How nuvelo works.

00 — Watch it work

Short walkthroughsBeta

Each one is under a minute, and together they cover the parts people ask about most. They're early — the voice is computer-generated and there are rough edges — and we'll keep updating them as things change. Pick the set that matches your venue; the rest of this guide goes deeper on everything in them.

01 — Getting started

Your first sign-in

Every new venue starts with a 30-day free trial — every feature unlocked, real bookings from day one, no card needed.

1. Sign up at nuvelo.net and set your password (at least 8 characters) — your 30-day trial starts straight away. (If a nuvelo admin set your venue up for you, you'll get an invite email with a link instead.)
2. Go to your admin dashboard at nuvelo.net/admin and sign in with your email and that password.
3. Set your opening hours, add your tables or sessions, and decide whether you take a deposit — all under the tabs across the top.
4. Add the booking widget to your website — a quick copy-and-paste (or just share your Book Now link) — and you're live.

02 — Who does what

Three ways in

You only ever see your own venue — or several, if you manage a group.

03 — For your guests

Booking, paying & changing plans

Guests never make an account. This is what their journey looks like — worth knowing so you can help over the phone.

1. They pick a date and party size (a restaurant) or a session and how many children and adults (soft play).
2. They choose a time slot — or, at Pro venues, their exact table from your floor plan. You can also ask custom questions here (allergies, an occasion).
3. If you take a deposit, payment opens in a new tab (Stripe, Square or SumUp — your choice). Otherwise the booking confirms straight away. Fully booked? They can join the waitlist instead.
4. They get a confirmation by email — and a text too, at Pro venues — with a reference like BK-A1B2C3D4E5 and a link to manage it.

Every confirmation links to a private manage-booking page, where a guest can finish paying a deposit, change the date, time or party size, or cancel. Cancel outside your window and any deposit is refunded automatically; inside it, it's flagged for you to review. From the same page they can also add the booking to their calendar in one tap, on any phone or computer, and see all their bookings at once via a passwordless email link.

• Reconfirmation — the day-before reminder (opt-in) carries a one-tap "I'll be there". Guests who confirm show a green ✓ on your Bookings desk and service screen, so you know who to chase.
• Their data, their call — guests can download everything you hold on them, or ask for it to be deleted (they confirm by email first). The venue can do the same from the guest book. GDPR, handled.
• And your data is yours — your guest book, bookings and takings are never sold, shared or used for anything except running your venue. You can export everything, any time; if you ever leave, it leaves with you.

04 — The admin

The Bookings desk

The Bookings tab is your day view. Pick a date and every booking is listed by time, with its status, party, table or session, and any guest tags or answers.

1. Hit + New booking.
2. Enter the date, any time you like, and the party size. For sessions, enter adults and children per age band.
3. Add a name and, if you have it, a phone or email. No name? It's saved as a Walk-in.
4. Save. No payment is taken — you settle up at the venue. If you added an email or (on Pro) a phone, a confirmation goes out.

• Move — change any live booking's date, time, party or session. The guest is emailed the new details.
• Cancel — you're asked whether to refund the deposit or keep it. Your call, every time.
• Refund — return part or all of a deposit without cancelling, when you've overcharged or want to make a goodwill gesture. The booking stays live.
• Edit contact — fix a mistyped name, or add an email to a phone booking after the fact.

For a regular who comes in every week — the Tuesday-lunch table for two, a standing team dinner — start a + New booking, tick “Make it a standing booking”, and choose weekly or fortnightly and how many times. It creates the whole run at once, seating each date against your floor and skipping any days you're closed. (Standing bookings are for table bookings, not timed sessions.)

• Manage the series in one place. Any booking that's part of a standing run shows a ↻ Series button — open it to see every date and cancel just one occurrence or the whole run.
• The guest can manage it too. From their booking link they see it's a standing booking and can cancel all their upcoming dates themselves — no phone call.

05 — Front of house

The service screen

Open the service screen on a tablet at the door — it does almost everything front of house needs, so your team can run a whole shift without leaving it. Flip between Arrivals (today's bookings as big cards), the live Floor, the Waitlist, Orders, a two-way Messages inbox, and — for soft play — a session Check-in view.

