Booking Management

Everything you need to know about creating, editing, confirming and managing bookings — from initial reservation to check-out.

Booking statuses

Every booking moves through a lifecycle. Understanding statuses helps you track where each reservation is:

Pending — Booking received, awaiting confirmation or payment
Confirmed — Booking accepted. Guest has received confirmation
Checked In — Guest has arrived and been checked in
Checked Out — Stay complete. Room returned to available status
Cancelled — Booking cancelled by guest or staff
No Show — Guest did not arrive and did not cancel

Creating a booking

Via the booking portal (guest-initiated)

Guests visit your branded portal URL, search availability, select a room and pay. The booking appears in your dashboard automatically with status Confirmed.

Walk-in / front desk booking

Go to Bookings → New Booking

Click the + New Booking button in the top right of the Bookings module.

Select or create a guest

Search existing guests by name or email. If the guest is new, click Create Guest and fill in their details.

Choose property, room type and dates

The system checks real-time availability and shows the calculated total based on your pricing rules.

Confirm and save

Click Create Booking. An invoice is automatically generated. An SMS confirmation is sent to the guest if Africa's Talking is configured.

Checking guests in and out

Open a confirmed booking and click the Check In button. This updates the room status to Occupied and triggers any housekeeping rules. At departure, click Check Out to mark the stay complete and release the room.

Check-in and check-out actions are logged to the Audit Trail with the staff member's name and timestamp.

Cancellations and refunds

To cancel a booking, open it and click Cancel Booking. You'll be prompted to select a cancellation reason and specify any refund amount. The room is immediately returned to available status.

Refunds are recorded in the finance module but must be processed manually through your payment gateway dashboard. BnBFlows records the transaction; it does not initiate the refund transfer.

The booking calendar

The Calendar view shows all bookings across all properties in a visual Gantt-style layout. Use the filters to narrow by property, room type or status. Click any booking bar to open its detail panel.

Booking reports

Go to Reports → Bookings to see occupancy rates, average nightly rate, booking source breakdown and revenue by room type. Reports can be exported to CSV or PDF.