Booking statuses help you manage your reservations by showing where each booking is in its lifecycle — from Pending to Paid, Cancelled, or beyond. They provide at-a-glance visibility into booking progress and power important workflows such as notifications, reports, and automation triggers.
What you will learn with this article:
- What are booking statuses?
- Example workflow
- Booking statuses overview
- Getting started with booking statuses
- Next steps
Accessing the features mentioned in this article
Where can I find this feature using the top menu?
- Manage > Layout > Statuses
What more do I need to use this feature?
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Admin permissions to manage your account.
Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic items, classic products, or both?
- This feature is available in both our classic version, which uses classic items (Inventory > Items), and our classic version, which uses classic products (Inventory > Products). → Learn more about products
What are booking statuses?
Statuses can:
- Indicate the current status of a booking (e.g., Pending, Paid, Cancelled, etc.).
- Trigger customer or staff notifications when the status changes
- Control availability and inventory (e.g., items return to inventory when cancelled)
- Feed into reports and analytics for better operational insights
Example workflow
A Guest makes a booking → status is Pending → they complete payment → status automatically updates to Paid → if they cancel → status changes to Cancelled.
Booking statuses overview
Checkfront bookings can have one of several associated statuses (e.g., Pending, Paid, Cancelled...).
Which statuses your account utilizes depends on your system and payment configuration:
- If you have turned on payment processing in your account, bookings made on your website are automatically set to Paid or Deposit, depending on your Ecommerce settings.
- If you have not activated payment processing or Staff members process a booking through the Checkfront dashboard, the system sets the invoice status to whatever default you have chosen in the Configuration area (Manage > Setup > Configuration).
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Learn more about ecommerce settings and configuration For a detailed look at configuring ecommerce settings or configuring your account, check out the following articles: |
You can also create additional custom statuses as required, which we learn about later in this series.
Getting started with booking statuses
- Go to Manage > Layout > Statuses.
- Review the list of default statuses already in place.
- Adjust each status’s name, color, or display order as needed.
- Turn on or off any statuses you want to use.
- Click the Save button.
- Test by changing a booking’s status to see how it appears in reports and notifications.
Next Steps
Once you’re comfortable with the basics above, check out these deeper-dive articles:
- Understanding Booking Status types
- Changing the status of a booking
- Working with custom Booking Statuses
- Creating a new Booking Status
Each article walks you step-by-step through that specific feature.
In the following article in this series, we begin by examining the default booking status types.
Understanding Booking Status types >