When a customer starts a booking on your public page, their spot is temporarily held until they complete the booking or the reservation period expires. This prevents double-booking and ensures the space isn't taken by someone else before the original customer finishes their transaction.

This article covers:

How to set the reservation period
- Checkout booking example
Events appearing as fully booked
- Reviewing checkout bookings
Completing a booking on behalf of a customer

How to set the reservation period

💡 The default checkout reservation period is 15 minutes and cannot exceed 120 minutes.

To change the checkout reservation period:

Select Settings, then Booking preferences from the left-hand menu on your account.
Select Edit next to Booking:
Enter your preferred period into the Reserved for x minutes field:
Select Save to save your changes.

Checkout booking example

The checkout reservation period starts when the customer selects Book now from within their basket, not when they add their ticket to their basket.

For example:

Basket screen of the checkout showing the 'Book now' button highlighted

If the checkout reservation period is set to 15 minutes, customers have that time to complete their booking after selecting Book now. If they don’t, the space will become available for others again.

Ticket Closure and checkout reservation

If you've set a ticket to close at a specific time, but a customer adds it to their basket beforehand, they can still complete the booking within the checkout reservation period.

For example, if a ticket closes at 2 p.m. and a customer adds it at 1:58 p.m. with a 15-minute reservation period, they have until 2:13 p.m. to finish booking.

Events appearing as fully booked

When a customer starts a booking, a 'checkout' reservation temporarily holds a space in the event. If only one spot remains and a customer adds it to their basket, the event may appear 'sold out' on your schedule page, even though the space hasn't been confirmed yet.

This will resolve itself when:

The customer completes the booking, or
The checkout reservation period expires, and the space is released.

If you have the Waiting list feature enabled, the system also holds available spaces until everyone on the list has been contacted.

Reviewing checkout bookings

There are 3 different ways to find incomplete checkout bookings:

Dashboard: The 'Checkout' tab.
Bookings tab: Using the 'Checkout' filter.
Attendee list: Using the bookings list.

1. Via the Dashboard

To find checkout bookings via the dashboard:

Select Dashboard from the left-hand menu on your account.
Under Latest booking activity, select Checkout:

2. Via the Bookings tab

To find checkout bookings via the dashboard:

Select Bookings from the left-hand menu.
Tick the Checkout checkbox and any other additional filters, then Search to generate the search results:

3. Via the Attendee list

To find checkout bookings via the attendee list:

Open your Scheduling page.
For single dates, select the event from your schedule, then the Attendees button:
For course dates, select the course from the schedule, then the attendee icon next to the date:
Select the Options drop-down menu, then View bookings list:
Selecting View bookings list opens the bookings tab with a filtered view, only showing booking information for the event you selected.
Under Attendance status, deselect Complete and select Checkout, then Search:

Completing a booking on behalf of a customer

If needed, you (the admin) can complete a checkout booking on behalf of a customer. To do this:

Select the Bookings tab from the left-hand menu on your account.
Find and open the booking from the list.
Select Complete this booking within the booking:
This forces the booking into a "Completed" status. If payment is required, it will be marked as 'Pay later.'