On the Reservations Dashboard, you will be able to manage confirmed bookings, process outstanding reservation requests and configure your reservations settings. When a customer makes a reservation, someone from the restaurant's team has to confirm the reservation by processing it through the Reservations Dashboard.

Let's say that a guest has just submitted a reservation request on your website. The "Requests" tab is where you can see all outstanding requests. Here you can see the reservation's source, party size, ID number, time, name, phone number, and any notes. Requests from Reserve with Google also land here.

What to do: Use the "ACCEPT" button to approve the request if the party works for you, and if not, click the three dots to reveal the rejection option. Both accepting or rejecting the reservation will notify the customer.

It is important to understand that all incoming reservation requests are only considered as requests and not yet as a confirmed reservation until this action is taken.

Instead of accepting or rejecting the request right away, and can also click the red "Requested" status to view more details and options such as guest history, adding a message to the accept or reject action, suggesting an alternative time, and setting special statuses such as Expected, Confirmed, Seated, and Cancelled.

Once a request has been confirmed, it will move to the "Guest list" tab. Here all the reservations for the day are listed for the selected date and are organized chronologically.

What to do: When a guest arrives, click "SEAT" to complete the reservation status. This will move the reservation under the "completed parties" tab because the reservation has served its purpose.

You can also use the "NOTIFY" button to send the guest a message.

If you need to access the reservations that have been marked as "Seated", click the "view completed parties" link. Remember to filter by date!

When a guest does not submit the reservation request online themselves, you can add a reservation manually. This is often used in cases where a guest makes the request in-person or over the phone, as examples.

What to do: Use the "ADD PARTY" button on the Guest list tab.

This opens a prompt for you to add the details of the reservation party such as the phone number, email address, name, reservation date, time, number of covers, the reservation source, and space for notes.

After filling out the form and clicking "ADD", the reservation will appear in the Guest list with the "Expected" status instead of having the "Requested" status because the restaurant should have already verified availability when inputting this reservation.