• Tap a seated table to Finish, Unseat or Move it. Each seated table counts down to its turn time — green while there's time left, flipping red once it's over — so a table that's running long is obvious across the room.
• Tap an arriving table to Seat, No-show or Move; tap a free table to seat an arriving guest, a waiting party, or a walk-in right there.
• Add a walk-in from the + Walk-in button: pick the party size, then either let it take the best-fit table automatically or choose a specific table — the list shows only tables that fit and are free. Booking for a returning guest? The existing-guest search on + Walk-in and + Booking fills in their details.
• The "⋯" menu on any booking card handles the rest without leaving the floor: amend the time, party or date; redeem a loyalty reward; mark a party's balance paid at the desk; message the guest; add a tag or note; or cancel — front of house can cancel without a refund, but refunds stay with a manager.
• Tap a guest's name anywhere — an arrival, a seated table, a waiting party — to open their full record (visits, spend, loyalty, tags, history) and book, redeem, adjust points, message or tag them, without going to search. The Guests button in the top bar looks anyone up by name, phone or email; + Booking takes a future or phone booking at the door.
• Messages — a two-way SMS inbox on the floor. When a guest replies to a confirmation or reminder ("running 10 late", "can we make it 6?"), the thread lands here with an unread count and you reply from the same screen. (Pro. To let guests reply, switch on Let guests reply to your texts in Settings — that sends from your number so replies can come back.)
• Memberships (membership venues) — issue or cancel a membership at the till, and see who holds what.
• Voucher — redeem or void a gift voucher.
• Move highlights only the free tables that fit the party — tap one and the booking hops across (a seated booking stays seated).
• Run sheet prints a clean one-page list of today's bookings (time, guest, party, table, phone, notes, with a covers total) to keep at the pass.
• Check-in (soft play) — a door view that groups today's arrivals by session, each with a live booked · arrived · kids · waiver-needed count. Tap a family to mark them arrived (one tap, no menus), and the waiver flag sits right next to their name so you catch a missing one before the child is on the equipment.
• The screen refreshes itself every 15 seconds. Setting the tablet up is a one-off: in the tablet's browser go to nuvelo.net/admin, sign in, then open nuvelo.net/service. Give the tablet its own front-of-house login — or, for staff without an email, a username + PIN; the one-tap venue link fills your venue in for them. Either way it signs straight in each shift, and the door team never need your owner login.

06 — Fill every table

Waitlist

When you're full, guests don't have to walk away. They join the waitlist from the widget, and your team adds walk-ins at the door.

• On the Waitlist view of the service screen (and under the Bookings tab), you see everyone waiting, longest first, with their party size and how long they've waited.
• Text ready sends "your table's ready" to their mobile (Pro). If they don't come, the offer quietly lapses after a couple of hours so your list stays current.
• Seat turns a waiting party into a live booking at a free table — or they can be seated straight onto a table from the floor. For a soft-play session (or any time you'd rather hold a spot than a specific table), Book converts a waiting party into a booking, prefilled from their details.
• Auto-promotion — when a booking is cancelled and a slot frees, nuvelo automatically offers it to the next guest in line (a text on Pro, otherwise an email), so you don't have to watch the list.

07 — Setup

Tables & sessions

The Tables & Sessions tab is where you tell nuvelo what you actually have. What you see depends on your booking mode.

Add each table with a name and the party size it seats (min and max covers). nuvelo always seats a party at the smallest table that fits. For big groups you can define table joins — named combinations of two or more tables — used automatically only when no single table fits.

Add each timed session with its start and end, the days it runs, and its child capacity. Price it with an adult price plus up to four child age bands (e.g. Under 1 free, 1–4 £6, 5–10 £8.50). At least one child is always required.

The age bands are just named price tiers, not an age check — nobody is turned away for being on the wrong one; they only set what each child costs. You can also choose how the booking form asks for numbers: everyone in one step, or adults first, then children. It only changes the order of the questions, never the price.

Not every soft play runs timed sessions. In the Bookings setup tab, pick “Tables — book a table for a time slot”: a group books a table at a start time and plays for the play length you set (say two hours) — no session grid, no per-child pricing. Add your tables just like a restaurant; we auto-create a “Play area” room to start you off.

Turn on “Ask for adults & children separately” and the booking form asks how many of each (in the order you choose). You decide whether the table is sized by the adults (children just play) or by the whole group, and can require at least one child so you never take an adults-only booking.

08 — A revenue line of its own

Soft-play parties

Sell birthday party packages online. Turn parties on in the Parties tab, add your packages and add-ons, and guests book them on your own party page — the link's right there, ready to share.

• A package has a base price (which includes a number of children), a price per extra child, a maximum, a duration and optional deposit, and runs at fixed start times on the days you choose.
• Add-ons (party bags, food, a character visit) are flat or per-child, and the widget tallies the total live.
• The deposit is taken through your normal checkout — your own Stripe, Square or SumUp account — and the party then appears on the Bookings desk and service screen like any other. By default each start time takes one booking per package (unless you use party rooms — below).
• Party rooms. Add the dedicated rooms you host parties in, then tick which a package can use. Each booking is automatically given a free room, so two rooms take two parties at once, and back-to-back parties reuse a room as it frees up. A party in its own room is a separate space — it doesn't use up your general play capacity, so an everyday session can't accidentally block a party (and vice-versa). The room shows against the booking on your Bookings desk, and each party is drawn onto its room on the service screen (with the times, and a glow while it's happening).
• How a party uses your sessions. If you run timed sessions and a package doesn't use its own party room, choose per package: Runs alongside (no effect), Closes the session — private hire, no other bookings that time — or Shares the session, where the party reserves just its own children and the remaining spaces stay bookable (a smaller, cheaper party without booking out the whole floor).

The first question every soft-play operator asks. Turn on Ask guests to sign a waiver in Settings, paste the wording your insurer requires, and set how long a signature lasts (12 months by default). A first-time parent reads and ticks the waiver as they book (they can't finish the booking without it), or signs at the door at /waiver/your-venue — print that link as a QR for the entrance.

