Reception
Reception is the host stand’s home screen on the iPad. It’s where the front-of-house team takes bookings, greets guests at the door, and decides who sits where. Most venues dedicate one iPad to Reception (usually the one sitting at the host stand) and leave all the other iPads on Full service for the servers.
Reception has two main views, toggled from the top bar:
- Layout — the floor plan, with every reservation drawn on the table it’s booked to.
- Calendar — a time grid showing every table’s bookings for the whole day.
A persistent sidebar on the right lists today’s reservations, and is where you open reservation details, create new bookings, and seat walk-ins.
Reception is available on every iPad that has the Reservations tab in the bottom bar. When the venue has Reception mode enabled for the iPad in the Dashboard’s Devices page, that iPad also takes over seating — servers on other iPads can no longer open empty tables themselves. See How Reception affects the other iPads.
The top bar
Five sections across the top — left to right:
- Layout / Calendar toggle — switch between floor plan and time grid
- Room tabs — one pill per room (Main Dining, Patio, Bar…). Active room is highlighted; a small red dot appears on any room that has unassigned reservations for today.
- Live clock — updates every minute, 24-hour format
- Experience dropdown — filter the list to one service (e.g. Lunch, Dinner, Brunch — whichever ones your venue has set up in the Dashboard). Shows All experiences by default. Changes which bookings and time slots are visible.
- + New button (blue) — opens a two-option menu:
- New reservation — book a guest for a future date/time
- New walk-in — seat a guest who just arrived
Reservation statuses and colours
The same colours appear on tables, in the sidebar, and on calendar cards — they’re the single source of truth for where a booking stands.
Bookings that arrive via external channels (website widget, booking platforms) land as Pending (grey) and need a human to tap Confirm before the table shows on the floor plan. See action buttons below.
Layout view — the floor plan
Looks very similar to the Restaurant view, but every table is reservation-aware:
- Blue tables have a confirmed booking coming up (within the selected experience’s service window).
- Green tables have a guest sitting at them right now — the label also shows the guest count and the session duration (e.g. 1h 45m).
- Red tables are either no-shows or overtime (a seated guest past their booking’s end time). The duration text turns red.
Tapping a table in Layout view
- Empty table: nothing happens — the sidebar keeps showing the timeline.
- Table with a confirmed reservation: the sidebar swaps to the Reservation Detail for that guest.
- Seated table: same — tap to open the detail view for the guest who’s at the table, with session duration, any active tickets, and action buttons.
Switching rooms
Tap a room pill in the top bar. The floor plan (and the sidebar’s reservation list) filters to that room. If a room has any unassigned reservations today, its pill shows a small red dot — jump in to get them assigned.
Pinch/pan
Pinch to zoom and two-finger pan, just like Restaurant view, if your floor plan is bigger than the screen.
Calendar view — the time grid
Tap Calendar in the top-left to switch.
Three columns:
- Left panel: a search bar at the top, then filter pills: All / Unassigned / Confirmed / Seated / No Show / Late / Overtime / Completed. Below that, a scrollable list of reservations matching the active filter.
- Table column: every table in the current room, stacked vertically. Each row shows the table label and seat count.
- Time grid: hours of the day across the top, with reservation cards positioned where they fall. A blue vertical line marks now on today’s date. The grid snaps to whole hours as you scroll horizontally.
A header above everything shows the current date with ◀ / ▶ arrows and a calendar-icon picker for jumping to another day.
Filter pills (left panel)
Tap a pill to filter the list underneath:
- All — everything booked for this date
- Unassigned — bookings without a table. Also reveals a purple ✨ Auto-assign tables button above the list (see Auto-assign).
- Confirmed / Seated / No Show / Late / Overtime / Completed — filter by the matching status
Counts on the filter chips help you spot at a glance how today’s service is tracking.
Dragging a reservation card
Cards in the time grid are draggable:
- Drag up/down to move to a different table
- Drag left/right to shift the time
- Drag across multiple rows to start a merge — the cells the card overlaps will be combined into one booking (see Merging tables)
When you drop the card, a Move Reservation or Merge Tables confirmation modal pops up depending on what changed. Confirm to save or tap Cancel to snap the card back to where it was.
