Creating a manual booking lets you add guests directly to your event, even if they don't book through your Understory storefront. This is useful for last-minute bookings, walk-ins, or guests who pay by invoice/bank transfer. Manual bookings appear on the guest list like regular bookings, ensuring your records stay complete and up to date.
How to create a manual booking through the Calendar
Click Calendar in the navigation bar – View your calendar
Press the event you want to add a booking to – Event details open
Press “Add booking” – Manual booking form opens
Fill in guest details and booking preferences – Enter Name, Email and Tickets, choose a Payment method (defaults to “Payment link”), and decide whether to send a booking confirmation
Click “Create booking” – Guest is added to booking list
How to create a manual booking through Experiences
Click Experiences in the navigation bar – View all experiences
Select the experience you want – Experience details page opens
Select the event date you need – Booking list opens
Press “Add booking” – Manual booking form opens
Fill in guest details and booking preferences – Enter Name, Email and Tickets, choose a Payment method (defaults to “Payment link”), and decide whether to send a booking confirmation
Click “Create booking” – Guest is added to booking list
How to create or move a booking for an open hours experience
Press “+ Booking” – Manual booking form opens
Choose the start time for the booking – The booking is placed at the time you pick. On open hours experiences the Duration field is pre-set and greyed out, so it can’t be changed
Fill in guest details and booking preferences – Enter Name, Email and Tickets, choose a Payment method (defaults to “Payment link”), and decide whether to send a booking confirmation
Check that the start time falls inside the experience’s opening hours – If it doesn’t, the booking is rejected and an inline validation message beginning “Pick a start time in…” appears under Start time and Duration. Pick a start time inside the opening hours and continue
Click “Create booking” – Guest is added to booking list
To move a booking on an open hours experience, pick a new start time for it. You don’t need to create the destination event first. The duration of the booking is kept, and the new start time can be set outside the open hours if you need to, for example for private or custom bookings.
Guests can’t move their own open hours bookings yet. If that’s something you need, see the proposal “Open hours: let guests choose their own start time”.
What happens after creating a manual booking
When you create a manual booking, the guest is added to the event’s booking list. By default, the booking is marked as "Not paid." If you select the payment link option and send it to your guest, the guest can pay themselves and the booking will show as "Paid." You can also decide whether to send booking confirmations immediately—this is switched on by default, but you can switch it off if preferred. Only send confirmation after payment if using payment links.
Manual bookings are ideal for:
Walk-in guests or last-minute additions
Handling bookings by phone or email
Guests preferring to pay via invoice/bank transfer
Private events
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