Covers Based or Tables Based.
It is very important to know which way your account is set up and understand how this works to manage your reservations correctly. For this reason we have broken down both methods below into the absolute basics that you need to know.
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The total covers of your reservations determine when you are full.
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The minimum and maximum booking size is determined by the minimum and maximum covers that you set in your Shift settings.
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The maximum amount of online bookings is determined by the total online covers set in your Shift settings.
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Since the system does not look at your tables for availability, in theory you can have more bookings than tables if not managed correctly. This is why it is important to set your total online covers correctly
Click "HERE" for in depth look at setting up your online availability for Covers Based
TABLES BASED
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Your total booked tables determine when you are full.
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The minimum and maximum booking size is determined by the min and max booking sizes of your individual tables. The smallest minimum booking size of your available tables is the minimum booking for that time. The largest maximum booking size of your available tables is your maximum booking for that time. These are set in your Tables settings.
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The maximum number of online bookings is determined by how many tables you have set to be available online.
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Each reservation is automatically assigned to a table and a reservation cannot be added without assigning it to a table as this is vital for calculating the availability.
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NB: At no point can guests choose their own table or are made aware of what table they have been assigned to. This is only for availability and for you to help manage your seating in store.
Click "HERE" for in depth look at setting up your online availability for Table Based
COVERS BASED EXAMPLE:
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Total online covers set to 50 in shift settings
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Minimum booking size set to 2 in shift settings
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Maximum booking size set to 10 in shift settings
Once a total of 50 covers have been added as reservations (manual and online bookings are both taken into account), your online bookings will show as full for that date and time.
If 45 covers have been added, then an online booking can only be made for up to 5 people.
Guests can only make online bookings for between 2 and 10 people. No online reservations for 1 person or 11 or more people.
In theory, you could have 25 reservations made of 2 covers each, even if you only have 10 x 2 seaters in your restaurant, as the system does not take tables into account for your availability.
TABLE BASED EXAMPLE:
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3 tables added, 1 x 2 - 2 seater, 1 x 4 - 6 seater and 1 x 7 - 8 seater.
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Minimum online covers will be 13 (calculated by the sum of the minimum table sizes: 2 + 4 + 7)
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Maximum online covers will be 16 (calculated by the sum of all maximum tables sizes: 2 + 6 + 8)
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Minimum booking size 2 (calculated by the smallest minimum table size: 2 - 2 seater)
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Maximum booking size 8 (calculated by the largest maximum table size: 7 - 8 seater)
If 2 reservations have been added, 1 x 2 covers, 1 x 7 covers, then:
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Amount of reservations still available: 1 (calculated on how many tables are still available: 1 x 4 - 6 seater)
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Minimum booking size: 4 (calculated on the lowest minimum booking size of the available tables. The 2 seater and the 8 seater will be booked and therefore unavailable, leaving only the 4 - 6 seater available.)
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Maximum booking size: 6 (calculated on the largest maximum size of the available tables. The 2 seater and the 8 seater will be booked and therefore unavailable, leaving only the 4 - 6 seater available.)
This means that you could have another reservation of 4 covers and then you will have all tables booked and be fully booked for online bookings, but only have 13 out of your maximum available covers of 16 booked. However you will have all of your tables booked and therefore would be over booked if you allowed any additional reservations.
This is why it is very important to make sure that your minimum and maximum table sizes are set up correctly to optimise your available capacity.
For standard restaurant set ups where you have a set number of tables in your restaurant, the Table Based availability is always recommended by Dineplan as it helps to optimise your reservations and remove the chance of over booking.
For alternative set ups, where the physical tables are not important, but the maximum number of people are, then Covers Based works better. An example of this is a picnic style set up, where you can take up to 20 people in the picnic area with groups of any size.