• A family signs once. A returning parent inside your validity window isn't asked again — the booking form shows "waiver already on file" and skips straight past it, so there's no clipboard at the door for regulars.
• The desk flags who hasn't. Every arrival on the Bookings desk, the service screen and the session Check-in view shows a waiver tag — Waiver ✓, Waiver needed, or Waiver? for someone you can't yet identify — so staff catch a missing one before play starts.
• A booking made another way still gets caught. A booking taken by phone, by your team, or through the API isn't blocked for a missing signature — it simply arrives flagged Waiver needed, and the parent signs at the door. The flag is the backstop; nothing slips through unsigned and unnoticed.
• It stands up to scrutiny. Each signature stores the exact wording that was agreed to at the time, so editing a clause later never changes what anyone already signed — which is precisely what an insurer asks about.

Sell repeat visits up front. In the Memberships tab add a plan — a visit-based membership (a fixed number of entries, e.g. 10 visits) or a monthly unlimited — and guests buy it through your own payment account. It's a Pro feature.

• Holders book at £0. When they book, a member enters their code in the "Got a membership?" box and pays nothing — and your session limits still apply, so a busy session can't be oversold to members. A visit-based membership counts one entry down; an unlimited membership just runs to its expiry.
• Renewals look after themselves. A reminder goes out on its own as a membership nears its expiry, so a lapsing member is prompted to renew without you chasing.
• Each plan snapshots its terms onto the membership at purchase, so re-pricing a plan later never changes what an existing holder already bought.

Take a deposit up front, then let nuvelo chase the rest. Set how many days before a party to collect the balance in the Parties settings, and the guest is emailed a pay link for what's left — with one reminder if it's still unpaid as the day nears.

• No more chasing £180 by text. The remainder is emailed automatically on your schedule; you don't lift a finger.
• The desk shows who still owes. A party with an outstanding balance carries a balance £x due flag on the Bookings desk, so nothing is missed on the day.
• Paid at the desk? If a parent settles up in cash or card on the day, hit Balance paid on the booking. That records the payment and stops the automated chaser, so nobody gets an email asking for money they've already handed over.
• The full price is fixed when the party is booked, so a package you re-price later never changes what a booked party owes.

A different product for one-off occasions — a New Year's Eve set menu, a wine tasting, a kids' cooking class. Turn on ticket sales in the Events tab, add an event with a price per ticket, a total capacity and a min/max per booking, and guests buy prepaid tickets on your own events page — the link's right there, ready to share.

• Tickets are paid in full up front through your own Stripe, Square or SumUp account; capacity is enforced, so you can't oversell.
• The Events tab shows tickets sold vs capacity at a glance, and each sale lands on the Bookings desk with the event's name.

09 — Pro feature

Your floor plan

On the Floor plan tab, drag your tables into their real positions across one or more rooms. Set each room's shape, cut-outs for an L-shaped space, and markers for the entrance, doors and windows. Soft plays also get a play zone marker to show where the play equipment sits.

• The floor plan you draw is exactly what guests see in the large widget, and what your team taps on the service screen.
• A guest picking the window seat gets the window seat — the same table you're looking at.

Unless a guest picks their own seat, every online booking is seated automatically — and the rule is simple: the smallest table the party actually fits on. A pair never ties up a table for six while there's a table for two free.

1. Take every table that's free for the whole sitting at that time (your booking duration, not just the slot).
2. Drop any the party won't fit on — below its minimum covers, or above its maximum.
3. Seat them on the smallest one left. If nothing single fits, we try your joined-table combos.
4. Nothing fits at all? That time simply isn't offered, and the guest is pointed at the waitlist.

Best-fit already stops the obvious waste, but it will still put a pair on a six-seat table if that's genuinely all that's free. On a Saturday you may not want that — you'd rather keep your big tables for big groups. Two switches in Settings decide it:

Choose-your-table is a Pro feature. On Starter, guests still book — nuvelo just assigns the best-fit table automatically, exactly as above.

10 — Complete feature

Order & pay at the table

Build your menu in the Menu tab, print the per-table QR sheet, and guests order, pay and tip from their phone by scanning the QR on their table — every paid order lands on the service screen's Orders view. It works alongside the till you already have.

• Money goes straight to your own account. The bill and the tip land in your own Stripe, Square or SumUp account — nuvelo never takes a cut and never holds your money.
• Menu prices include VAT. Give each item a VAT rate and, once your VAT number is in the Menu tab, receipts carry a proper per-rate breakdown automatically.
• Sold out mid-service? Tap Mark sold out on the service screen — it greys out for guests instantly, and comes back just as fast.
• Spend feeds your reports and loyalty. Serving an order adds the bill (never the tip) to that table's booking, so guest spend and points stay honest.
• Set your own tip buttons. The tip options guests see are percentages of the bill you pick in the Menu tab (the default is 10 / 12.5 / 15%). They can always type their own amount or skip the tip entirely.

Nothing to install and no extra device: it's the same service screen the floor already runs on. Open the Orders tab there and you can:

• Open a tab on a table, and ring items onto it as the visit goes. The tab stays open — it isn't a bill until you make it one.
• Strike a line off if something's sent back or rung by mistake. You can never take a tab below what's already been paid on it.
• Take the money when they're ready — hand over the pay link/QR, or settle at the till. See the meal's over below.

