Charge for a space and hold it when the order is confirmed

A room is something extra you can sell, not just a place the food goes. Give each space a fee, a capacity and a booking mode, and the calculator offers it as part of the order, then keeps the space free of clashes on its own.

Bookable spaces are a Pro feature.

How to set a space up

• Open Spaces from the menu on the left.
• Press Add a space, or click a space card to open its editor.
• Under Basics, give it a Name, a Room or suite number if you use those, a Description and Photos.
• Under Guests, set the guest number it suits.
• Under Price, choose How the space is charged and set the price. Leave it at zero if the space is included in the catering.
• Under Booking and tax, pick one booking mode: Not exclusive, Follows the event, The whole day or One of your time windows.
• Press Save.

Price by the hour or the day

Under How the space is charged you pick Once per order, By the hour or By the day.

• By the hour: the customer picks when they need the space, and the price is your hourly rate times the hours. A slot space counts the slot's length.
• By the day: the customer picks how many days, and every day is held.

Under Price by length you can add a different rate for longer bookings, for example a cheaper hourly rate from 4 hours on. Shortest booking and Longest booking limit what the customer can choose. A worked example under the fields shows what a typical booking costs.

Capacity: a limit or a recommendation

The number of guests a space takes is a recommendation by default. The customer sees it on the card and can still pick the space for a bigger party. Turn on Show only spaces the party fits in the calculator, and the number becomes a limit: spaces that are too small are hidden, and the guest count cannot go past the space the customer picked.

The space is held only on confirm

Choosing a space in the calculator does not lock it. Caterway holds it only when the order is actually confirmed, so an abandoned request never sits on a room nobody bought. Once a space is held for a time that clashes with another confirmed booking, the second one cannot take it.

What the customer sees when a space is taken

A space set to Follows the event or The whole day shows as Booked once a confirmed order holds it for that date. One of your time windows crosses out the windows already taken. The customer only sees that the space is taken. They never see who booked it or what they ordered.

What happens next is the calculator's choice. In the builder, the Spaces tab has When a space is already booked for the chosen time:

• Take the request and flag it: the customer can still send. You see a warning on the request and decide who gets the space.
• Don't accept it: booked spaces can't be chosen, and a request that arrives after someone else booked is turned back.

In order mode, a flagged order never confirms on its own. It waits for you.

The space fee on the quote

The fee shows on the quote as its own line and is added into the same total, so the customer and you always see the same number. Set Free when catering reaches an amount if the space should come free with a large enough order.

Good to know

• The free-over threshold compares the food total, not a total that already includes the space fee.
• Choosing a space marks that order as served on site, so it never asks delivery questions.
• A space set to Not exclusive can still carry a price and a description. It is never held, so several customers can pick it for the same date.