Running the front desk

For reception, managers and admins. Everything here is under Workspace in the dashboard sidebar.

You only ever see your own branch. A manager or receptionist assigned to a location sees that location’s bookings, spaces and takings — nobody else’s.

The three screens you’ll live in

Reception — today at a glance: who’s expected, who’s in, what each space has free, and the day’s takings by payment method. Search finds anyone by code, phone, name or email.

Check in — a deliberately narrow screen: find someone, let them in. That’s all it does, because that’s all you want on screen with a queue in front of you. A group booking expands per person, since they arrive separately.

New booking — booking someone at the desk. Its own page, always open, no button to hunt for.

Booking a walk-in

1. New booking → pick the space and how long they need it.
2. Pick the date. There are no times to set — the day is 9am to 6pm. For an hourly space, choose the start hour and how many hours.
3. Enter their name and phone. Email is optional, but without it they get no confirmation and no reminder.
4. Choose how they paid, then book.

The booking code appears on screen — read it back to them. If you took their email, it goes there too.

Taking payment

We record the payment; we don’t take it. Charge the POS terminal (or take the cash or transfer) first, then log which one it was.

For a card payment you must enter the terminal reference from the receipt. That reference is the only thing that ties a booking to a line on the provider’s settlement at the end of the day — without it, the takings won’t reconcile and there is no way to reconstruct it later.

Every payment records who took it. That isn’t about mistrust; an unattributed “mark as paid” is the classic way cash walks out of a front desk, and recording the name protects the person who took it.

Holding a seat for someone who’ll pay on arrival

Choose pay on arrival on New booking. The seat is held and counts against availability like any other booking — but no code is issued.

That’s the important part. A code is what gets someone through the door, so it’s only created when the money lands. Take the payment on Reception when they turn up, and the code is issued at that moment.

A phone reservation won’t lapse while they’re in traffic, unlike an abandoned online checkout, which releases after ten minutes.

Checking someone in

Most guests use the tablet. Use Check in when they’d rather you did it, when a code isn’t working, or when something looks wrong.

On a team booking, tick people off individually — they arrive at different times, and “3 of 5 in” is the number you actually want.

When a code doesn’t work

Look at the booking’s status on Reception:

• Pending / no code yet — it hasn’t been paid for. Take payment; the code is issued immediately.
• Cancelled or refunded — the codes are dead by design. Book them again.
• Wrong day — codes only work on the day. Move the booking if they need today.

Cancelling

Cancel from Reception. The seats free up straight away.

You can’t cancel someone who is already checked in — they’re in the building, and the record should say so.

Refunds are admin-only. Money going back out is a separate, more senior act than freeing a seat, and desk roles run the door rather than the bank. A card payment refunds through Paystack to the original card; anything taken at the desk is handed back the same way it came in.

The check-in tablet

The tablet is provisioned once with a device key and then left alone. It has no staff login — that’s the point. It sits in a public room, and a logged-in tablet would let anyone swipe out into the reception console and read the day’s guest list.

It can look up one booking and check it in. Nothing else.

If it ever shows a staff notice instead of the orb, it has lost its key and needs provisioning again — an admin can do that from Branches.