You'll only see the Orders tab once order & pay is switched on for the venue (Admin → Menu, on the Complete plan). Until then the service screen says so and points you at the setting, rather than the tab silently going missing.

Put a tablet on the pass, open Kitchen screen from the Orders tab, and it shows everything still to be made — guest phone orders and your team's tabs together, on one screen, oldest first. Tap a line when it's made and it strikes through; tap again if you tapped it by mistake. It refreshes itself, so new tickets simply appear.

Two things worth knowing about what lands there:

• A guest's phone order only appears once they've paid. An unpaid basket isn't an order, and the kitchen should never be cooking against one.
• A tab line appears the moment your team rings it in — that's the whole point, the food goes on while the bill settles at the end.

It's a screen, not a till: no printers, no stock counting, nothing to buy. If your kitchen already has a system it likes, ignore this one — nothing else depends on it.

No spare tablet? The Run sheet button prints today's bookings and everything still to make, table by table, so the kitchen has it on paper. Be aware of what paper can't do: it's a snapshot of the moment you pressed print, so an order placed after that won't be on it. Anything already marked made is left off, so nothing gets cooked twice. For a kitchen taking orders all through service, the screen is the honest answer and the sheet is the fallback.

Three routes, and you can mix them table by table. All of them put the money straight into your own Stripe, Square or SumUp account.

1. Once: connect your payment account — Settings → Payment providers (Stripe, Square, or SumUp). Without this, nuvelo can't charge anyone.
2. Once: turn on Take orders at the table in Settings, and build your menu in the Menu tab.
3. Per table: open a tab from the service screen's Orders view and ring items on as you go.
4. At the end: hit pay link and hand the guest the QR (or send the link). They see the live bill, add a tip, and pay — splitting it if they want.
5. The tab settles itself the moment it's paid in full, the spend lands on that table's booking, and the money is in your account. Nothing to reconcile.

Taking orders the classic way? Open a tab on a table from the Orders view and ring items on as the visit goes — then either hand the table the pay link (a QR they scan to see the live bill) or take payment on your own till and tap Settle at till.

• Split the bill — three ways. Guests open the same link and pay the rest, pay just their share by amount, or pick the items they had and pay for those — the amount is worked out from those lines and each payer gets an itemised receipt of exactly what they covered. The bill updates live and already-paid items grey out, so nobody pays twice.
• Credit a deposit to the bill. If the table paid a deposit when they booked, apply it against their tab or order in a tap — it comes straight off what's left to pay.
• Mis-rang something? Strike a line off an open tab. nuvelo won't let the bill drop below what's already been paid.
• Cancel safely. Cancelling a tab automatically refunds every card payment made on it, tips included.

Order & pay is a Complete feature. On the free trial everything's unlocked — try it with your real menu.

11 — Works with your till

The Square integration

Already on Square? You don't have to run two systems side by side. nuvelo plugs into your existing Square account two ways — pull your menu and takings in, and (if you like) run every payment through Square instead of Stripe. Connect it once in Settings → Payment providers — you're sent to Square to authorise nuvelo, brought straight back, and you pick your location. Done. No key to copy or paste for the usual setup (there's an Advanced option to paste an access token if you'd rather).

Connect Square and nuvelo pulls from it — nothing is ever pushed back, so your till is untouched.

• Import your menu. Your Square catalogue — categories, items and prices — comes straight into your Order & pay menu, so you don't retype a thing. Re-import any time to pull changes; anything you added by hand in nuvelo is left alone. (Set VAT rates after importing — Square handles tax differently, so we leave that to you.)
• Pull your takings. Completed Square orders flow in as guest spend, so your reports and loyalty points reflect what people actually spent at the till — not just what they paid nuvelo. Matched to the right booking by reference or table.

Rather keep everything in one place? Switch your payment processor to Square in Settings → Payment providers, and every guest payment nuvelo takes runs through your own Square account instead of Stripe:

• Deposits, table orders, tabs, gift vouchers and no-show charges — all of it, on Square. There's no Stripe account to open, no second dashboard, one payout.
• Your money, your account. Payments and tips land straight in your Square balance — nuvelo never holds a penny and never takes a cut of your sales, exactly as with the Stripe route.
• One connection covers both. The same Square account you synced does the payments too — connect once, switch the toggle, and you're taking live payments through Square.
• Itemised sales, not a lump line. Turn on “Send itemised sales to your Square” (in the Menu tab) and every table order lands in your Square as its actual items — so your Square item and category reports add up — and for items you track stock on in Square, inventory goes down automatically. Leave it off if your staff also ring the same orders on your Square till, so nothing's counted twice.
• Charge a Square Terminal straight from the floor. If you use a physical Square Terminal reader, paste its device ID in the same Settings → Payments card (the “Card terminal device ID” box appears once Square is your payment processor — find the ID in the Square app on the terminal, under Settings → Device). Then on the service screen, Settle at till → Charge on card terminal pushes the amount to the reader, the guest taps their card there, and the tab closes itself the moment the payment lands. Leave the box blank to keep settling by hand.

This is the part worth reading properly, because "integrated" can mean anything. Here is precisely what moves, in which direction, and how quickly.

