> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Bookings versus attendance

> Why "who is coming" and "who turned up" are two different reports, and which one to use.

**Who is coming** and **who turned up** are different questions, so ClubDock answers them with different reports.

| You want to know | Use | Built from |
| - | - | - |
| Who is booked next month | **Bookings** | Confirmed bookings, the same thing the register is built from |
| Who actually came last week | **Attendance** | What staff tapped on the register |

## Why attendance cannot look ahead

Attendance comes from the register: signed in, signed out, absent. Nothing is written until staff take a register, so the attendance report has nothing to say about a date that has not happened yet. Ask it about next month and it is empty, and says why, with **Open the bookings report** on the same dates.

If your club takes paper registers and never taps anything in ClubDock, the attendance report stays empty for past dates too. Use the bookings report.

## Children, not places

The bookings report counts **children** first and **places** second. A child booked every day next month is one child and twenty-odd places. A school office told it should expect twenty children would act on that, so both numbers are shown, children first.

A cancelled place leaves the bookings report.

## What is on a row

Both reports carry the same columns about the child, so they read alike.

* **Bookings**: date, child, school year, school, session, venue and time.
* **Attendance**: date, child, school year, school, session, whether they came, and their in and out times, with absence reasons.

A school a parent typed in, rather than one from your list, still appears.

> [!NOTE]
>
> The bookings report never shows allergies, medical notes, contacts or money. It is the report a club sends to a school office, and the columns are what keep a child's medical notes out of that email. See [Scheduled reports](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/reports/scheduled-reports.md).

## Late collections and extras

The late collections report counts minutes from the child's **own** agreed end, not from when the session finished. A child with a late pickup the club sold is not late until that later time, so you never charge for an hour you have already taken money for.


## Related topics

- [Each report, explained](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/reports/each-report.md)
- [Reports](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/reports/overview.md)
- [Scheduled reports](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/reports/scheduled-reports.md)
- [ClubDock Help](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/index.md)
- [The bookings list](https://clubdock.co.uk/docs/bookings/the-bookings-list.md)


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.