Sometimes customers book over the phone, walk into your store, or message you directly. Instead of asking them to book through the storefront, you can create the booking for them directly from the admin.

Manual bookings use the same services and availability as customer bookings, but give you extra controls like bypassing limits and creating the customer record in Shopify.

This guide walks you through adding a manual booking step by step.

⚠️ Before You Begin

Before adding a manual booking, make sure you have:

• The Hoppy Appointments app installed on your Shopify store
• At least one active service with availability configured
• Customer details ready (name, email, and any answers required by your booking form)

💡 Manual bookings work best when the service is already set up the way you want customers to book it. If the service has custom contact questions, those same questions will appear in the manual booking form.

🛠️ Step 1 — Start a New Manual Booking

1. Open the Hoppy Appointments app
2. Go to Bookings
3. Click the Manual Booking button in the top-right corner
4. In the Choose a service modal, click the service you want to book

You’ll be taken to the New Booking page.

🛠️ Step 2 — Configure Admin Booking Options

On the left side of the page, you’ll see a card with options that only appear when creating a booking from the admin.

Pick the service variant

This dropdown only appears if the connected Shopify product has more than one variant. Choose the variant the customer is booking.

Create the Shopify customer

Enable this if you want a new customer record created in Shopify when the booking is saved. This only works if you enter an email address in the customer form.

Show booked slots as available

Enable this to ignore per-slot and per-day booking limits. This is useful when you know you can fit someone in, even if the calendar would normally block the slot.

Show more slots and override regular availability

Enable this to generate extra time slots beyond the service’s normal interval. This option is not shown for multiday services.

When enabled, a Show slots every dropdown appears so you can choose how dense the slots should be — for example, every 15 minutes instead of every hour.

Override blocked days if any

Enable this to ignore blocked dates set in the service or general settings. Use this when you want to make an exception for a specific customer.

🛠️ Step 3 — Select Date, Time, and Teammate

The right side of the page shows the same booking calendar your customers see.

1. Pick a date
2. Choose a time slot
3. If your service uses teammates, select the teammate assigned to the booking
4. If your service has multiple durations, choose the correct duration

The available slots respect the admin options you enabled. For example, if you turned on Show booked slots as available, you’ll see slots that would normally be hidden.

🛠️ Step 4 — Enter Customer Details

Scroll down to the customer form. The fields here come from the service’s contact questions, so they will match what customers normally fill out.

At minimum, you’ll usually need:

• First name
• Last name
• Email
• Phone number (if required by the form)

Fill in any other required fields, such as address, notes, or custom questions.

🛠️ Step 5 — Confirm the Booking

Once everything looks correct, click Confirm.

The booking is saved immediately with status Booked. A confirmation email is sent to the customer, and an admin notification email is sent to your team.

⚠️ Important Notes

• No Shopify order is created. Manual bookings are recorded in Hoppy Appointments only. If you need a Shopify order, create it separately in Shopify admin.
• Payment is skipped. Even if the service normally requires payment, manual bookings are confirmed immediately without collecting money.
• The customer record is optional. You can leave the customer as a guest unless you enable Create the Shopify customer.
• Availability overrides are powerful. Only use them when you intentionally want to bypass limits or blocked dates.
• Manual bookings are excluded from analytics. They will not appear in Google Analytics 4 or Meta Pixel event tracking.
• Shopify Flow sees them as manual. Flow automations can use the Manual Booking property to treat these bookings differently from customer bookings.

🐞 Troubleshooting

The booking is not showing in the Bookings list

1. Make sure you clicked Confirm and saw a success message
2. Check that you are not filtering the bookings list by status or date
3. Refresh the Bookings page

No time slots are available

1. Check the service’s availability settings
2. Try enabling Show booked slots as available or Override blocked days
3. For multiday services, make sure minimum and maximum bookable days are configured correctly

The Shopify customer was not created

1. Make sure Create the Shopify customer was enabled
2. Make sure the customer form includes a valid email address
3. Check that the email is not already used by another Shopify customer

The customer did not receive a confirmation email

1. Check that customer email notifications are enabled in Settings → Email settings
2. Make sure the customer’s email address was entered correctly
3. Ask the customer to check their spam or promotions folder

🎉 Final Result

Once completed:

✅ A new booking appears in your Bookings list
✅ The booking status is Booked immediately
✅ The customer receives a confirmation email
✅ Your team receives an admin notification
✅ The slot is blocked on the calendar for customer self-booking

📚 Related Articles

• How to Set Up Appointment Booking Services
• Appointment Bookings — All Payment Options Explained
• How to Configure Email Notifications for Appointment Bookings
• Working with Team in Appointment Bookings
• How Does Appointment Bookings Work with Shopify Flow

Updated on: 31/07/2026