This guide walks you through manually creating a booking.
After completing these steps, the booking is added to the session, the customer is saved to your records, and payment can be charged directly to the customer's card.
Step 1: Open the dashboard calendar
From the CaptainBook dashboard, scroll down to the Calendar section. The calendar shows all your bookings and availabilities for the current period.
Step 2: Navigate to the target date
Locate the date of the session you want to add a booking to — in this example, June 20, 2026.
Step 3: Open the session
Click the session you want to book — for example, the 9am entry on June 20th. Day view makes individual sessions easier to identify.
The session detail page opens, showing the start and end date, the experience, the schedule, the booking cut-off, and the assigned resources.
Step 4: Go to the Create a new booking form
Scroll down the session page to the Create a new booking section.
Step 5: Select a partner
In the Partner section, click the partner dropdown. You can type to search an existing partner or pick one from the list — for example, Direct for direct bookings.
If the partner does not exist yet, click Add new partner at the bottom of the dropdown.
Step 6: Add the customer
In the Customer section, start typing the customer's name in the Customer name field. The dropdown suggests matching existing customers.
If no match is found, click Create "[name]" as a customer to add a new customer on the fly.
Then fill in the customer's email, select the country code, and enter the phone number. Complete any other customer questions configured for the experience.
Step 7: Choose the booking type & resource
Select the booking type by choosing either the Booking or Reservation option. Set the refundable status and assign a resource if the experience requires one.
Step 8: Add extras (optional)
If the experience has extras configured, select any extras the customer wants to include. The Details summary on the right updates the total and net to pay as you add items.
Step 9: Select payment method
Scroll to the payment section at the bottom of the form, select the customer's payment method and then click Create a new booking to submit. The booking is added to the session and appears on the session page and the calendar.
