Reservation settings
Party sizes, automatic or manual approval, how long tables are held, how far ahead people can book, and deposits.
These rules decide what a customer is offered when they try to book online, so between them they shape how full your diary gets and how much of it you have to manage by hand. Open Settings, choose your location, then Reservations. You can also reach the same page from the Settings tab on the Reservations page.
Party size
- Minimum Party Size is the smallest booking you will take online. Setting it to two is common, because a single cover sitting at a table for four on a Saturday night costs you the rest of that table.
- Maximum Party Size is the largest. Anything above it has to ring you instead, which is usually what you want for a party of twelve, since a group that size needs a conversation about menus, timings and deposits rather than a form.
Who approves bookings
Acceptance Mode is the setting worth thinking hardest about, because it decides how much of your evening is spent on the booking screen:
- Accept All confirms every booking automatically. It is the least work for you and gives you the least control over what lands in the diary.
- Manual Approval holds every booking until you confirm it. It gives you complete control, but it only works if somebody is genuinely watching, because a customer who does not hear back within an hour usually books somewhere else.
- Auto-Accept Up To confirms small tables by itself and holds anything above the size you choose for you to look at. Most restaurants settle here, because the bookings that need a human eye are almost always the big ones.
Time slots and table length
- Slot Interval sets how far apart your bookable times are, every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Shorter intervals fill gaps more neatly; longer ones give the kitchen a steadier flow of tables starting at once.
- Default Duration is how long a table is held for a booking. Set it to how long your guests actually stay rather than how long you would like them to, because if it is too short you will double-book a table that is still occupied, and if it is too long you will look fully booked on an evening when you had tables going spare.
How far ahead people can book
- Same-Day Notice is the least notice you are willing to accept for today. Two hours, for example, stops somebody booking a table for ten minutes’ time when the kitchen has no idea they are coming.
- Advance Booking is how many days ahead your diary is open. It stops people booking for a date so far away that your menu, your prices or your opening hours will have changed by then.
Capacity
- Max Reservations Per Slot is how many separate bookings you will take starting at the same time. Think of it as a kitchen limit rather than a dining room one: it is the number of tables that can sit down together without the pass falling behind.
- Max Covers is the same idea measured in people rather than tables, which matters because four tables of two and four tables of six are very different amounts of work.
Deposits
Switch on Require Deposit and then set the following:
- Deposit Required For Party Size, which is the size from which a deposit starts being asked for.
- Deposit Amount Per Person.
- Optionally a date range, so that you only take deposits over Christmas or on Valentine’s night and leave the rest of the year alone. That way the extra friction only applies on the nights where a no-show really hurts.
You can also write a cancellation policy, which is shown to the customer while they are booking so that they agree to it up front.
Start loose and tighten later. Rules that are too strict never reach you as complaints, because the customer simply cannot book and you never find out they tried. Begin with permissive settings, see what actually goes wrong over a few weeks, and then tighten the single setting that caused the problem.
Last updated 20 September 2026