Building a booking template

How to create a template for a smart file that gets you booked with a payment, a contract signature, or both!

Updated over a week ago

Smart files allow you to combine things like service selection, scheduling, invoices, payment pages, contracts, and more into one cohesive client experience—which means you can streamline your booking process and save massive amounts of time on back and forth with your clients!

And, as with many other elements in HoneyBook, these booking smart files can be saved as templates—the baseline documents or pieces of content that serve as the building blocks for the rest of your HoneyBook process. Check out the video to learn more, or skip to the article below.


What are templates & why are they helpful?

Templates are the baseline documents or pieces of content that serve as the building blocks for the rest of your HoneyBook process. Once you’ve created some templates for yourself—be they for emails you send regularly, smart files, or pieces of content with which to create the smart files themselves—templates make your future life easier by allowing you to simply pick one and use it as-is, or use it as a starting point to make some client-specific changes.

Once you’ve opened a template in a project, you can make any changes you need without impacting the original template. So, in the case of booking smart files—whether you're working off one of our beautiful examples from the template gallery, starting from an existing legacy file template we updated for you, or just starting from scratch—these templates allow you to save a blueprint of a smart file that you can then quickly send (and customize to suit an individual client, if necessary).


What is a booking smart file?

A booking smart file in HoneyBook is one through which you—surprise!—can get booked, either by having a client sign a contract, make their first payment/put down a deposit, or both. A booking file might even include services, allowing clients to actually select the services they’d like to book you for, then make their first payment based on those selections. It could also include session scheduling, allowing clients to book time with you, too.

If you’ve used HoneyBook with our legacy files, you can think of a booking smart file as an upgraded version of a legacy invoice, contract, or proposal file (with a little brochure thrown in for good measure).

Since a booking smart file can contain any combination of actions and content, it allows you to create one cohesive, streamlined experience—complete with services to choose from, a contract to sign, an invoice & deposit page, scheduling, questions, images, info, and more—instead of having clients complete multiple actions through multiple emails and documents. And, when you’ve created some templates in advance, you can send these smart files off in no time!

You can even use booking smart files in automations to automatically send when the time is right. Your clients will be able to complete any necessary steps, then sign and/or pay, without any back-and-forth.


Building a booking smart file template

From your HoneyBook home page, head to your Templates section by clicking Tools in the top navigation bar, then selecting My Templates.

From there, you have a few ways to begin.

  • From your templates section, click Create New and select the type of file you'd like to create (invoice, contract, and proposal will get you on the right track for a booking smart file).

  • Start with one of the example templates we pre-load into your templates section! Just click to open, and edit as necessary.

  • Check out the template gallery, and filter by file type using the menu on the left. These example templates were created to help you get a head start as you build your own template library. See one you like? Click to preview what it includes, then click Quick Save to save right to your library or Edit This Template to start customizing.

  • If you used HoneyBook with our legacy files, your old booking documents—invoices, contracts, and proposals—will automatically be updated to booking smart files. Simply find the original template name in your templates section, click to open, and make any changes you need.

    PLEASE NOTE: Your legacy files are still there in their original form, too—nothing has been deleted! Just click the Legacy Templates tab to find everything.

Once you have your booking smart file template started, you can edit it as necessary.

Still have questions? Feel free to send us a message by clicking the Question Mark icon on any HoneyBook page. Our team is always happy to help!

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