Guide · the diary
Moving your restaurant's paper diary online without losing a booking
A paper diary at the stand is fast, it never runs out of battery and everybody knows how to use it. Plenty of good restaurants still run on one. It starts to fail on the day a second person answers the phone.
Published
Where paper actually breaks
One person, one stand, one phone: the diary works. Add a second booking channel and it does not. A guest books online at four, someone takes a call at five and writes the same table in pencil, and at eight there are two parties at table nine. Add a second member of staff and the handwriting becomes a problem of its own: is that a four or a nine, Smith or Smyth, half seven or half eight?
The quieter failure is memory. The diary knows tonight. It does not know that the man booking for six on Friday has not turned up twice this year, that the couple on table four always come for their anniversary, or that Saturday lunch has been half empty since the spring. That knowledge lives in the head of whoever has been there longest, and it leaves when they do.
What to carry over, and what to leave
Carry over: every future booking
Every booking from the cut-over day onwards, with the name, a phone number, the party size and any note that matters on the night. Do these first; nothing else is urgent.
Carry over: the rules in someone's head
Which tables push together, how long a Saturday two-top really takes, the window table you never give online. Writing them down is half the value of the move.
Carry over: the regulars, gradually
You do not need to type in five years of names. The regulars will book again within weeks, and each new booking starts their card properly.
Leave behind: the old pages
Old diaries are personal data too. Keep them only as long as you have a reason to, then shred them. Do not copy old guests into a marketing list they never agreed to.
A cut-over week that does not drop anything
- 1
Monday: set up the room and the rules
Draw the dining room, place the tables, name the combinations, and write the turn times and the latest online booking. An hour with the person who runs the floor is enough.
- 2
Tuesday: enter the future bookings
Go through the diary from today onwards and enter each booking. If some of them already live in a spreadsheet — the private-room sheet, the December list — import that file instead of retyping it. Either way, tick each one in the paper diary as it appears on screen, so the two can be compared line by line.
- 3
Wednesday to Saturday: run both
New bookings go into the screen first and into the paper second. At the end of each service, compare. When three services in a row match, the paper has done its job.
- 4
Sunday: switch on the online link
Only now put the booking link on your website and profiles. Turning it on before the diary is complete is how double bookings happen.
The paper diary is personal data
Many owners assume data protection is about computers. The Information Commissioner's Office says the UK GDPR also covers personal data processed by hand when it forms part of a filing system. A diary organised by date, with names and phone numbers, is the kind of record to treat as covered. That means it should be kept where guests cannot read it, kept no longer than you need it, and not used for anything the guest did not book for. Moving online does not change those duties; it makes them easier to keep.
Doing it with Slotora
- Phone bookings are taken at the stand with the real free times in front of you, and a returning guest is found by name or phone number.
- Every tablet and phone on the evening shows the same floor, so the bookings taken at the bar and at the stand cannot collide.
- Each guest gets a card with visits and no-shows, which starts filling from the first booking. Your staff can add what used to live in someone's head: the anniversary, an allergy, the part of the room they like. An allergy then shows on the booking and in the pre-service briefing.
- Every change is recorded with who made it, so “who moved table nine?” has an answer.
- A spreadsheet comes in by import, CSV or Excel: the screen guesses which column is the date, the name or the party size, you confirm or correct it, see a preview, and can undo the import if something looks wrong. Handwriting has no such shortcut; the paper pages are still typed in.
Paper diaries: short answers
How long does the move take?
For a single dining room, about a week if you run both side by side, most of it spent entering future bookings and comparing services.
Should we keep a paper backup at the stand?
A printed list of tonight's bookings at the start of service is sensible for the first weeks. A second live diary is not: two records drift apart within a day.
Can we throw the old diaries away?
Once you no longer need them for a booking or a dispute, yes, and securely. Keeping them for years is a data protection risk with no benefit.
The restaurant diary on a tablet · Drawing the floor plan · Staff and devices · All guides