Every booking has two places to write notes, and the difference matters. Notes is for what the guest has asked for, and NomNom can repeat it back to them on their confirmation email. Internal notes (staff only) is for your team and never reaches the guest. Anything you wouldn’t want the guest to read — a surprise cake from their friends, a reminder about last time — belongs in internal notes.
Which box to use
- Notes is for the guest’s own requests: an anniversary, a pushchair, a quiet table. When someone books online, whatever they type in the requests box on your booking page lands here. Anything in Notes can appear on the guest’s confirmation email, under Special Requests.
- Internal notes (staff only) is for instructions to the team, such as Prosecco on arrival, paid for by her sister. Internal notes are never put in an email to the guest, guests can’t add to them from your booking page, and they aren’t passed to other software connected to NomNom, such as a till system.
Adding notes to a booking
1. Open the booking. In NomNom Web, start a new booking, or select an existing one and click Edit reservation. In the phone app, open the booking.
2. Type in the right box. In NomNom Web both boxes are in the Notes & allergies section, with Notes first and Internal notes (staff only) underneath. In the phone app, tap Notes or Internal notes, type, then tap Save.
3. Save the booking as you normally would. In the phone app, that’s Save Reservation.
In NomNom Web: select a booking → Edit reservation → Notes & allergies. In the phone app: open the booking → Notes or Internal notes.
When the guest sees Notes
When you take a booking with an email address, or a guest books online, the confirmation email includes a Special Requests section showing what’s in Notes. If Notes is empty, the section is left out.
The confirmation goes out again when your team moves the booking to a different date or time or restores it after a cancellation, and, if you let guests change their bookings online, when a guest changes their booking or asks for it to be sent again. Each time it shows Notes as they stand at that moment. So something added to Notes days after the booking was made can still land in the guest’s inbox.
Other emails — cancellations, payment receipts and follow-ups — never include notes, and nor does a confirmation you re-send yourself from the booking’s messages. Changing the notes on a booking doesn’t email the guest on its own.
Taking Special Requests off confirmations
If your team is in the habit of writing its own notes in Notes, you can leave the section off confirmation emails altogether.
1. Open Email Settings. In NomNom Web, open Settings from the account menu at the top right and choose Email Settings. In the phone app, go to Settings and tap Email Settings. You’ll need to be an admin.
2. Turn off Show special requests. Choose the Confirmation tab and turn off Show special requests. It saves straight away.
The switch is on until you turn it off. With it off, the section disappears from guests’ confirmations and from the copy your restaurant receives, but you’ll still see the requests on the booking.
In NomNom Web: Settings → Email Settings → Confirmation. In the phone app: Settings → Email Settings → Confirmation.
Where your team sees internal notes
- In the phone app, open the booking: Internal notes is just below Notes.
- In NomNom Web, the panel beside your bookings and the Full details window both show them under the guest’s Notes, headed Internal notes (staff only). You can also read them by opening the booking to edit it: select it and click Edit reservation.
- On the printed service sheet, internal notes print after the guest’s notes, marked Internal:. See Printing tonight’s service sheet.
Good to know
- Allergies are separate. Allergies recorded on a booking are listed on the guest’s confirmation too, whatever the Show special requests switch is set to.
- Popup notes are something else. A note for a whole day, such as Private hire from 6pm, is a popup note rather than a booking note — see Adding popup notes.
- Repeating a booking copies both. When you use Book another date, the new booking starts with the same Notes and internal notes — see Booking a guest in for several days in a row.