Welcome to Check Cherry! Now that you're ready to dig in, this guide will cover a few concepts central to Check Cherry and give you tips for how to get started.
What do I need to do to start booking clients?
We've already pre-populated your account with some common defaults and samples, but the "Getting Started" checklist will include links to some of the most important things you'll want to take a look at, like setting up your packages and payment options.
Navigating Check Cherry
After you've created a new account and confirmed your email address, we'll take you to your business dashboard. The dashboard will eventually show you an overview of what's going in your business, but for now it's filled with resources to get you started.
Top Nav
From left to right, here's what you'll find in the top nav:
Logo: The logo for your business or a link to upload it
Search: Once you have some data in your system the "Search" box will be the quickest way to find it
Dashboard: The dashboard shows you your business operations at a glance
Sales: This menu is probably the most frequently used. It is full of things you need to work with on a "day-to-day" basis and includes leads, proposals, bookings, your calendar, and other items you deal with when interacting with customers.
Manage: This menu is full of settings to manage your business. This is where you can come to manage packages and add-ons, create a discount code, create and manage templates, create a new login for your staff, set travel fees, and much more.
Your Name: Settings and data specific to your account. If you just want to see information specific to your account (rather than business-wide) you'll find it here.
Create New: And lastly the "Create New" button is the quickest way to add something new to your account. If you want to quickly send a customer a proposal, record some lead data, or schedule an appointment, click here.
Videos & Getting Started Checklist
Videos: The central section of your dashboard is filled with a "Getting Started" video and a link to watch additional videos. These are a great way to learn about Check Cherry.
Let's Talk
Chat: Remember when you could ask a question and get an answer from a real person? Well at Check Cherry you still can. No AI bots here - just real people who genuinely want to help you grow your business. Just click the chat icon in the very bottom right and let us know how we can help.
Welcome Call: And if you're looking to discuss Check Cherry in more detail, feel free to schedule a welcome call. Whether you're feeling stuck and not sure where to start or want to dig into detailed questions specific to your business, just grab a time and we'll send a Zoom link.
Core Concepts
Now that you know where to find things, let's look at a few core concepts in Check Cherry.
Leads, Proposals, and Bookings
A lead is somebody that has expressed interest in your services. Leads can be entered manually (maybe somebody called you on the phone), collected via our embeddable "Lead Forms", automatically created by Check Cherry (somebody started to book you online but didn't finish) and more. If you have a lead, your goal should be to gather enough information to provide them a proposal. Check Cherry provides you tools to send automated follow ups to leads and to keep track of your next steps. When you're ready to close the deal, you can convert your lead to a proposal in one click.
Once you have enough information to provide them a price, you can send them a proposal. Proposals can be created from scratch, or generated from a lead. The proposal will present the customer with details and pricing for their event, and walk them through e-signing their contract, paying their deposit, and setting up an account for future use. Once accepted a proposal will become a "Confirmed Booking".
Confirmed bookings are customers that have agreed to your terms and typically paid a deposit. A confirmed booking is most commonly created when a customer books you online or when they accept a proposal. While in confirmed booking status, your customer can choose from your designs, fill out questionnaires, download their invoice, make further payments toward their balance, and much more. It's common to have automated messages go out to the customer after they book you, in the lead up to their event date, and after the event is over.
Online Booking vs. Proposals
We understand that different businesses like to sell in different ways and need to handle different types of customers. We find that most event services fall into one of these selling styles:
Online Booking: Check Cherry allows businesses to offer online booking. With an online booking workflow, you would typically set up your packages and services within Check Cherry and then add a link to your website or social media allowing them to book you online. The customer will be able to build out their event and we'll calculate pricing, ensure availability, collect customer details, offer add-ons, calculate tax and travel, and prompt them to e-sign your contract and pay the deposit. In this workflow a customer will skip the "lead" and "proposal" statuses and go directly to a confirmed booking without any work on your end.
Collect Details and Send Proposal: With this workflow you'll typically be collecting details, following up with customers to build them a personalized offer, and sending them a proposal when you're ready to close the deal. Setting up your packages and add-ons within Check Cherry makes creating proposals super easy, but you can also create "custom or one-off" packages, override pricing, override your contract terms, and make other changes as needed. With this workflow you might embed one of our lead forms on your website to collect customer information, set up a series of email follow-ups to prompt them to get in touch with you, send them a proposal after talking to them, and then set up a series of follow-up emails to prompt them to finalize their proposal.
Hybrid Approach: Most Check Cherry customers use a mix of both of these approaches. Allowing for online booking allows for many customers to service themselves and to find answers to most of their most common questions. This frees up time to spend with clients that require more guidance or that have more custom requirements.
Packages and Add-Ons
By setting up packages and add-ons within Check Cherry, you make it easy for your customers to see exactly what they are getting and how much it costs. If you offer online booking to your customers your customers will be able to easily compare packages and choose what works best for them. Or if you prefer to send a customer a proposal, by choosing one of the packages within your account you'll be able to create a beautiful proposal in just a few clicks with all ready to go.
Harnessing the full power of Check Cherry
Check Cherry is great for helping you close deals, but this is just the beginning. As you get more familiar with Check Cherry you can start to explore the features that will help you take your business to the next level, all the way from getting started to doing thousands of events per year:
Payment processing features allow your customer to pay using credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, PayPal, and many more.
Scheduling and availability tools so you know where you need to be and when, and so you can ensure you're never overbooked.
Questionnaires to help you and your customers plan their event
Service-specific features such as Backdrop Selection, Design Template integrations, Music Planning and much more.
Powerful automation to send messages to leads, proposals and bookings. Make sure they have whatever they need to take the next step.
Staff management tools ensure your staff is in the loop and know what they need to do.
Checklists allow you to keep track of what and your staff need to do next.
Travel fee and sales tax calculations for wherever you are providing services.
Website Integration tools to ensure a seamless customer experience.
Native iOS and Android apps to help you and your staff when on the go.
Customizable dashboard and advanced reporting to make sure you can understand the health of your business and get the information needed for tax and planning purposes.
There's no need to try to learn everything at once though. Check Cherry can be as simple or as powerful as you need it to be. We recommend starting out simple: send out a proposal to your next customer or set up some packages and add the booking link to your site. If you get stuck, chat with us and we'll point you in the right direction. And as you're ready to take your business to the next level and take advantage of more advanced features, we'll be here to help you take the next step.