Dragging an unassigned reservation in from the left panel
Any reservation in the left panel without a table can be dragged straight onto the grid. Pick a cell (the right table at the right time) and drop — same confirmation modal appears.
The reservations sidebar
The right-hand panel is persistent — it’s there in both views. Its layout changes depending on what’s selected.
Default — today’s timeline
At the top:
- “Reservations” title
- A small “Today” link (only visible when you’ve scrolled away from today) — taps it to snap back
- + New button with the same New reservation / New walk-in menu as the top bar
- A current-time readout like “Today, April 16th — 18:45”
Below, a vertical timeline that scrolls through months and days. Months and past days are collapsed by default; today is auto-expanded. Each expandable day shows:
- A little day summary (total covers, occupancy)
- A purple Auto-assign tables button (if there are unassigned bookings for that day)
- A vertical timeline with one reservation row per booking, placed at the booking’s start time
Hourly ticks along the left guide the eye. The list snaps to each hour as you scroll.
A reservation row shows
- A table badge on the left with the table label (e.g. T5) — or a layout-icon with red background if unassigned
- Guest name (grey if completed, red if unassigned, strikethrough if cancelled)
- Party size (4 pax), tag dots, a cake icon for special occasions, a yellow VIP pill, and “X min late” or “X min over” badges where relevant
Tap a row to open the Reservation detail view.
Creating a new reservation
Tap + New → New reservation from either the top bar or the sidebar. The reservation form slides in from the right.
Phone number (required)
Start typing. As you do, a customer autocomplete dropdown suggests existing guests matching the number. Tap one to auto-fill their name and email, or just keep typing to create a new customer.
Full name (required)
The guest’s name — used on the floor plan, confirmations, and the kitchen ticket if there’s a special request.
Email (optional)
For confirmations, receipts, and future marketing.
Party size
− / + buttons (or type directly). Defaults to 2.
Experience, Room, Date
Experience auto-picks the first one active on the target date. Room auto-picks the first room attached to that experience. Date defaults to today — tap to open the month calendar and jump to any future date.
Time slot
A grid of all available 15-minute slots for that date + party + experience + room. Busy slots are greyed out, fully-booked slots disappear. Tap one to pick it.
Special occasion (optional)
Birthday, Anniversary, Date night, Business, and so on, plus a free-text field for extra detail.
Allergies (optional)
Free text — kitchen reads this when the guest sits down.
Other notes (optional)
Anything else — seating preferences, wheelchair access, etc.
Tap “Save reservation”
A green toast confirms “Reservation created — [Name] — [date] [time]” and the booking appears immediately in the sidebar, on the calendar, and (if you picked a specific table already) on the layout.
Reservations are created as Confirmed with no table assigned. The iPad will auto-prompt you to assign one as soon as you open the reservation. You can also leave it unassigned and run Auto-assign for the whole day later.
Creating a new walk-in
Walk-ins are for guests who arrive without a booking. They short-circuit the flow — create the walk-in, tap a table, and the guest is seated.
Tap + New → New walk-in. The form slides in and the floor plan behind it gets a red border with a “Select a table” banner.
Party size
− / + — defaults to 2.
(Optional) Guest information
Tap Guest information to expand. Fill in Name, Phone, Email if you have them. Skip all three for anonymous walk-ins — the system creates a generic Walk-in customer record.
Tap a table on the layout
The red overlay’s there to remind you. Tap any empty table in the current room to select it. The form updates to “Table selected — tap another table to change”.
Tap “Create walk-in”
The button unlocks once a table is picked. If the party is bigger than the table’s seat count, you’ll get a Capacity mismatch prompt first — “Assign [Guest] (X pax) to [Table] (Y seats)?” — tap Assign to override, or Skip to pick another table.
On confirm:
- A customer record is created (or found).
- A reservation is written with status = “seated” and source = “walk-in”.
- A table session is opened on the selected table — which is what makes the POS let servers start taking orders.
- A green toast: “Walk-in seated — [Name] (party of X)”.
- The form closes.
Walk-in duration defaults to the experience’s slot length (commonly 120 min for dinner, 60 for lunch). If another booking is coming for the same table later, the walk-in’s end time is automatically shortened so it doesn’t overlap.
