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These rules decide what a guest has to fill in on your booking portal, what your team has to fill in when they add a reservation by hand, and what a guest can do with their booking afterwards. Everything is under Settings > Portal > General, in the Reservation portal settings card, below the links and widget block (covered in Share and embed). Changes apply as soon as you click Save at the bottom of the card. Saving requires the Portal > Update permission: without it, the button reads Action not authorized. See Permissions.
The same card also holds the portal’s custom message and the large group message. Both are explained in Guest messages.

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Contact details: portal vs internal

Each contact detail has two switches. The one without “internally” applies to guests booking on your portal. The one with internally applies to your team adding a reservation in the dashboard (web or mobile app). They are independent: you can require an email from online guests without forcing your staff to ask for one on the phone. On the portal, first name and last name are always required. When an email is optional, the field can be left empty, but an email that is typed must still be valid. The same goes for the phone number: optional or not, a number that is typed must be valid before the guest can continue. When a required field is missing, the send button stays disabled and a hint tells the guest what is missing. In the staff reservation form, the check only applies when your team creates a new customer. If they pick an existing customer from the name, email or phone autocomplete, the booking is saved even if that customer has no email or phone on file. Fields that are not required show Optional next to their label. When a required field is empty, saving is blocked with Email is required or Phone number is required. See The reservation form, field by field. Mandatory email also applies to bookings taken by the WhatsApp AI agent: when it is on, the agent asks the guest for an email before booking if none is on file.
Keep Mandatory email on unless most of your guests book through WhatsApp. Without an email, the guest receives no confirmation, reminder or review request by email, only WhatsApp messages if you have their number. See Notifications sent to your customers.Turn Mandatory phone number internally on if your team takes bookings by phone. The phone number is what EatNow uses to recognise a returning guest (see below), and it gives you a way to reach someone who is running late.
These four switches apply to restaurant reservations. The activities portal has its own contact settings under Settings > Portal > Activities.

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Customer records

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Automatic customer matching

When a booking comes in with contact details, EatNow looks for an existing customer of this restaurant:
  1. by phone number first. Numbers are compared digit by digit, using your restaurant’s country, so +212 661 234 567 typed on the portal and 0661234567 typed at the counter are the same guest;
  2. then, if no phone matches, by email (case-insensitive).
If a customer is found, the booking is attached to it and appears in that guest’s history. The existing record is never overwritten: its name, email and phone stay as they are. The only thing a new booking can change is newsletter consent, which can be switched from no to yes but never back. If the match is a draft record opened by an incoming WhatsApp message, it is completed with the name and details from the booking. Matching applies to bookings from your portal (restaurant and activities), bookings your staff type in with a new customer, and bookings created through the partner API. Two exceptions:
  • bookings made through a prescriber (travel agency, concierge) are never matched: each one gets its own customer record;
  • Reserve with Google bookings are always matched, whatever this setting says.
When the setting is off, every booking creates a new customer record, even for a regular. Your customer list fills with duplicates, and history, notes and no-show counts are split across them. The blacklist still works: a blacklisted phone number or email is still recognised and the portal booking is refused.
In the staff form, the Attach to this profile suggestion that appears when you type a known phone number is shown whatever this setting says. The setting only controls what happens when staff ignore it.

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Allow anonymous customer

In the staff reservation form, the Customer section has two tabs: Walk-in and Defined. Walk-in saves the reservation with no customer record: no name, no email, no phone.
  • On: staff can pick Walk-in. The walk-in shortcuts (the walk-in button, adding a guest from a free table on the floor plan, clicking an empty slot in the planning grid) open the form with Walk-in already selected.
  • Off: the Walk-in tab is greyed out, with the tooltip Anonymous reservations are disabled for this restaurant. The walk-in shortcuts open the form on Defined, and saving without a customer is blocked with A customer is required (anonymous reservations are not allowed). Anonymous reservations created before you turned it off can still be edited and saved.
In practice, an anonymous reservation has no contact details, so no confirmation, reminder or review request can be sent. It is not added to any customer’s history, and the guest has no link to manage it on the portal. This setting only affects staff: a portal booking always creates or matches a customer.
Leave it on if you seat many walk-ins during a rush: typing a name for every couple at the door slows service down. Turn it off if you want every cover tied to a guest profile, for example to build your marketing database or track regulars.

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Staff tools

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Allow reservation deletion internally

This setting is about your staff, not your guests. When it is on, staff who also have the Reservations > Delete permission see Delete reservation in the reservation list actions and in the reservation form menu, and Delete in the floor plan context menu. The mobile app follows the same rule. When it is off, these actions disappear for everyone in your team. Deleting is permanent: the reservation is erased with no trace kept, and the guest is not notified. Cancel is always available, whatever this setting says, and keeps the reservation in your history with a canceled status.
This switch does not control whether guests can cancel from the portal. Guests can cancel their own booking from the portal whatever this setting says.
Turn deletion off and have your team cancel instead. A canceled reservation stays in your statistics, in the guest’s history and in the activity log. A deleted one simply vanishes. Keep deletion for real mistakes, such as a test booking or a duplicate entered twice.