Square is a superb till and card terminal. What it doesn't do is take your bookings, run your floor, remember your guests or take a deposit. nuvelo does exactly those, and hands the money to Square. Put them together and there's very little left to buy:

The Square sync (importing your menu and pulling takings back) is a Complete feature. Taking guest payments through your own Square account is available on any plan — a Starter venue can let Square process its deposits without buying Complete. On the free trial everything's unlocked, so you can try the whole thing first.

12 — Know your regulars

The guest book

Every guest who books is remembered. The Guests tab is your CRM — searchable, with visit history and tags that surface where they matter.

• Add tags (allergies, "VIP", "high chair") and private notes — the notes are staff-only, never shown to the guest — and both surface on the booking row and the service card so nothing gets missed.
• Dietary & access notes and a date of birth. A guest's allergies, intolerances or access needs are kept on their profile, so they flag on every future visit and on the arrival card — not re-asked each booking. An optional date of birth powers the birthday club.
• Fix their contact details — correct a mistyped email or phone number right on the guest's profile, so confirmations and reminders stop bouncing.
• Merge duplicates — the same person often ends up with two profiles (a work email one visit, a personal one the next). Open one, hit Merge a duplicate in…, find the other, and their bookings, spend, loyalty, tags and notes all come together into a single history.
• Returning guests get a ★ so your team can greet them like regulars, and their name is a link on the Bookings and Waitlist lists — one tap opens their profile instead of re-searching.
• Act on a guest from their profile — take a New booking (prefilled with their details), Add them to the waitlist, Message them, redeem or adjust loyalty, or jump to any past booking by tapping its row. There's also a one-tap ★ Redeem straight on the Bookings list for a guest with loyalty points.
• Open a guest to export everything you hold on them, or erase them (GDPR) — their booking history stays for your records, stripped of personal details.

The Marketing tab turns your guest book into a mailing list. Write a message, pick who gets it — lapsed guests (not seen in 60/90/180 days), guests with a certain number of visits, or a tag like "VIP" — preview the count, and send a branded email.

• Every email carries a one-tap unsubscribe, and erased or unsubscribed guests are never contacted — the compliance is handled for you.
• Your logo on top — upload a small JPEG or PNG in Settings and it appears at the top of every guest email: confirmations, reminders and campaigns.
• Send it as a text instead — flip "Send as" to text message and the same segment gets your message by SMS, from your venue's sender name, with an opt-out link added automatically. Texts have a real carrier cost, so they're billed per text (the price and total show before you confirm) on your next bill — email campaigns stay included in Pro.
• Past campaigns are listed with how they went out, who to, and what texts cost.

Every guest carries a plain-English segment badge in the guest book, worked out automatically from how often and how recently they visit and what they spend — New, Regular, VIP, At risk (gone quiet for 90–180 days) or Lapsed (180 days+). It's on the guest list and their profile, and it's a filter when you send a campaign — so "win back my at-risk guests" or "a treat for my VIPs" is two clicks, not a spreadsheet.

Under Marketing → Automatic emails are the messages that send themselves, so you keep in touch without remembering to. Each one is a simple on/off switch; every send still carries the one-tap unsubscribe and skips anyone who's opted out.

• First-visit thank-you — a warm note the day after someone's first visit.
• Win-back — a gentle "we miss you" once a guest has been away for however many days you choose. It only catches people as they lapse — switching it on never blasts your whole back catalogue.
• Birthday club — record a guest's date of birth on their profile and they get a birthday message on the day, once a year.
• Gift-voucher expiry reminders — a heads-up before a guest's voucher runs out, so it gets used (and they come back).
• Loyalty tier-up — congratulate a guest the first time they reach a new loyalty tier.
• Send these by text instead — flip one switch and, where a guest has a mobile, the journeys above go by SMS (guests without a mobile still get the email). Like a text campaign, these are billed per text and only go out on a paid, active plan; each carries an opt-out.

Turn a happy regular into your best marketing. Switch Refer a friend on in Settings and set the reward. Each guest gets a personal share link on their booking page; when a new friend books their first visit with it and actually comes in, both of them get a gift voucher for the amount you set — issued automatically, and shown in your reports.

Turn casual visitors into regulars. Switch it on in the Loyalty tab and guests earn points whenever they visit — nothing to sign up for, it all runs off the guest book you already have.

• Earning: set points per visit and/or per £ spent. Points are added when a guest actually turns up (a booking marked seated or completed), so no-shows never earn.
• Tiers: define levels by lifetime points (e.g. Regular at 100, VIP at 500). A tier can carry a staff note that pops up on the booking and the service card (“VIP — comp a coffee”), and can waive the deposit for that guest automatically.
• Rewards: list what points buy — a free coffee, a gift voucher (issued for real when redeemed), whatever you like. Your team redeems them from the guest's profile in a tap; spending points never costs a guest their tier.
• Adjust points by hand from a guest's profile when you need to — add a few to say sorry, or correct a mistake. It's the release valve for anything the automatic earning doesn't cover, and every adjustment is logged.
• Guests can see it: optionally show each guest their tier and points on their confirmation email and booking page, to nudge the next visit.