If the current time is outside the auto-selected experience’s service hours (e.g. dinner service hasn’t started yet), the form shows a warning and the Create walk-in button stays disabled. Wait for service to start, or switch the experience dropdown at the top bar to the one that’s live.
Reservation detail view
Tap any reservation — on the floor plan, in the calendar, or in the sidebar — and the sidebar swaps to the detail view. Everything about that booking and every action you can take lives here.
What’s shown
Header: guest name (tap to open Customer profile). Underneath: “Reservation made X ago”.
Table card:
- Assigned: a coloured table badge with the label, “Table X”, and the room name. Tap it to unassign the table (the reservation goes back to Confirmed + no table).
- Not assigned: a red “Not assigned to a table — tap to assign a table” card. Tapping it paints a red “Select a table” overlay on the floor plan and gives you two choices:
- Tap one table → single table assigned
- Tap multiple tables → merge them together for a large party (see Merging tables)
- Merged: the label shows “Table 5 + Table 6 + Table 7”. A small Unmerge tables link appears underneath for splitting them back up.
Status strip (confirmed and no-show only): Three pills — Confirmed · Seated · No show. Tap to switch status. Seated is disabled until a table is assigned.
Session card (seated only): Green “Seated at 18:45 · 1h 23m” badge, counting up live. Turns bright red when the guest goes past their end time — an “Overtime” banner also appears with how far over they are.
Late banner (confirmed and late): Red “Reservation is late — Guest is X minutes late”. Clears as soon as status changes to Seated or No show (the lateness is saved on the record).
Cancelled / No show / Completed banners: coloured status banners with the reason or cancellation note.
Details section (scrollable): Time, covers, phone, email, notes, occasion, allergies. Anything empty shows “N/A”.
The action buttons at the bottom change with state — Confirmed → Seated → No show, plus banners for late, cancelled, or completed:
Action buttons (bottom)
The buttons change depending on the reservation’s state.
Pending (only external bookings you haven’t accepted):
- Confirm (blue) — accept the booking
- Decline (grey) — dismiss
Confirmed, not yet arrived:
- Guest arrived (blue) — one-tap seating. Changes status to Seated, opens a session on the assigned table, and unlocks Order Taking for that table. Only shows when a table is assigned.
- Edit reservation (grey) — re-opens the reservation form pre-filled to change time, party size, notes, etc.
- Cancel reservation — grey link at the bottom (see Cancelling a reservation).
Seated:
- Undo arrival (grey) — sends the guest back to Confirmed and closes the open table session. If the table already has orders, you’ll get an “Active bill” warning first.
- Move table (grey) — reopens table selection so you can give them a different table. In Calendar view, this button is labelled Merge tables instead — tap it and drag the card to the extra tables you want to add.
- Cancel reservation — grey link at the bottom (same warning if there’s an active bill).
No show:
- Re-confirm guest (blue) — moves them back to Confirmed, in case they arrive after all.
Past reservations (any status, date before today): Read-only — “This is a past reservation. You cannot make changes to it.”
Active-bill warnings
Reception won’t silently throw away a guest’s open tab. If you try to Undo arrival, Cancel, or Unassign a table while there are unpaid tickets, a warning modal appears asking you to confirm. Pay the table off in the Payments tab first if you want to keep the transaction; continuing through the warning will close the session.
Merging tables
For a big party spread across two or three tables, merge them into one booking so the bill and the order stay together.
In Layout view
Open an unassigned reservation (or one whose table you want to change)
The floor plan gets a red “Select a table” overlay.
Tap each table you want to merge
Tables are colour-coded to help you pick — see the legend below. A floating bar at the bottom of the screen shows “X selected tables”.
Confirm the merge
A modal pops up: guest name, selected tables with seat counts, party size vs. total seats, any time-change warning. Tap Confirm Merge.
In Calendar view
Drag the reservation card vertically across multiple table rows. On release, the same Merge Tables confirmation modal appears.
Unmerging
Open the merged reservation, tap Unmerge tables. A modal lists all the joined tables — tap the one you want to keep the reservation on. The others are released.
