The four notes on a booking

A booking carries four separate note fields. They look similar in the interface and are easy to mix up, and the consequences of picking the wrong one are not symmetrical — one of them is read by the parent, and another changes on every booking that client has.

Note	Who wrote it	Who reads it
Note	The client, on the booking form	You. It is what they told you when booking.
Internal note	You	You. It belongs to the client, not the booking.
Note about the booking	You	You. Tied to this one booking.
Public note	You	The client, in their attendance record on the booking tab.

The two that catch people out

Internal note follows the client. Editing it from one booking changes it on every booking that client has, now and in future. That is deliberate — it is the place for "always parks in the wrong bay" or "sibling in the Tuesday group" — but it is the wrong place for anything about one term. Use Note about the booking for that. The interface warns you when you edit it.

Public note is read by the parent. It shows up in their attendance record. Anything you would not say to their face does not belong there, and the fact that it looks like the other three note boxes is exactly why this needs saying.

Editing them from the bookings list

You do not have to open each booking. On the Bookings list, the notes appear on each booking's tile with an edit affordance — click it and a small modal opens for that note alone.

That includes the public note, which previously had no place on the list at all.

If you cannot see them, the tile is configurable. Use Customize tile on the Bookings list to add the note widgets you want on show.

Rich text in the public note

The public note takes formatting — bold, lists, links — since the client actually reads it. The other three are plain text, which is appropriate for something only you see.

Keep formatting light. A public note is read on a phone, inside an attendance record, usually in a hurry.

Which one should I use?

• Something the parent should know → Public note
• Something true about this term only → Note about the booking
• Something true about this family always → Internal note
• Do not write in Note — that is the client's own words, and overwriting it loses what they told you