12b — Moving in

Bring your bookings with you

Switching from ResDiary, OpenTable, DesignMyNight or a spreadsheet? You don't retype a thing. In Settings → Bring your bookings with you there are two importers, and both show you a preview before anything is saved.

• Your guest book. Export your guests as a CSV with at least an email or phone column — name, visit count, tags and notes come across too. People you already have are merged, not duplicated, and the imported visit count means your regulars show as regulars from day one instead of starting as strangers.
• Your forward diary. Export your future bookings with date, time and party-size columns. Each one is seated against your floor automatically; anything that can't find a table is still imported as a confirmed booking for you to place on the Bookings desk. Past dates and anything marked cancelled are skipped.

13 — Extra revenue

Gift vouchers

Turn vouchers on in Settings, and guests buy them on your own gift voucher page — the link's ready to share from the Vouchers tab. The buyer gets a code by email; you redeem it at the venue. If the buyer is giving it as a present, they can add the recipient's email at checkout and we'll send the voucher — code and message — straight to the recipient.

• Set the quick-pick amounts. The suggested amounts on your gift page (e.g. £25 / £50 / £100) are yours to choose in Settings — they're just shortcut buttons, and a guest can always type a different amount.
• Redeeming one at the table: tap Voucher on the service screen, type the code the guest reads out, and you'll see what's actually left on it. Take the whole balance off, or type an amount to take part of it — the rest stays on the voucher for next time. No need to leave the service screen.
• In the Vouchers tab you see every voucher, its remaining balance, and can redeem it in full or part — or look one up by code at the counter. Same thing as the service screen button, for when you're already in the admin.
• Every redemption is recorded against the member of staff who did it, so a "that voucher had more on it" conversation has an answer.
• Payment runs through your own Stripe (or Square) account, just like a deposit.
• Issue a voucher yourself. In the Vouchers tab, Issue a voucher creates one instantly with no payment — pick a reason (Reward, Complimentary or Sold at till) so it's tagged apart from the ones bought online, then hand the code to the guest. Perfect for thanking a regular or putting a mistake right.
• Void a voucher that shouldn't be live — a £200 typed where you meant £20, say. Void in the Vouchers tab cancels it for good; if it was bought online, the buyer is automatically refunded whatever's left unspent on it.

14 — Win more, lose fewer

Reviews, questions & pacing

Turn on review requests in Settings and paste your Google review link. The day after a visit, guests get a friendly, branded email asking how it went — sent once, automatically.

You choose how it's collected. Send straight to your link takes them directly to Google. Or pick Ask on a nuvelo page first: the guest gives a quick 1–5 rating and a comment on your own branded page — then a happy guest (4–5★) is offered your public review link, while an unhappy rating stays private and comes to you instead of the internet. You see the average, a star breakdown and the recent comments in your Reports.

Ask guests something extra at booking — allergies, an occasion, whether they need a high chair. Add text, multiple-choice or yes/no questions in Settings; answers show on the booking and the service card.

Cap the covers that can be booked online per time slot so a rush doesn't bury the kitchen. Staff bookings can still go over it when you know you can cope.

15 — Money

Deposits & your payment account

Deposits go straight to your own payment account — Stripe by default, or your own Square account instead (see Works with Square), or SumUp if that's what you already use. nuvelo never holds your guests' money — we only take our flat monthly fee.

Whether guests see the word “deposit” or “payment” is your call — the “Call it a…” setting. Left on Automatic it picks the natural word: payment for a soft-play session paid in full, deposit for a table held with a part-payment. The wording follows through everywhere guests see money — the widget, the confirmation page and the emails.

Stripe is the card processor. You own the account and the money — nuvelo just asks it to take a payment on your behalf, and never touches the funds. One connection powers everything nuvelo can charge for:

• Deposits when a guest books.
• Order & pay — the guest paying from their phone at the table.
• Tabs and split bills — taking payment at the end of the meal.
• Gift vouchers bought from your page.
• No-show fees charged to a saved card.

Connect it once and all of those work. There's nothing to set up per feature.

1. Create a Stripe account at stripe.com. It's free, and there's no monthly cost — Stripe takes a small percentage of each payment (their published UK card rate), which comes out of the payment itself.
2. Activate it. Stripe asks for your business details, ID and a bank account before it will pay you out. Until that's done you can only take test payments.
3. Copy your secret key. In Stripe: Developers → API keys → Secret key. Click reveal, then copy. A live key starts sk_live_.
4. Paste it into nuvelo under Settings → Payment providers, and save.
5. It's encrypted at rest and never shown again — not even back to you. Once it's saved you'll just see that it's connected.
6. Prove it. Take one real booking with a small deposit — it should appear in your Stripe dashboard within seconds. Refund it from nuvelo and watch it come back out.

16 — Cut no-shows

No-show protection

An alternative to an up-front deposit: instead of charging now, the guest saves a card when they book, and you only charge a fee if they don't turn up.

1. Turn on No-show protection in Settings and set the fee. It replaces the deposit.
2. The guest books and saves a card (no charge). Their booking page reads "Card saved — £X charged only if you don't show up".
3. If they don't turn up, mark them a no-show on the floor or the Bookings desk — you'll be asked whether to charge the fee to that saved card. Your team decides each time; plenty of venues waive it.

