the guest's own link to send them. If they paid online, the Payment card shows what was paid and refunded and has a Refund button for all or part of it. Declining a paid request always refunds it; when a guest cancels in time, the service's refund setting decides.The day sheet.Taking a booking by phone

Press New booking on the Bookings screen.

Pick the Service and the party size, then a free time (or the nights).

Fill in the guest's name, and their email and phone if you have them.

Leave Email the guest a confirmation ticked if they gave an email.

Press Add booking.

Staff are not held to the notice period, party limits or opening hours, but a full slot still says no. Someone with permission can tick Override: book even if it’s full or outside the rules.Emails and settingsGuests get an email when their booking is confirmed, requested, declined, cancelled or changed, plus a reminder before they are due. When you decline or cancel, you can add a reason and choose whether to email them. Change the words in Emails the site sends.In Settings → Bookings you set Send booking notifications to (blank uses the site email), Reminder email (hours before) (0 turns reminders off), whether to ask for the Guest’s phone number, the Terms shown under the Book button, and, if you run Leads, Add each website booking to Leads. Booking pages chooses the page with the booking form and the guest's own page, and Time held while a guest pays sets how long a time is kept for a guest paying online.← Customers and stockMembers →Getting startedPagesBuilding with blocksNavigation and lookMediaForms and leadsCatalogueShopBookings and membersRunning the siteCairnWebsites for businesses that need more than a brochure. Built, hosted and kept running by us.StartBuildRun© 2026 Cairn. All rights reserved.Built with Cairn.