Managing bookings & your dashboard
Your dashboard is the pipeline for every job, from a first inquiry to a paid, confirmed booking. The menu has seven pages: Overview, Requests, Clients, Proposals, Bookings, Settings, and Billing. Here is what each working page shows and what you can do from it.
Overview
The Overview changes as your account grows. Until your booking page is live, it leads with a checklist of the setup steps still to finish and a link back to onboarding. Once the page is live but nothing has happened yet, it shows your booking link to share.
After your first activity, the Overview opens with three figures. Booked this month is the full value of bookings reserved this month. Quotes outstanding is the total of proposals that have been sent or viewed but not yet signed. Deposits collected is the sum of deposit payments that succeeded this month. Below the figures, Recent activity lists your latest proposals and bookings with the client, the service, the total, the status, and when it happened.
Requests
Requests lists every submission from your public booking page, newest first, with the date requested, the package, the deposit it would take, and the client's message. Each request carries one of these statuses:
- Proposal sent automatically: BookNox created the proposal and emailed the client.
- Converted to proposal: you sent a proposal for it yourself.
- Needs manual send: the automatic proposal could not be created; use Send proposal.
- New: waiting for you to send a proposal.
- Dismissed: you set it aside. Restore brings it back.
- Declined: you turned it down with Decline, or refunded its booking in full and cancelled the rest. This is final.
Declining a request
Decline is for a date you cannot take. It cancels every unsigned proposal you sent this client for that date, so none of them can be signed or paid, and opens the date on your booking page again. One you sent from another open request of theirs is that request's to decline and stays live; the client is not emailed until you decline that request too. If the client already signed or paid this request's own proposal, nothing is declined. If they hold a booking with you for that date on another proposal, the duplicate request is still declined, that booking is untouched, and the client is not emailed. You can email the client that you cannot take the date; the box is ticked by default. Dismiss only sets a request aside and leaves any proposal it carries live. A declined request is final: a new proposal for that client starts from Proposals, not from the request.
Clients
Clients holds the contacts you imported from another tool, with name, email, phone, and company. Search by name, email, or company, and copy your booking link from any row to send it to that client. The list shows your 1,000 most recent contacts; the import article explains how to bring a list over.
Proposals
Proposals lists every proposal with its title, client, total, status, and when it was sent. The status moves through draft, sent, viewed, signed, and paid. A draft row has a Preview PDF link and, once you subscribe, a Send to client button; any other row's title opens the client's proposal page, which asks for the access code from the client's email.
What does the Bookings page show?
Bookings lists every job whose deposit has been paid, with the service, the client, the service date, a Balance column, and a Calendar column. The Balance column reads paid in full when nothing is owed, shows the amount still open with the next due date when a payment is scheduled, or reads awaiting milestone for a web design project waiting for you to mark the next milestone reached.
Open payments can be managed from the same row. A Request button starts collection on a web design milestone, and the schedule control lets you move a remaining payment's due date later or waive it. The Calendar column shows on calendar or not synced for the Google Calendar event, and whether the client's invite file was sent.
Creating a proposal by hand
The New quote button at the top of the Overview opens the proposal form. Choose the industry, package, hours, and add ons, enter the client's name and email, and add the service date if there is one; the total and deposit update as you go. Requests that need a manual send open the same form from their Send proposal link.
Where do I find signed documents?
Signed contracts arrive by email. The moment a client signs, BookNox emails the signed PDF to you and to the client as an attachment, with the subject line starting Signed. The PDF carries the signature, the timestamps, the signer's IP address and browser, and a tamper evident fingerprint, and the client can always reopen a signed proposal from their link, because signed and paid proposals never expire.
What if two bookings land on the same day?
BookNox checks each date when a request is sent and again when its deposit is paid. If a paid deposit still lands on a date that already holds as many bookings as your max bookings per day allows, for example because you created a proposal by hand for a busy date, both payments go through and BookNox emails you a heads up naming the date, so you can contact one client to reschedule.
Settings and Billing
Settings holds everything clients see and everything your contracts say: your profile, logo, and brand color, your pricing catalogs, your availability, the QuickBooks connection, and an Account security section where you can sign out every other device. Billing shows your subscription status, renewal or access dates, and the refund options described in the subscription article.
Unfinished quotes are the one part of the pipeline that is not a dashboard page. A prospect who builds a quote on your page and leaves without sending it reaches you as an email alert instead, with their contact details and the quote they saw.
Emails BookNox sends you
BookNox emails you at the moments that need you:
- A new booking request from your page, with the quote and deposit
- A signed contract, with the PDF attached
- A deposit that cleared
- A payment that went overdue, once per payment
- An unfinished quote someone built on your page and left
- A conflict, when two paid bookings share one date