17 — Settings

Hours, closed dates & the details

Set each day as Closed or Open with from/to times; split shifts are supported. Add a one-off closed date for a bank holiday or private hire — it overrides your weekly hours for that day and takes you off the calendar. If you already have bookings that day, nuvelo warns you first.

• Booking window — how many days ahead guests can book, and the largest party you'll take online.
• Limit day-to-day bookings — let everyday bookings (tables, play sessions) open closer to the day than your main booking window, so your near dates stay free to fill. Handy for soft play: keep everyday sessions to a week or two while parties still book months ahead. Leave it at 0 to use the full window for everything.
• Hold window — how long an unpaid booking keeps its slot; cancellation window — the notice inside which auto-refunds stop.
• Deposit only for big parties — set a threshold so, say, only parties of 6+ pay a deposit (or save a card); smaller ones just confirm.
• Abandoned-booking recovery — email a guest whose unpaid booking expired, inviting them back. Widget language — English, French, Spanish or German.
• Email me about new bookings — a heads-up email whenever a booking comes in, is cancelled, or someone joins the waitlist. It's on by default and goes to your login email; point it at a different address (a shared inbox, say) or switch it off entirely in Settings.
• Widget accent colour — pick the colour your booking widget wears, so it matches your website rather than ours. A live sample shows you the result before you save; one click puts it back to the nuvelo default.
• Only seat parties on right-sized tables — a switch that stops the system putting a small party on a much bigger table. If no snug table is free, that time shows as full and the guest is offered the waitlist. Set how much headroom to allow (e.g. let a party of 3 take a 4-seat table but not a 2-seat one). Your team can still seat anyone at any table by hand on the floor.
• Covers pacing, custom questions, gift vouchers, review requests, the manager password and your Book Now link all live here too.
• List in the nuvelo directory — an opt-in switch (off by default) that shows your venue on nuvelo's public directory and lets search engines find your booking page. It's free, there's no paying to rank, and guests still book on your own page — you keep every customer.
• Your logo — upload a small JPEG or PNG and it tops every guest email. Setup file — export this venue's whole configuration, or import one (from the demo, or another venue) into a fresh venue.

On Pro, nuvelo texts as well as emails — the booking confirmation, the day-before reminder, "your table's ready" from the waitlist, and the auto-promotion offer when a slot frees. Texts go to whatever mobile you hold for the guest; if there's no number, they still get the email, so nothing is missed.

• Your monthly allowance — 400 texts on Pro, 500 on Complete, per venue. Reaching it never blocks a booking: the guest simply gets the email instead, at no extra cost.
• Keep texting past your allowance (optional) — off by default. Turn it on in Settings → texting and extra texts keep going, billed at 8p each on your next invoice. You're never charged for going over unless you switch this on.
• On the free trial — the cap is 25 texts, enough to see it working. It rises to the full allowance the moment you're paying — or start now with Start today in the Billing tab and it rises immediately.
• Your name on every text — set an SMS sender name in Settings and guests see your venue as the sender (e.g. COPPERPOT) instead of a random number. Leave it blank to use your venue name. Up to 11 letters and numbers; UK numbers need no pre-registration.
• Day-before reminders — turn on reminders and every guest gets a friendly nudge the day before, carrying the one-tap "I'll be there" reconfirmation.

18 — On your site

Website widgets: small vs large

Guests book on your website, not ours. Copy this snippet from Settings → Your Booking Page — the only thing to decide is which size to use:

Everything else is identical: both resize to their content, ask any custom questions, offer the waitlist when you're full, speak your venue's chosen language, and confirm themselves once payment (in its own tab) finishes. Sessions and soft-play venues don't have a table step, so both sizes look the same for them. Both are keyboard-operable and screen-reader labelled — including the choose-your-table step, where each table announces its name, its size, where it is and whether it's free — so every guest can book.

19 — Know your numbers

Reports & activity

• Reports (Pro) — bookings, covers, money taken, no-shows and cancellations over any date range, plus a busy-hours chart (covers by time of day), where bookings came from (widget / staff / API / waitlist), your no-show rate, and real guest spend when your till posts it back (see POS). CSV exports:
  • Summary — the day-by-day totals.
  • Bookings — every booking in the range (time, guest, party, table, phone, status, notes).
  • Accounting — a per-payment takings ledger (deposits, order & pay, tabs, gift vouchers, no-show fees, and refunds as negatives), formatted to import straight into Xero or QuickBooks: map Date, Reference and Amount, and the Category column becomes the account.
  • Voucher liability (if you sell gift vouchers) — the outstanding unredeemed voucher balance as of today, i.e. money you've taken but still owe in redemptions (deferred revenue) for your accountant.
• The deeper numbers (Pro) — beyond the headline counts, the report also shows occupancy (how full your tables run), booking lead time, a new-vs-returning split of your covers, and any outstanding party balances still to collect.
• Sales mix / top sellers (Pro) — units sold, revenue and share per menu item across paid orders and settled tabs, so you can see what's actually earning.
• Sales & tips by server (Pro) — tabs run, sales and tips attributed to whoever opened them.
• Guest reviews (Pro) — your average rating, the star breakdown and recent comments, when you collect reviews on a nuvelo rating page.
• A summary email, if you'd rather not log in. Turn on Daily or Weekly under Settings and you get a short email each morning — covers, takings, no-shows and cancellations for yesterday (or the past week), plus today's diary at a glance. Weekly ones arrive on Mondays.
• Activity — a running log of every booking, payment, change and cancellation, each stamped with who did it.