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Show total paid

When it is on, opening an existing reservation shows a Total paid amount at the top of the form, in your restaurant’s currency. It does not appear when creating a new reservation. Staff with the Reservations > Update payment permission can click the pencil to correct the amount, then confirm with the check mark. The change is saved with the reservation. If a point-of-sale system is connected (Lightspeed, NowOS), it fills this amount automatically from the bill. The amount counts towards the customer’s total spent, except on canceled or rejected reservations.
This setting only changes the staff reservation form: nothing is shown to guests on the portal.

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Reservation modification

This section decides whether guests can change the date, time and number of guests of their booking themselves, from the portal link in their confirmation. The two number fields can only be edited when Allow reservation modification is on.

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When a guest can modify

On the portal, the guest sees the update button only when all of these are true:
  • Allow reservation modification is on;
  • the time now is no later than the reservation time minus the threshold. With a threshold of 2 hours, a guest booked at 20:00 can modify until 18:00;
  • the reservation is Pending, Confirmed, Manually confirmed or Double confirmed;
  • the reservation has no payment line attached (deposit, prepayment, card imprint or any other);
  • the party size is not above the Maximum group size for modification, when that limit is on.
Otherwise the button is replaced by a contact button (Contact the restaurant or Contact us) that shows your contact details. A guest who opens an old modification link after the deadline (or once the booking is canceled or paid) is sent back to their reservation page. A guest whose party is above the group-size limit who opens the modification link sees Modification not possible, with the reason and a Contact the restaurant button, and no form. EatNow checks the same rules again when the guest saves: a modification page left open past the deadline, for example, cannot be saved: the guest sees an error message and their booking stays as it was. The new date and time go through the same availability checks as a new booking. A guest cannot move to a service that requires a prepayment or deposit: the modification page shows Modification impossible and asks them to contact you. Once the change is saved, the guest receives the modification message (email and WhatsApp, depending on your guest notification settings) and your team is notified.
Your staff are not bound by these rules: they can always edit a reservation from the dashboard. The WhatsApp AI agent applies the same toggle, threshold and group-size limit. Reserve with Google modifications only check Allow reservation modification.

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Group size limit

The limit is inclusive and applies both to the size of the booking as it stands and to the new size the guest picks. With a maximum of 6:
  • a table of 6 or fewer can change their booking online, up to 6 people. On the modification page, the party-size buttons stop at 6; picking 7+ shows a message asking the guest to contact you for a larger group;
  • a table of 7 or more cannot change their booking online and has to contact you.
When you switch Limit modification to group size on, the maximum starts at 1. If you save right away, only bookings for one person can be modified online. Enter your real limit before clicking Save.
A 2 to 3 hour threshold suits most restaurants: it leaves time to replan the room. For large groups, set a limit around the size where you start combining tables (for example 8), so those changes always go through your team.

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Cancellation reasons

The Cancellation reasons section is the list guests choose from when they cancel on the portal.
  • Add a reason adds a line at the bottom of the list.
  • Each reason can be written in several languages (FR, EN, DE, ES, PT, IT) with the language field. At least one language must be filled in, otherwise Save stays disabled.
  • The trash icon at the end of a line removes that reason.
New restaurants start with 14 ready-made reasons, such as “I am no longer available”, “I booked by mistake”, “I booked at the wrong time” and “The price is too high”. Edit or remove them as you like. What the guest sees. When the guest cancels on the portal (from their reservation page, the modification page, the payment page, or an activity booking), a confirmation dialog shows a Cancellation reason drop-down with your reasons followed by Other reason. Other reason is selected by default, so giving a reason is optional. Each reason is shown in the guest’s language. If it has no translation in that language, English is shown, then French, then any language that is filled in. If your list is empty, the guest only sees Other reason. What your team sees. The chosen reason is saved on the reservation. It appears as Cancellation reason in the reservation form and on the reservation’s line in the list once it is canceled. Removing or rewording a reason later does not change reservations that were already canceled.
Keep the list short (5 to 8 reasons) and specific. “I want to modify my reservation” coming up often means guests do not know they can change their booking themselves: check that Allow reservation modification is on.

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Default values

For a new restaurant:

The reservation form

Every field of the staff create / edit form, including the customer section.

Guest messages

The custom message on your portal and the large group message.

Blacklist

Refuse online bookings from specific guests.

Notifications sent to your customers

Which confirmation, modification and cancellation messages guests receive.