How do I manage bookings in WordPress?
With WP Booking System, bookings are managed directly from the calendar they belong to. Go to WP Booking System → Calendars, open the calendar you want to manage, and you will find its bookings at the top of the Edit Calendar page.
From there, you can review new booking requests, accept or delete bookings, view customer and payment information, email customers, add private notes, edit booking details, and manage the availability associated with each booking.
If you manage several calendars, you can also use the Booking Manager add-on to view bookings from all your calendars in one place.
Where can I find my bookings?
By default, bookings are attached to individual calendars.
To view them:
- Go to WP Booking System → Calendars.
- Open the calendar you want to manage.
- At the top of the Edit Calendar page, you will see the booking manager.
Bookings are organized into three tabs:
Pending
New bookings are placed in the Pending tab by default.
This gives you an opportunity to verify the dates, customer details and payment information before confirming the booking.
You can change the default status for new bookings from the form’s General Options if you prefer bookings to be accepted automatically.
Accepted
Bookings that you have confirmed appear in the Accepted tab.
Deleted
Bookings that have been deleted appear in the Deleted tab.
Unlike some booking systems, WP Booking System does not use a separate “Cancelled” booking status. If a booking is no longer required, it can be moved to the Deleted tab.
How do I accept a booking?
Open a booking from the Pending tab.
The Manage Booking section displays the dates associated with the booking together with their availability status. You can adjust the status of individual dates or use the Bulk Editor to update them together.
Once everything is correct, click Accept Booking.
If Automatically Block Dates was enabled when the calendar was embedded, the booked dates will normally already have been marked as unavailable when the booking was submitted.
If automatic blocking is disabled, make sure you change the relevant dates to your “Booked” availability status before accepting the booking.
This distinction is important: accepting a booking and changing calendar availability are separate actions.
How do I delete or cancel a booking?
Open the booking from the Pending tab and choose Delete Booking.
Before deleting it, check the availability of the associated dates.
Deleting a booking does not automatically make its dates available again. If the dates should become bookable, change them back to your appropriate “Available” legend item before clicking Delete Booking.
This gives you more control over availability. For example, you may want to delete a booking but keep the dates unavailable because of maintenance, an owner stay or another reservation.
What information can I see for a booking?
Clicking a booking opens the Booking Modal.
Depending on the features you have enabled, the modal can contain:
- booking ID, calendar and booking dates;
- all information submitted through the booking form;
- customer contact information;
- payment and transaction details;
- invoices;
- contracts;
- scheduled emails;
- previously sent email logs;
- private booking notes.
If pricing is enabled, the booking also displays its payment status.
Can I edit an existing booking?
Yes.
From the Booking Details tab, you can edit both the general booking information and the information submitted through the booking form.
Be careful when changing booking dates.
Changing the Start Date or End Date in the booking details does not automatically update the calendar’s availability or recalculate the booking price. If you change the dates, review the calendar afterwards and adjust availability where necessary.
The same principle applies when moving a booking from one calendar to another: moving the booking itself does not automatically update availability in either calendar.
Always check both calendars after moving a booking.
Can I email a customer from a booking?
Yes.
If your booking form contains an email field, the Booking Modal includes an Email Customer tab.
The customer’s email address is filled in automatically, and you can send an email directly from WordPress.
You can also create reusable email templates under:
WP Booking System → Settings → Email
When sending an email manually, you can optionally include the booking details and, when available, attach the booking’s invoice or contract.
If Email Logging is enabled, emails sent to the customer can also be reviewed from the booking’s Email Logs tab.
Can I add private notes to a booking?
Yes.
The Notes tab allows you to save internal information related to the booking.
These notes are private. They are not emailed to the customer and are not displayed on your website.
This can be useful for recording special requests, internal follow-up tasks or other information your team may need later.
How do I manually add a booking?
You can also create bookings directly from WordPress.
Open the calendar and click Add Booking in the booking manager.
You can then select the form to use, choose the dates and complete the booking in a similar way to a customer booking from the front end.
This is useful for:
- telephone bookings;
- reservations received by email;
- walk-in bookings;
- bookings received through another offline channel.
You can also choose whether the dates should be blocked automatically and whether notification emails should be sent.
How do I export my bookings?
The booking manager includes an Export CSV option.
This creates a CSV file containing your bookings and their associated data, which can be useful for reporting, backups or working with the data in spreadsheet software.
How do I manage bookings from multiple calendars?
If you only have a few calendars, you can manage bookings by opening each calendar individually.
For businesses with several properties or rental units, the Booking Manager add-on makes this easier.
It adds a dedicated Booking Manager page under WP Booking System and combines bookings from all your calendars into one place.
You can:
- switch between List and Calendar views;
- search bookings;
- filter bookings by date;
- hide past bookings;
- export bookings to CSV;
- display selected form fields directly in the bookings list.
This is particularly useful if you manage several apartments, holiday homes, rooms or other bookable resources.
How do I prevent a new booking from being double booked?
When adding a calendar to your website, enable Automatically Block Dates if you want selected dates to become unavailable as soon as a booking is submitted.
This prevents another customer from selecting the same dates while the booking is still Pending.
Importantly, Automatically Block Dates does not automatically accept the booking. The booking can remain in the Pending tab while its dates are already unavailable on the calendar.
This allows you to protect the dates while still reviewing the booking before accepting it.
Can bookings be accepted automatically?
Yes.
By default, WP Booking System places new bookings in the Pending tab because this allows you to review them first.
If your business does not require manual approval, you can change the form’s Default Booking Status from its General Options so that new bookings are automatically accepted.
For example, automatic acceptance may make sense when bookings are confirmed immediately after an online payment.
Manual approval may be preferable when you want to verify each request before confirming it.
Summary
Managing bookings in WP Booking System is centered around your calendars.
For each calendar, you can review Pending and Accepted bookings, manage availability, communicate with customers, view payment information and keep internal notes.
For businesses managing multiple calendars, the Booking Manager add-on provides a centralized view of all bookings and makes searching, filtering and reporting easier.
