📖 rest-guest

Guest Book

Guest Book is service-personalisation for regulars — an automatic New/Regular/VIP/Platinum tier based on visit count, dietary and seating preferences, favourite dishes, a preferred server, birthday/anniversary tracking, and a running log of staff notes from past visits, so the host already knows the guest before they sit down.

📍 Menu path: Guest Journey → Guest Book

👤 Who uses it: All roles with the Customers feature enabled

Overview

Unlike the main Customers module (which tracks transactions), Guest Book is about relationship memory — what a regular likes, where they like to sit, and what happened on their last few visits.

A guest's tier is computed automatically purely from Visit Count: New (1–2 visits), Regular (3–9), VIP (10–24), Platinum (25+) — there is no manual override on this screen (Guest Preference Profiles has its own separate, manually-set tier for the same underlying guest record).

An "Arriving Today" strip pins any guest with a reservation for tonight right at the top, tappable to jump straight into their profile before they walk in.

A Birthday/Anniversary banner surfaces any guest whose birthday or anniversary date falls on today across the whole guest list, with a reminder to alert the kitchen and floor team.

A guest profile holds Dietary Restrictions (Vegetarian/Vegan/Gluten-Free/Nut Allergy/Dairy-Free/Halal/Jain/Kosher), Seating Preferences (Window/Corner/Quiet/Outdoor/Bar/Private Dining), free-form Favourite Dishes, a Preferred Server, and Birthday/Anniversary dates.

Visit Notes is a running, dated log ("2026-06-14 — You: complained about slow service, comped dessert") added to over time — each new note is stamped with today's date and stacks above older ones, giving a chronological picture of the relationship.

A "Print" action produces a one-page profile card — tier, contact, visit summary, dietary/seating/favourites and the 3 most recent notes — for briefing the floor team ahead of a VIP arrival.

Before You Start

You must have the Customers feature enabled on your plan.

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Add a new regular to the Guest Book

Click "Add Guest".
Enter Full Name and Phone (Email optional).
Tick any Dietary Restrictions and Seating Preferences that apply.
Add Favourite Dishes one at a time, and set a Preferred Server if the guest usually asks for someone specific.
Set Birthday/Anniversary dates if known, then click "Add Guest".

2 Log a note after a guest's visit

Search for the guest and open their profile.
Expand "Visit Notes", type what happened during today's visit, and press Enter or click "Add".
The note is stamped with today's date and appears at the top of the log for future staff to read before the guest's next visit.

3 Brief the floor before service

Check the "Arriving Tonight" strip and the Birthday/Anniversary banner at the top of the page each shift.
Open any flagged guest's profile and click Print to hand the floor team or kitchen a physical briefing card.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / Button	What it does
`Tier badge`	New, Regular, VIP or Platinum — computed automatically and only from Visit Count (0–2 / 3–9 / 10–24 / 25+); cannot be set manually on this screen.
`Arriving Tonight strip`	Pinned row of guests with a reservation today, sourced from the reservations tied to each guest record; click a chip to open that guest's profile.
`Birthday/Anniversary banner`	Shows every guest whose birthday or anniversary date matches today's month/day, across the entire guest list regardless of the current tier filter.
`Dietary Restrictions / Seating Preferences`	Two independent multi-select tag lists shown as chips on the guest card and printed profile.
`Visit Notes log`	A chronological, dated list of free-text staff notes; each new entry is added to the top and stamped with today's date and the logged-in user.
`Lifetime Spend / Avg Bill / Last Table`	Read-only stats shown on the card, summarising the guest's transaction history and the last table they were seated at.

Tips & Best Practices

Log a short Visit Note every time something notable happens — a complaint, a special request, a comped item — the value of Guest Book compounds the more consistently the team uses the notes log.
Set Preferred Server for regulars who habitually ask for the same waiter — the host can then try to seat them in that section.
Check the Birthday/Anniversary banner and Arriving Tonight strip at the start of every shift, not just for big VIP nights — both are meant to be a routine pre-service habit.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

A guest's tier badge doesn't match what I expected.

Tier here is computed purely from Visit Count (New 0–2, Regular 3–9, VIP 10–24, Platinum 25+) and cannot be set manually — if you want a manual VIP/VVIP designation independent of visit count, use Guest Preference Profiles instead, which shares the same underlying guest record but has its own manually-set tier.

The guest doesn't show up under "Arriving Tonight" even though they have a reservation.

This strip only reflects reservations tied to that guest's record for today's date — confirm the reservation was actually linked to this Guest Book entry (not created as a standalone booking) in Reservations.

I want to remove a Visit Note I added by mistake.

There is no delete action for an individual visit note once saved — the log is intentionally append-only so it reads as a reliable history; be deliberate before adding one.