Linked bookings
If you are an organisation that offers a wider range of programmes for children and are used to having siblings enrolled, or your clients are enthusiasts and attend multiple programmes on their own at once, there is a very useful functionality – linked bookings.
With linked bookings, you essentially bundle payments for two or more bookings. For example, if a parent has 2 children and they are both registered with you. Or if an adult client takes two programmes at the same time.
With linked bookings, you allow the client to make only one linked payment to one variable symbol and you can keep your payments in order.
How does it work?
If the parent fills in the booking form fields for both children at the same time, i.e. uses the Add person option when filling in the booking form, the two bookings will automatically be linked and related. How to set up the Add Person option and where to set it to link payments automatically can be found in this manual.
However, if you register your children or yourself in two different classes/programmes and therefore fill in two booking forms, the system will not combine such bookings. However, you can pair them manually and they will continue to function as related.
Link related bookings
So let’s see how we can link related bookings and set up a common payment for them.
- Choose one of the bookings that you want to have as the main one (e.g. parent or older child, or simply one of the two), i.e. the one that will receive payments for both/all linked bookings.
- On the booking card for that booking, you will find the Linked Bookings tile
- Click on Link booking
- Find the booking you want to link to this booking
- Confirm the selection with the Select button
- Click Continue
- Select one of the options for how you want to link the booking
- Leave as it is –link bookings but keep payments separate. Thanks to the link, you can quickly find your sibling’s booking, but the payments remain separate on each booking
- Manage parent/main booking – links booking together with payments. It creates a debt on the master booking in the sum of the values of the two or more linked bookings, and credits the linked bookings with the payment.
If we have chosen the second option, it will create a debt on the main booking in the sum of the values of both or more linked bookings, it will credit the linked bookings with the payment. Once successfully linked, each booking clearly indicates which is the main and which is linked, and you can easily switch between them.
The parent/client pays for both/multiple programmes only once using one variable symbol. They can see the payment information in their profile.
Can I merge two bookings into one?
No — and you almost certainly want linking instead.
A parent who books the same child into a Tuesday class and a Saturday class ends up with two bookings, because a booking is one child in one class. There is no way to fold them into a single booking, and trying to force it by deleting one loses that class.
Link them instead. The two bookings stay as they are, with their own classes, sessions and attendance, but one of them carries the money: one payment, one variable symbol, one reminder. For the parent that is the thing they were asking for.
Cancelling or deleting the main booking
A main booking cannot simply be removed — the others would be left pointing at nothing. Until late October 2026 Zooza just refused, which meant an admin who wanted to cancel one place was told "no" with no way forward on the screen they were on. Now it asks.
Cancel or delete the main booking and you get Cancel a root booking (or Delete a root booking) with one question: What should happen to the linked bookings?
| Choice | What happens | When you want it |
|---|---|---|
| Disband the link | The other bookings stay and each pays for itself | The ordinary case. A parent cancels their own place, the children carry on |
| X becomes the root booking | Another booking in the group takes over as the main one | The family keeps paying together, just through someone else |
| Remove the whole group | Everything in the group goes | You are closing out the whole family |
Then it asks about the money: Remaining balance of this booking — Leave it on this booking, or Move the remaining balance to one of the others. Where it cannot be moved anywhere, it says so plainly and leaves it where it is.
You are shown all of this before anything is written, so you can see who else is affected and what money moves rather than finding out afterwards.
Read the preview as charges and payments, not as one number. Until early November 2026 it showed only the net difference, which is how an admin cancelling one sibling saw "−39 €" and did not realise that 153 € of charges and a real payment of 114 € were about to move onto the other child. The preview now reports the charges and the payments it moves as well as the net. If you have a screenshot from before that showing a small number where a lot of money moved, that is the explanation.
Putting it back if the money moved and you did not mean it
Choosing X becomes the root booking moves the cancelled booking's whole ledger onto X — the payments and the fees. That is the design: X now pays for what the cancelled booking owed. But it is easy to pick while thinking only about who holds the group together.
To reverse it:
- Open the booking whose money moved away.
- In its linked-bookings section, use Who pays → Let it pay for itself.
- Then Return transferred money. You get a preview before confirming.
If the actions are not offered, put the booking's status back to Registered first — a cancelled booking cannot take its money back while it is cancelled.
To avoid needing this at all: when you cancel a main booking and the group should carry on under somebody else, choose to leave the balance on this booking rather than moving it. The group gets a new main booking and the money stays where it was. Before November 2026 the only way to keep the money in place was Disband the link, which is fine for two bookings and destructive for a group of three or more.
Scheduling the cancellation for a future date does not delay this part. The links and the money change the moment you schedule it — only the status waits for the date. And revoking the cancellation later does not restore the links. If you are unsure whether the family is really leaving, do not schedule it yet.
Two messages you may hit:
- "The linked bookings changed since the check. Choose again." Somebody altered the group while you were deciding. Harmless — make the choice again against the current group.
- "This booking has a scheduled status change, so its links can't change until it runs or is revoked." Revoke the scheduled change first, or wait for it.
If you remember this being far more work, that is why it changed. For a while the only route was unlinking every booking and its products one at a time before you could touch the main one. The stricter rules behind that were deliberate — admins were deleting bookings that managed other bookings' money and leaving payments unpairable — but the way out of them was missing. This is it.