20 — Your plan

Trial, Starter, Pro & Complete

Manage it all under the Billing tab — upgrade, downgrade or cancel anytime. No setup fees, no contracts. Every plan is per venue; a group can mix plans across its sites.

In a hurry during your trial? You can pick a plan to begin the day your trial ends (no charge until then), or tick "Start today" to begin right away — that ends your free trial, charges you now, and unlocks your plan's full paid limits (like its monthly text allowance) immediately.

Pay yearly and save. Switch to annual billing in the Billing tab: Complete pays for ten months (two free), Starter and Pro for eleven (one free). Same features, one invoice a year.

21 — Advanced · keeping it safe

Two-factor authentication

Any admin can turn on 2FA for their own account under Settings → Your team.

1. Scan the QR code with an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy…).
2. Enter a code to switch it on. You're handed eight recovery codes — save them somewhere safe.
3. Sign-in then asks for a code from your app. Lost your phone? A recovery code gets you in (each works once).

Locked out with 2FA in the way? Contact nuvelo and we'll reset it for you.

21b — Access control

Your team & roles

Give everyone their own login. Then every voucher redemption, refund and change is stamped in the Activity log with who did it — a name, not a shared account.

In Settings → Your team (owners only), invite people by email — they set their own password and, if they like, their own two-factor. Each person gets a role per venue, so someone can be an owner of one site and front of house at another:

• Owner — everything, including billing, payment settings, API keys and managing the team. A venue always keeps at least one owner.
• Manager — everything except billing, payment settings, API keys and the team. This is exactly what the manager password unlocks today.
• Front of house — the service screen, the Bookings desk, Guests (with tags and notes), the waitlist, orders and tabs, and redeeming vouchers. No Settings, no floor/menu/parties editing, no reports export.

22 — Advanced · access control

The manager lock

Sharing a logged-in tablet with floor staff? Set a manager password under Settings → Your team to keep them out of the setup.

• When it's on, Settings (including booking questions and loyalty), Tables & Sessions, Floor editing, Menu, Parties, Events, Billing and the API all need the password, and leaving the service screen needs it too. Bookings, Guests, Reports, Activity and running service stay open.
• The password is checked on the server, not just hidden — so it can't be clicked around.
• Forgot it? Anyone with the account login password can clear it from the unlock prompt (staff on the tablet don't have that).

23 — Advanced · groups

Running multiple venues

One person can manage several venues from a single login — a group manager.

• Tell nuvelo which sites you manage when your account is set up — venues can be added or removed any time.
• A group manager gets a venue picker in the admin to switch between sites, plus an "★ All my venues" roll-up: today's covers and takings per venue, and a date-range report across the whole group with grand totals.

24 — Advanced · developers

The API & webhooks

Everything under the API tab. Build on your bookings: read availability, list and create bookings, and get a signed event whenever something changes. This section assumes a little technical comfort.

Create a key in the API tab. It's shown once — copy it then (we only ever store a hash). Each key belongs to one venue and authenticates every request:

Set one webhook URL in the API tab and we'll POST a signed JSON event on booking.created, booking.updated and booking.cancelled. A Send test button and a recent-deliveries log make it easy to wire up.

Verify the signature to be sure it's really us: take the timestamp t and the raw body, join them as t.body, and compute HMAC-SHA256 with your signing secret (shown in the API tab). It should match v1.

Connect your till so guest spend is real spend, not just deposits. Generate a POS key in the API tab and have your till (or a tool like Zapier) post each finished bill:

The bill shows in the guest book and feeds the Reports "real spend" figure. Prefer not to automate it? Staff can type a bill straight onto a booking from the Bookings desk (the £ Bill button). No till can enter your data — the key only records spend.

More guests now ask an AI assistant to "find a table and book it". Turn on “Let AI assistants book for guests” (Settings → Payments) and an assistant can find you and book against your real availability, in the guest's name, exactly as a person with a browser would. One firm limit: an assistant can never take a payment — so if the booking needs a deposit, it stays unpaid and the guest gets a payment link to settle it themselves. These bookings arrive tagged “agent” in your list, so you can always see how they came in. Off by default; switch it on when you're ready.

25 — Reference

Booking statuses at a glance

The fastest way to learn the whole thing is to open the demo and click around — four private practice venues (including a blank one to build from scratch) you can't break for anyone else. When you're ready, sign in and set up your own.

Something not working? Every admin page has a “Report a problem” link at the top. Tell us what happened and pick how urgent it is — we're alerted straight away, and urgent reports also text us, so we're on it fast. You can always email [email protected] too.

And you'll hear back: if we need more detail we'll ask — you get an email, and you answer under Your reports in the same window. When it's fixed (or closed), you're emailed the outcome and the whole conversation stays there to look back on.