If the guest is already seated and you unmerge to a different table, the live session moves with them.
Auto-assign tables
Great first move every morning — let the iPad fit every unassigned booking to a table in one go.
Find the Auto-assign tables button
Either:
- In the Calendar view, switch the filter pill to Unassigned — a purple ✨ Auto-assign tables button appears above the list.
- In the sidebar timeline, expand the day — the same button appears in the day header.
Pick a solution
The modal proposes one or more assignment solutions, each with an efficiency score (wasted seats vs filled seats). Tap through the list to preview each one — you see the guest → table pairings, party size, and a utilisation % per table.
Tap “Apply”
The solution is written in one shot. A toast confirms the number of reservations assigned.
If any reservation would land on an undersized table, you’ll see a native iOS alert for each one: “[Table] only has X seats. Would you like to assign [Guest]‘s reservation of Y pax to the table anyway?” — Assign or Skip.
Cancelling a reservation
Tap Cancel reservation (the grey link under the action buttons) on any active booking.
A modal slides up:
- “Cancel Reservation — [Name] — [time]” title
- Red warning: “This action cannot be undone. The guest will be notified of the cancellation.”
- Cancellation note (optional) — free text. Shows up in the sidebar underneath the guest’s name as context.
- Go back / Cancel reservation (red) buttons
Confirming:
- Reservation flips to Cancelled (orange-red, strikethrough name).
- If a table was assigned, it’s released.
- If the guest was seated, the session is closed.
- The note is stored on the reservation.
Moving a seated guest
In Layout view, open a seated reservation → Move table. The red overlay appears again — tap the new table to confirm. The open session (and any unpaid tickets) travels with them.
In Calendar view, the same button is labelled Merge tables — use the drag-to-merge flow described above.
Customer profile
Tap a guest’s name in the detail view to open their Customer profile — it slides in on top of the detail view. You’ll see:
- Name, phone, VIP flag, notes, tags
- Visit history — upcoming bookings on top, past visits below with date, party size, and revenue per visit
- Edit button for updating name, phone, VIP status, notes, preferences
Tap any past or future reservation in the history to open its detail view.
How Reception affects the other iPads
When Reception mode is enabled for an iPad in the Dashboard, two things change across the rest of the POS:
- Servers on any iPad can’t open empty tables themselves. Tapping an empty table in Restaurant view shows “To seat guests, go to Reception and create a new walk-in”. The table is untappable for the sidebar’s Open tab action — Reception owns seating.
- Everything else still works. Once the host has seated a guest (either from the calendar’s Guest arrived button on a confirmed booking, or a walk-in), the session becomes visible on every iPad. Servers can tap it to take orders, fire to the kitchen, and take payment exactly as they normally would.
A couple of practical consequences:
- No-show releases the table. The next walk-in can use it.
- Cancel while seated closes the session. If the table had unpaid tickets, you’ll be warned first.
- Move table on a seated guest takes their open tab with them — no re-entering items.
- Joining tables from the Restaurant view (the “Join tables” button in Restaurant) still works — it piggybacks on the session Reception created.
Quick recap — the moves you’ll do every shift
- Morning: open Calendar → filter Unassigned → tap Auto-assign tables → review and Apply.
- Booking over the phone: + New → New reservation → fill in the form → Save reservation.
- Walk-in arrives: + New → New walk-in → set guests → tap a table → Create walk-in. Server takes over.
- Guest arrives for their booking: tap their row in the sidebar → Guest arrived.
- Big party spread across tables: open their reservation → tap a table → tap the extra tables → Confirm Merge.
- Guest didn’t arrive: detail view → No show pill. Table frees up.
- Guest changed their mind: detail view → Cancel reservation → enter the reason → Cancel reservation.
- Guest wants to move: detail view → Move table → tap the new one.
- Overtime on table 5: red table in Layout / red badge in sidebar — walk over and offer a drink or nudge the party, then hit Cancel reservation or move the overrun to a new reservation if they want to stay.
Next steps
- Order Taking — What the server does once Reception has seated the table
- Restaurant View — The server’s floor plan and how seating flows into it
- Payments — Closing the bill at the end of the meal
- Table Statuses Reference — Every colour and badge, in one place