Manage online bookings, walk-ins, and no-shows

Not every visit starts with a staff-booked appointment that goes as planned. This page covers the other three ways a visit begins or fails to begin: a customer books online, a customer walks in with no appointment, and a booked customer never shows up. For the settings that control when customers can book online, see Configure scheduling availability. For everyday appointment editing, see Create, reschedule, cancel, and manage appointments.

What an online booking creates

A booking made through your Booking Widget or booking page is a confirmed appointment, not a request waiting for approval. The moment the customer finishes the form, a scheduled appointment lands on your Calendar with the customer and vehicle attached, and the Calendar updates live, with no refresh needed. There is no approval queue, no Inbox message, and no Task; the Calendar is the whole story, so make checking it part of your morning routine.

The appointment arrives with:

• A title of the customer's name plus the services they picked, or "Diagnostic visit" if they picked none.
• Internal notes with one labeled line each for the booking source, selected services, and Reason For Visit.
• Reasons For Visit for each selected service and any concern the customer described in the scheduler.
• A visit type of drop off or waiter, whichever the customer chose. Tow-ins cannot be booked online.
• The status Scheduled.

The Appointment confirmation Automation controls every confirmation. It is on by default with rich email on and text off. The email includes the appointment details, a calendar invite, and directions. Turn the text output on if the shop also wants an immediate SMS. Turning the parent Automation off sends neither channel. Email delivery still requires the shop's email sender to be set up, and text delivery requires its texting setup and customer consent.

How the booking matches your customer records

The booking attaches to an existing Customer only when exactly one Customer in the organization has both the submitted phone number and the submitted first and last name. The name comparison ignores capitalization and checks the Customer and their Customer Contacts. An email already owned by a different Customer blocks the match. Otherwise, the booking creates a new personal Customer and shows possible matches for advisor review when contact details overlap.

The vehicle is matched within that Customer by year, make, and model without regard to capitalization. Different wording still matters: "Chevy" does not match "Chevrolet", so a returning customer can create a near-duplicate vehicle. When you spot one while reviewing the booking, merge or correct it; see Find and resolve duplicate customers or vehicles.

Review a booking before the visit

Click the appointment on the Calendar to open its details. Two things are worth doing before the customer arrives:

1. Check the customer and vehicle it matched or created, and fix duplicates while the booking is fresh.
2. Review the Reasons For Visit created from the customer's selected services and described concern. Edit them if the customer clarifies anything before arrival. They carry onto the Repair Order automatically at check-in.

You can also set the status to Confirmed once the customer re-confirms, and adjust the times, since every web booking uses the widget's single appointment length regardless of the work requested.

When the vehicle shows up, the Create repair order button on the appointment starts the Repair Order and marks the appointment Arrived for you, unless the shop has turned Auto-Arrival off. Check in a vehicle and record visit details covers that step.

Walk-ins: straight to a Repair Order

A Walk-in Visit needs no appointment. Appointments are optional everywhere in BayEngine; a Repair Order only needs a customer and a vehicle. The fastest path while the customer is standing at the counter:

1. Press Command-K on a Mac or Ctrl-K on Windows, or click the plus button beside Search, and choose Repair Order.
2. Pick the customer, or click New customer and enter a name and phone.
3. Pick the vehicle, or click New vehicle.
4. Enter the odometer, choose the visit type (waiter, drop off, or tow in), and type the Reasons For Visit in the customer's words.
5. Click create. The Repair Order opens in the first Workflow Stage, ready for intake.

That is the whole intake; the rest of the visit details are covered in Check in a vehicle and record visit details and Set the Reason For Visit, Visit Type, odometer, and Promise Time.

For the walk-in who wants a price before committing to the work, create an Estimate from the same command menu instead. An Estimate can start empty, with the customer and vehicle attached later, so quoting a phone-shopper does not force you to create records first.

There is no need to backfill an appointment for a walk-in. Nothing in reporting or the workflow requires one, and an after-the-fact appointment would only take a slot away from your online booking capacity.

Record a no-show

An appointment has five statuses: Scheduled, Confirmed, Arrived, No show, and Cancelled. When a booked customer never arrives:

1. Click the appointment on the Calendar, then the pencil button to edit it.
2. Set Status to No show and save.

Marking a no-show does three things. It releases the slot, so the time stops counting against your online booking capacity. It blocks the Create repair order button on that appointment. And it fires the Appointment No-Show automation trigger, so you can build an automation on the Automations page that creates a follow-up Task whenever one happens.

Use Cancelled instead when the customer calls off ahead of time, and reschedule rather than cancel when they want a new time; see Create, reschedule, cancel, and manage appointments. The distinction costs nothing today but keeps your history honest for the day you want to know which customers cancel and which simply vanish.

Nothing is sent to the customer when you mark a no-show. If you want to win the visit back, text or call them from the Inbox and rebook. If the customer turns up late after being marked, edit the status back to Scheduled and the appointment converts to a Repair Order normally. BayEngine has no no-show fees or booking deposits.

Changing an appointment's status uses the calendar events update permission, and starting a Repair Order (from an appointment or for a walk-in) uses the repair orders create permission. See Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions.