Online booking

Summary

Online booking lets a customer enter their car, pick a service, choose a time, and book it themselves. No phone call, and no account to create. You decide which services can be booked, how they are described, whether a deposit is required, and which bays can take each job.

Your booking page lives at your own web address followed by /book. If your garage is yourgarage.torqueflow.app, customers book at yourgarage.torqueflow.app/book. You can share that link, or drop the booking page straight into your own website.

On the phone, the Voice AI finds a caller real dates. For most garages it passes the one they pick to your team, who put the appointment in. Booking straight into the diary by phone is switched on garage by garage, and it is off unless Torqueflow has turned it on for you. Contact support if you want it. The online booking page is the route where the customer books the slot themselves. See How the Voice AI handles booking calls for the phone route.

Prerequisites

You are signed in as an Owner or Manager.
Your services are set up with durations and prices. See Manage services and pricing.
Your bays and opening hours are configured, so the system can offer real slots. See Managing bays.
To take deposits, your garage has a connected Stripe account. See Online payments.

Steps

Choose which services can be booked online

Go to Settings > Services.
Open a service you want customers to be able to book.
Turn on Bookable online.
Set how the service appears to customers:
- Display name is the name the customer sees. You can make it friendlier than the internal name.
- Description is a short line explaining what the service includes.
- Display order is where it sits in the list of bookable services.
Save. Repeat for each service you want bookable.

Leave a service’s toggle off to keep it off the public list. Customers only see services you have marked bookable.

Offer a service only for certain fuel types

An EV owner should not be offered an oil and filter service, and a petrol owner should not be offered an EV battery check. You can set which fuel types each service is for.

Go to Settings > Services and open the service.
Under Vehicle fuel, choose Only these fuel types. The default, All vehicles, offers the service to everyone.
Tick the fuel types the service is for: Petrol, Diesel, Electric, Hybrid (includes plug-in), LPG, CNG or Hydrogen. Tick at least one.
Save. In the services list, the service shows its fuel types under its name, for example “Petrol, Diesel, Hybrid”.

Most hybrids have an engine too, so an oil and filter service should usually include Hybrid. Ticking every fuel type is the same as All vehicles.

This only changes what customers see when they book online or in the customer portal. Staff can still book any service for any vehicle, and the Voice AI is not affected.

How the filter decides. The booking page uses the fuel type from the registration lookup. The portal uses the fuel type on the vehicle record.

If the fuel type is not known, the customer sees every service. A failed lookup never hides anything.
A Hybrid car sees services for Hybrid, including ones meant for plug-in hybrids, because the DVLA does not say whether a hybrid plugs in.
A car recorded as Other sees every service.

Let customers past a wrong fuel type. Lookups can be wrong, or a customer may be booking for someone else’s car. Under Settings > Booking widget, Let customers see all services if their vehicle’s fuel type looks wrong is on by default. While it is on, customers see “Not the right vehicle type? See all services” under the filtered list. Turn it off and customers whose fuel type is known only see the services set for that fuel type. Nothing ever refuses a booking because of its fuel type.

Set which bays can do which work

Go to Settings > Bays.
Set the capabilities of each bay. For example, mark which bays can do an MOT.
Match each bookable service to the bays that can perform it.

If a bay only works some days, such as an MOT bay closed on Saturdays, set its working days too. See Set which days a bay is available.

When a customer books, the available times are worked out from the bays that can actually do the chosen service. So you never get a booking into a bay that cannot take it. If no bay can do a service, the public page shows “no availability” for it rather than offering a slot you cannot honour.

You can go further than “this bay must have all of these capabilities”:

Keep a service out of certain bays. Mark a capability as excluded and any bay carrying it is never offered. This is how you keep an air-con regas out of the MOT bay and the bodyshop without having to tag every other bay as suitable.
Offer alternatives. Group capabilities so a service needs one of them rather than all of them. For example, a job that needs a ramp or the quick-service bay, either of which will do.

Both are set on the service, alongside the required capabilities.

If you have not set up capabilities, the service’s Bay Type decides. A service with a Bay Type chosen under Settings > Services, and no required or excluded capabilities, only goes into bays with that same bay type. A service with no Bay Type, and no capabilities, can go into any bay. The match is on the name, ignoring capitals, so a service set to “MOT” does not match a bay typed “MOT Bay”. If no bay carries the service’s bay type, the service cannot be booked online at all.

Require a deposit (optional)

A deposit protects you against no-shows. The customer pays it when they book, and it is credited against their final bill.

Go to Settings > Services and open a bookable service.
Turn on Requires deposit.
Set a fixed deposit amount and a short deposit description explaining your policy.
Save.

A few things to know:

Deposits need a connected Stripe account. If a service needs a deposit but Stripe is not connected, you will see a warning, and that service falls back to booking without payment rather than promising a deposit you cannot collect.
The deposit is credited against the final invoice automatically. If the deposit is larger than the finished job, the invoice shows as paid and the difference is recorded as owed back to the customer.
The slot is not held until the deposit is paid. If two customers try the same slot at once, only the paid booking keeps it. The other customer is offered the next available time.

If you run a van, there is a second deposit setting. Settings > Booking widget has Require the callout charge as a deposit. On a mobile booking that matched a callout charge, it takes at least that amount up front, even on a service you have set to need no deposit. It never lowers a deposit that is already larger, and account customers still skip payment.

It covers a wasted trip. If the customer is not there, you keep the money and raise a callout-only invoice for it. It does not cover a cancellation unless you have a non-refundable window set.

It does nothing at all in any of these cases: no van has a non-zero callout surcharge, no payment provider is connected, test mode is on, callout charging has not been switched on, or your coverage policy is not “Only the areas I list”.

Check the controls before you go live

Before you point real customers at the booking page, go to Settings > Booking widget and check three things.

Which provider takes the deposits. The page shows the payment provider your deposits will be collected through, so there is no doubt before a customer pays.
Spam protection. Turn on the CAPTCHA to stop bots filling your diary with junk bookings. Real customers rarely notice it.
Test mode. Turn this on to walk the whole public booking flow yourself without taking a real payment. Use it to check your services, wording and slots read correctly. Turn it off when you are ready for real bookings.

Test mode rehearses the booking journey rather than the card transaction itself, so treat it as a check of your setup and not a test of the payment.

Add booking to your own website

You can put the booking page straight onto your existing site so customers never leave it.

Go to Settings > Embed.
Copy one of the two snippets, each pre-filled with your own web address:
- The script snippet resizes itself to fit your page, with no inner scrollbar. Use this one if you can.
- The plain iframe snippet is a simple fallback for site builders that block scripts.
Paste the snippet into your website where you want the booking form to appear.

Both snippets include a small “Powered by Torqueflow” line under the booking form, in your garage’s language, linking to the Torqueflow website. The booking form also shows the same line inside it. If you take the line under the form out of the snippet, the one inside the form stays. Some website builders place embeds inside their own frame, and then the line under the form may not appear on your page itself.

When a customer pays a deposit, they are taken briefly to a secure payment page and then returned. By default, anyone can embed your booking page. Locking it to your own domains is coming in a later update.

What your customers see

A customer opens yourgarage.torqueflow.app/book, or your booking form embedded on your own site, and works through a few short steps:

Enter their vehicle. The page asks for the registration first, “so we only show you services that suit your vehicle”. The customer selects Look up, or just Continue, which looks the registration up for them. Make and model fill in, with a line such as “Ford Focus - Petrol”. If the lookup finds nothing, they type the make and model.
Pick a service from the list you set up, with its description, duration, and price. A deposit is flagged here if one applies. If some services are hidden because of the car’s fuel type, a line reads “Showing services for Electric vehicles.” with a Change vehicle button.
Choose how the work happens, if you offer mobile visits: bring the car to you, or have a van come to them. Garages with no mobile units skip this.
Give their location, if they chose a mobile visit. Torqueflow asks for a postcode and address, and checks the postcode against your coverage.
Choose a location, if your garage has more than one and they are coming to you. Single-location garages skip this.
Choose a time from the available slots for that day.
Enter their details: name, phone, email, and an optional note on what the problem is.
Accept your terms. First-time customers tick to accept your terms and conditions. The tick is never pre-filled, and any marketing opt-in is off by default.
Review and confirm. The customer checks everything on a final step before anything is booked. The vehicle has its own Change link here. If a deposit applies, they pay it on a secure payment page, and the booking confirms once payment goes through.

The customer gets a confirmation on screen and by email. The booking lands in your scheduler, and its work order appears on the workshop board set to Awaiting Drop Off.

The fuel type from the lookup is saved on the new vehicle record, so the car is in the right fuel-targeted service reminders from the start.

When the fuel type rules out a service

No services suit the car. The customer sees “We don’t take online bookings for Electric vehicles. Please call us on” followed by your phone number. If you have no phone number set, it asks them to get in touch instead.
The customer changes the car after picking a service. If the new car’s fuel type does not suit the chosen service, the service is taken off their booking, along with the time they picked. A message names it, for example “MOT and Service isn’t available for this vehicle, so we’ve taken it off your booking. Please choose another service.”
The fuel type is wrong. With the setting on, the customer selects Not the right vehicle type? See all services. The line changes to “Showing all services.” and they can book anything. Changing the registration switches the filter back on.

Mobile visits

If you have a van set up, customers get a choice between coming to you and having you come to them. What happens next depends on your coverage policy.

If you check coverage, the customer’s postcode is matched against your bands.

In an area you cover. The mobile slot is offered, and if callout charging is on they are quoted the callout charge before they book.
Outside your areas. They are offered the workshop instead, or they can request a callback. Callback requests land in your escalation queue with no call attached to them.

If your policy is “Anywhere”, every customer can book a mobile visit and no postcode check happens. There is no callout charge and no travel reservation under that policy.

The times a customer is offered already account for the van’s driving. The window they are told is the service window. The van is reserved for longer, and only your staff see that.

Setting all this up is covered in Serviceable areas and Coverage bands and callout charges.

Booking from the customer portal

A customer who already has a portal account can book there instead, and it is quicker because you already know them. Their details and the vehicles on their record are filled in for them, and anything due, such as an MOT, is offered first. They pick a time and confirm.

The service list follows the fuel type on the chosen vehicle’s record, in the same way as the booking page, with the same See all services escape. The suggested service is picked from the services that suit that vehicle. A customer who adds a new vehicle in the portal and looks up its registration has its fuel type saved on the record.

Because the portal knows who they are, your account-customer deposit rules apply. An account customer can be treated differently from someone booking anonymously from your public page.

See Customer portal overview.

Expected Outcome

Only the services you marked bookable appear to customers.
Each bookable service shows the name, description, and price you set, in the order you chose.
Available times reflect the bays that can actually perform the chosen service, on the days those bays work.
If you require a deposit, the customer pays it at booking, and it comes off their final bill.

Notes

Returning customers can book online. If the registration a customer types is already on your records, the booking still completes and attaches to the vehicle you already hold, rather than failing.
To cancel a booking, refund a deposit, or let customers cancel themselves, see Booking cancellations and refunds.
Online booking and the Voice AI check the same diary. A booking made online shows up in your calendar and on the workshop board straight away. Known issue: a job booked online sits in the first column of the workshop board and cannot currently be dragged to another column. If one needs moving on and you cannot do it, contact Torqueflow support. A time a caller agrees with the Voice AI appears once your team has put the appointment in, unless phone booking is switched on for your garage, in which case the AI writes the appointment straight into the diary.
Marking a service bookable does not change anything for staff creating jobs by hand. It only controls the public list.
The booking page and embedded widget work in both English and Polish, following your garage’s language setting.
The fuel type is saved on a new vehicle from the registration lookup, whichever way it was booked: the booking page, the customer portal, the Voice AI or the scheduler. One small difference: if the lookup returns a fuel type Torqueflow does not recognise, a staff booking keeps it as text, but a booking the customer makes online or in the portal leaves the fuel type empty. You can set it by hand on the vehicle page.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A service is not appearing for customers to book. Cause: Its Bookable online toggle is off, no bay is set up to perform it, or it is set for fuel types that do not include the customer’s car. Fix: Turn the toggle on under Settings > Services, and check a bay is matched to that service under Settings > Bays. Check the service’s Vehicle fuel setting too.

Problem: A customer with a hybrid could not see the oil service. Cause: The service’s Vehicle fuel setting does not include Hybrid. Fix: Under Settings > Services, open the service and tick Hybrid (includes plug-in).

Problem: A service that used to be bookable online has disappeared or shows no availability, and you have not set up capabilities. Cause: The service has a Bay Type set, and no bay at that location carries exactly that bay type. A service with a Bay Type and no capabilities now only goes into bays of that type, rather than into any bay. Fix: Under Settings > Services, check the service’s Bay Type against the bay types in Settings > Bays. Make them match, or set the service’s Bay Type to “Any / No preference” if any bay can do the job.

Problem: Customers see no available times for a service. Cause: No bay that can do that service has open hours in the period, or opening hours are not set. Fix: Check the bay capabilities and your opening hours under Settings.

Problem: The booking page says “This service isn’t available on this day. Please pick another date.” Cause: Every bay that can do that service is set not to work on that day, or is closed for that date. Fix: This is expected. To open the day, change the bay’s working days or add a special opening. See Set which days a bay is available.

Problem: A customer picked a time, then the booking was refused when they confirmed. Cause: The bay’s day was withdrawn after the slot was shown, for example a working day was turned off while the customer was booking. Fix: The customer picks another time. Staff can still book the original slot by hand in the scheduler.

Problem: A service should take a deposit but does not. Cause: Stripe is not connected, so the deposit cannot be collected and the service falls back to booking without payment. Fix: Connect Stripe under Online payments, then re-check the service.

Problem: You want to be sure deposits charge correctly on your embedded form. Cause: Test mode confirms the form and flow, but does not take a real deposit yet. Fix: Place one real low-value booking through the embedded widget to confirm the deposit is taken end to end.