Going-Live Checklist

You've got a Booking Phoenix tenant set up and now you need to take real bookings from real customers. This checklist walks through every setting you should configure, in the order that makes sense, with links into the detailed guides for each step. Block out a couple of hours, work top to bottom, and you'll come out the other end ready to launch.

Phase 1: Branch foundations

These are the settings everything else depends on. Get them right before adding rooms or taking test bookings.

1. Branch details — name, address, timezone. The timezone is critical — changing it later doesn't shift existing bookings, so set it correctly the first time. See Branch Basics.
2. Currency and tax — currency, tax rate (GST/VAT/sales tax), tax-inclusive vs exclusive pricing, tax registration number for receipts. See Branch Basics.
3. Trading hours — the hours your business is contactable, shown on confirmation emails.
4. Branding — upload your logo (horizontal PNG/SVG, transparent background, ideally 400×100), set your brand colour, and add your favicon.
5. Terms and conditions / cancellation policy — the legal text customers agree to at booking and see on confirmation emails.

Phase 2: Rooms and pricing

Now that the branch foundations are in place, add the things customers will actually book.

1. Create your rooms — name, descriptions, photos, scoring method, player limits. See Creating a Room.
2. Set up at least one season — a season groups time slots into a date range. Most venues start with a single year-round season called "Standard Hours". See Setting Up a Schedule.
3. Add time slots to each room — start times, days of the week, availability. Plan on paper first; most rooms only need 3–7 daily slots. See Managing a Room's Schedule.
4. Configure pricing — create a pricing group with an effective date and add prices per player type. Use breakpoints if you want volume discounts. See Setting Up Room Pricing.
5. Verify visibility toggles — on each room's Details tab, confirm Show on Booking Widget and Active are on for rooms you want bookable.

Phase 3: Payments

If you're taking card payments, this is where you hook up Stripe.

1. Sign up with Stripe if you haven't already — stripe.com. Allow ~15 minutes to enter business details and a bank account.
2. Connect Stripe to Booking Phoenix — paste your publishable and secret keys into the integrations settings. See Setting Up Stripe.
3. Take a test booking against your own card for a small amount, confirm the charge appears in your Stripe dashboard, and refund it. See Taking a Booking and Processing Refunds.

Phase 4: Customer-facing emails

Your customers will receive automatic emails — confirmations, reminders, receipts, refunds. Customise the templates so they look like they came from you, not from a generic booking system.

1. Edit the booking confirmation template — this is the one customers see most. Get the wording, branding, and arrival instructions right. See Customising Email Templates.
2. Edit the reminder template — sent 24h before the booking. Short and specific.
3. Edit the cancellation and refund templates — clear, factual wording. Don't bury the refund timing.
4. Send a test email on each template to yourself to confirm it renders correctly on desktop and mobile.

Phase 5: Staff accounts and access

1. Create staff users — one account per person, with their real email and an initial password they'll change. See Creating a Staff User.
2. Assign roles — start conservative. Front-desk staff don't need access to payment provider settings or user administration.
3. Set up PINs for shared terminals — if your front counter is a shared device, each staff member sets a PIN for fast user switching. See User PINs & User Switching.
4. Configure staff notifications — who gets emailed when a booking comes in, when a refund is processed, when an alert fires. See Notification Settings.

Phase 6: The booking widget

The widget is what your customers will use to self-book through your website.

1. Open Settings → Embeddables and copy the Booking Form widget code.
2. Paste it into your website on a "Book Now" page (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, raw HTML — instructions for each). See Installing the Booking Widget.
3. Visit the page on your live site and confirm the widget loads, shows your rooms, and the calendar is populated.
4. Take a test booking through the widget — complete it end-to-end with a real card, confirm both confirmation email and Stripe charge land, then refund.
5. Optional: room-specific widgets — if you have a marketing page per room, embed a per-room widget. See Room-Specific Booking Widget.
6. Optional: room overview — a gallery of your rooms for your homepage. See Embedding the Room Overview.
7. Optional: voucher purchase form — lets customers buy gift vouchers themselves. See Adding a Voucher Purchase Form.

Phase 7: Final checks

Before announcing the booking page to your audience, walk through this list one more time:

• Open every room and confirm name, photo, description, player limits, and pricing match what you'd quote a customer over the phone.
• Pick a date a week from now and confirm at least one slot per active room is bookable.
• Take a test booking and check the confirmation email arrives within a minute.
• Open the booking modal, the check-in dashboard, and the calendar — the booking should appear on all three.
• Refund and cancel the test booking. Confirm the cancellation email is received and the slot returns to availability.
• Have a colleague walk through the customer-side widget on a mobile phone and report what's confusing.

Phase 8: Announce

Now you can share the booking page. Some launches that work:

• Update your website's main "Book" call-to-action to point at your new widget page.
• Post on your social channels with a short "you can now book online" message and a screenshot of the widget.
• Email past customers if you have a list (and they've opted in) — offer a small launch discount.
• Print a QR code linking to your booking page and stick it on your venue door — for walk-in customers who'd rather book online than wait in line.

What to do in the first week

Once you're live, expect a steady trickle of edge cases — the things you didn't think to test:

• Watch the bookings come in from the calendar. If something looks off, drill in.
• Read every confirmation email the system sends for the first week, on your phone. Tune the template wording where it doesn't read well.
• Check Stripe daily — charges should match Booking Phoenix's revenue report exactly. Discrepancies usually mean a manual cash booking that wasn't recorded.
• Ask early customers for feedback — even a quick text afterwards. Small UX issues you'll only learn about by asking.
• Check Reports → Email Delivery for any bounces or spam-flagged messages. See Email Deliverability if anything looks wrong.

Optional setup for later

These aren't required for go-live but pay off as you grow:

• Surveys — collect post-booking feedback. See Collecting Feedback with Surveys.
• Discount codes — for promotions. See Creating a Discount Code.
• Gift vouchers — either staff-issued or via the voucher purchase form. See Creating a Gift Voucher.
• Custom voucher PDF design — tailor the voucher template to your brand. See The Voucher Designer.
• Public holiday handling — configure alternative pricing or schedules for holidays. See Alternative and Public Holidays.
• Add-on products — upgrades, merchandise, parking. See Add-on Products and Upgrades.
• Two-factor authentication — for owner and admin accounts. See Two-Factor Authentication.
• Custom dashboards — one layout per terminal type. See Customising Your Dashboard.

Common pitfalls

• Wrong timezone. The most common day-one mistake. Caught early it's painful but fixable; caught late your reports are subtly wrong forever. Check it twice.
• Tax inclusive vs exclusive. Decide at the start. Switching after live bookings creates report ambiguity.
• No room photo. Rooms without photos look unprofessional on the widget. Even a phone snap is better than nothing.
• Pricing group with the wrong effective date. "From today" is rarely what you want — pick a clear start date, even if it's yesterday.
• Stripe not fully activated. Stripe processes test charges immediately but live charges only after they verify your business. Don't go live before that's complete.
• Untested email templates. Send a test for every template you've edited. Broken merge fields show as {{ customer_name }} in the real email.
• Notification recipients on personal addresses. Use a shared mailbox (e.g. team@yourvenue.com) so all staff see new bookings, not just one person's inbox.

Getting help

Stuck? Two paths:

• Knowledge base — the guide list at the top of this support site covers most setups. Search for the specific term you're stuck on.
• Support tickets — from inside Booking Phoenix go to Support Tickets. Include screenshots if the issue is visual.

Welcome aboard.