Create a booking

Start a hire, what each field on the form means, and the warnings for known hirers and clashes.

A booking is the start of every hire. Once you create it, KeyProof gives you the check-in link to send your hirer.

The form is in the order you actually think in at a forecourt: which car, who it is for, when, then the money. Everything else is folded away at the bottom.

How to create a booking

1. Go to the Bookings tab.
2. Start a new booking. The button at the end is labelled "Create + get link", because that is exactly what happens: you fill in the hire, and KeyProof hands you the hirer's link.
3. Work down the four sections below.
4. Create the booking. A banner appears with the hirer's link ready to send. See Send the hirer link.

1. Which car

Pick the car from the list of your saved fleet. Choosing one links the hire to that vehicle, fills its registration in, and shows the rate you have saved on it, so you can see where the money fields further down came from. Other lets you type in a car that is not in your fleet, though a loose name cannot appear on the availability calendar. See Adding cars, rates and compliance.

Where registration lookups are available there is a registration row with a Look up button, which reads the car's details off the DVSA MOT record, and its tax status too where DVLA lookups are switched on. The sentence it puts underneath names the service that answered. If a DVLA snapshot on a saved car shows it is not road legal, you get a warning here, before you go any further.

2. Who it is for

• Hirer mobile. Required. This is how you send the link in the chat the booking came from. A number that does not look like a UK mobile gets a "did you mean" nudge with a Use it anyway button, so a hirer who is genuinely abroad still goes through and a typo does not.
• Hirer email. Optional, and worth adding. When it is there, KeyProof emails the hirer their check-in link as soon as you create the booking, so they can start without waiting for you, and the return reminders have somewhere to land.

The mobile is required because the link lives in the chat: without a number there is nobody to send it to. The email is optional but earns its place later: it carries the link and the return reminders, and either one is how KeyProof recognises this hirer the next time they hire from you.

3. When

Tap a length rather than picking two dates: Today, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks. That fills the start and end from one tap, counting from the start you have already picked or from today. The date pickers are still there and always win when you touch them.

KeyProof uses the two dates to work out the length of the hire and to check the car is free. See The calendar and clash guard.

4. Money

• Hire price. If the car has a rate saved and both dates are set, KeyProof quotes a price from the rate and the number of days and shows you the working. Type over it whenever you like: once you do, the quote stops overwriting you.
• Deposit. Prefilled from the car's own default deposit. A car with no default of its own falls back to the standard deposit rather than going out with a token figure by omission, and you type over it like any other number. KeyProof records what you set; it does not charge it. See Deposits and card holds.
• Extras. Any added amount on top, such as an extra driver, delivery, or excess mileage. Once the car and dates are in, tap a chip to drop a common extra into the note, then type the amount.

Payment collection

Folded away at the bottom, because most firms set it once. Its summary line always shows what is currently chosen, and it opens itself whenever anything in it is not the default, so nothing deliberate is ever hidden from you.

Two switches decide who collects, per booking. "KeyProof collects" puts the deposit hold or the hire payment inside the hirer's own check-in link, which needs your own Stripe connected first. "I'll handle it" leaves it exactly as you take money now, cash or your own card machine, and KeyProof simply records what you took. Until you connect Stripe, both are taken your usual way whichever you pick, and the form says so outside the fold.

There is no checks tick box in this section any more. Every booking runs the full evidence treatment, so there is nothing here to opt into. See The full evidence treatment on every hire.

If the button will not go through

A booking that cannot be created says why, in words, right next to the button: "Still needed: the car and the hirer mobile", or that a typed email address does not look right. An empty email never blocks the booking; a typed one that is not an address does, because silently dropping it would leave you believing the hirer was emailed. You never have to hunt up the form for a field you missed.

Known hirers and warnings

If the hirer's mobile matches someone you have dealt with, you see a known-hirer tag with their history. If they are flagged or on your blocklist, KeyProof tells you before you go any further. It warns, it never blocks. This is your own private history, never shared with anyone.

If the car is already booked

If the dates clash with another hire for the same car, KeyProof warns you before the booking is created. You can still go ahead with "Create anyway" if you know the clash is fine, for example a same-day swap. See The calendar and clash guard.

A card deposit hold lasts about seven days, so on a longer hire KeyProof reminds you that the deposit may be better taken your usual way. Additional named drivers are added after the booking exists, inside the booking, not on this form.