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 takes four steps, one at a time, in the order you actually think in at a forecourt: which car, who it is for, when, then the money. A stepper across the top shows where you are and lets you go back to any step you have already passed, and a summary of the hire stays in view, beside the form on a laptop and above it on a phone.

How to create a booking

1. Tap New hire. On a laptop it is at the top right of the header; on a phone it is the raised plus in the middle of the bottom bar.
2. Work through the four steps: Vehicle, Hirer, Dates, and Price and collection. Continue moves you on, and says what it is still waiting for if a step is not finished.
3. On the last step, tap "Create booking & send link". That is exactly what happens: KeyProof creates the hire and hands you the hirer's link.
4. On a laptop a banner appears with the link ready to copy or send on WhatsApp. On a phone the Check-in status screen opens with the same two buttons. See Send the hirer link.

Not ready to send? Save as draft is on every step. A draft sends nothing and keeps the form to finish later. What you type is also kept on your device as you go, so a dropped connection or a closed sheet does not cost you the form; "Start again" clears it.

1. Vehicle

Search your saved fleet by model or registration and pick the car. Each row shows its plate and what it is doing now: In service, On hire (with when it is back), Off the road, or Check MOT or tax. 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. "Another car, not on your fleet" lets you type in one that is not saved, 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. On a phone it appears once you choose another car. 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.

A car you have taken off the road is not hidden. You can pick it, and when you create the hire you are told it is off the road and asked to confirm with Create anyway.

2. Hirer

• Hirer name. Optional. It is for your own screens until the hirer checks in. They confirm their own legal name inside the link, and that is the name on the record.
• 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. Without one the hirer enters their own email inside the link.

The mobile is required because the link lives in the chat: without a number there is nobody to send it to. A typed email that does not look like an address stops the booking until you fix or clear it, because silently dropping it would leave you believing the hirer was emailed.

If the mobile matches someone you have dealt with, a "Known hirer" line shows how many hires and disputes they have with you, and a Flagged tag if you flagged them. If they are on your blocklist, KeyProof tells you why, in your own words. It warns, it never blocks. This is your own private history, never shared with anyone.

3. Dates

On a laptop, 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. On a phone you pick the collection and return dates on two cards. Each has an optional time, pickup and drop-off, and both dates are needed before you can continue.

KeyProof uses the two dates to work out the length of the hire and to check the car is free. If the car is already on hire over those dates you are told here, on the dates step, with the other booking's reference and dates. Change dates goes back to them, and Continue anyway carries on if you know the clash is fine, for example a same-day swap. Creating the hire asks you once more. See The calendar and clash guard.

4. Price and collection

• Hire price. If the car has a rate saved and both dates are set, KeyProof suggests a price from the rate and the number of days and says where it came from. Type over it whenever you like: once you do, the suggestion stops overwriting you.
• Deposit. Prefilled from the car's own default deposit. A car with no default of its own leaves the field empty and offers a Use the standard button for the standard deposit; nothing is filled in until you tap it or type your own. KeyProof records what you set. When KeyProof collects it, it is a hold on the hirer's card through your own Stripe, taken only if you claim 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.

The form also shows the hirer's verification fee, £4.99, as its own line. It is paid by the hirer at check-in and covers their identity check, so the checks cost you nothing per hire. The summary's "Total due now" is what the hirer pays at the check-in link: that fee, plus the deposit hold when KeyProof is collecting it and your Stripe is connected. The hire price is shown for reference and is not part of it.

Payment collection

Folded away on this step, 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: one for the deposit and one for the hire fee. "KeyProof collects" puts the deposit hold or the hire payment inside the hirer's own check-in link, on your own Stripe, 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 booking will not go through

A step that cannot be left says why, in words, next to Continue: "Still needed: the car", "Still needed: the hirer mobile", or that a typed email address does not look right. An empty email never blocks the booking. You never have to hunt up the form for a field you missed.

Three firm-level checks can refuse a booking, and the form tells you before you fill it in, with the fix attached. A real firm cannot send check-in links until an owner has confirmed the business declaration and KeyProof has finished checking the business. It also needs a hire agreement on file, added in Settings under Agreement and charges. And a firm that pays by card and has no free period running needs a card saved first. Anything you have typed stays filled in while you sort it. See The setup steps.

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. On a phone, a hire that has already happened goes in as a Past booking from Record something, under More.