What should you record when a customer books through DMs?

By the Ordely team

Keep the customer, agreed work, date, price, payment status and next action together. Add the details your work needs, rather than collecting information just because a form has a box for it.

It’s easy to remember the exciting part of a new booking. The small details are what become difficult to retrieve later: which entrance to use, who is collecting, whether the time changed, or which version of a design was approved.

The core booking checklist

• Customer: their name and a reliable way to contact them. Keep their social handle if that helps you reconnect the conversation.
• Work agreed: a short, specific description, including what is and isn’t included.
• Date and time: distinguish the event time from your arrival, delivery or collection time.
• Location or handover: where the work happens, or how the customer receives it.
• Price: the current agreed total and any outstanding decision that could change it.
• Payments: what has actually been received, when and by which method, plus what remains due.
• Status and next action: whether the booking is provisional or confirmed, who needs to do something next and by when.

Then add the details that make it your work

A cake booking might need servings, flavour, approved wording and a reference image. A window-cleaning booking might need access instructions and the agreed areas to clean. A magician might need the audience age range, performance length and the organiser’s contact on the day.

These are examples, not exhaustive requirements. The useful test is simple: if someone else had to understand the booking tomorrow, what would they need to ask you?

Keep a next action, not just a notes field

“Waiting for customer” is vague. “Customer to confirm collection time by Thursday” tells you what to look for. Give the next action an owner, even if that owner is usually you.

Don’t mistake a payment promise for a payment

“I’ve sent it” is a useful message, but check your payment records before marking money as received. For payments taken outside an app, such as cash or a bank transfer, record the amount and method against the correct booking after you have checked it.

If the brief changes, review the total and the next step at the same time. A new price in the chat is easy to overlook when the booking still shows the previous amount.

Keep it easy to maintain

A record that takes too long to update will get skipped on busy days. Start with the core fields, then add only what repeatedly helps. Avoid storing unrelated personal details or copying entire conversations when a short, accurate summary does the job.

Ordely is being built to keep these connected details in one place, while allowing different businesses to work differently. Read how to move from the conversation to a booking, or learn why our bakery led us to build Ordely.