September 24, 2026

Client Change Requests: Cancel, New Dates, Companions

Plans change on the water as often as anywhere else. A client tears a shoulder a month before their float, a work trip lands on the week you had them down for, or a partner decides to come along and read on the bank while everyone else fishes. Until now each of those started with a text or a call, followed by a hunt through the booking to see what was paid and what the agreement said. Fishing Outfitter now gives your clients a proper way to ask from their own portal: they can request to cancel, request new dates, or add a non-fishing companion, and you get the request with everything you need to answer it.

Three requests, one place to ask

The card for a client’s upcoming trip in their portal now has a Need to change something? row with three buttons:

• Request to cancel shows your cancellation policy first (more on that below) and then sends the request.
• Request new dates lets the client pick the dates they’d like instead and add a note. For a single-day trip they choose one date, and the booking keeps its morning, afternoon or full-day slot.
• Add a companion is for a non-fishing guest: a name, an email and phone if they have them, and any dietary needs. If the booking carries a companion fee the dialog shows it, and otherwise it tells the client you’ll confirm one. Adding another angler to the party is a different conversation, and the dialog points them to you for it.

Sending a request changes nothing about the booking. The client sees it listed under the buttons as waiting on you and can withdraw it while it’s pending, and because there’s only ever one open request of each kind per booking, a nervous client can’t send you five cancellation requests in an afternoon.

Cancelling shows your policy first

When a client clicks Request to cancel, the first thing they see is your cancellation policy, word for word: the policy on that trip type, or your default if the trip type doesn’t have its own. If you haven’t written one into Fishing Outfitter yet, they’re pointed to the agreement they signed with you instead. Below it they see what the policy means for them in plain terms, so a client who has paid a deposit is told cancelling may mean forfeiting it, and a client who bought your cancellation protection is told the terms of their protection apply instead, which is what they paid for.

They then have to tick a box saying they’ve read the policy before the request will send, and Fishing Outfitter refuses a cancellation request without it rather than just disabling a button. It also keeps a record of the exact policy text the client was shown, when they acknowledged it, and whether they had cancellation protection at the time, all taken from the booking itself rather than from anything the client’s browser sends. Nearly every deposit dispute starts with “nobody told me,” and this makes sure they read your terms again at the moment it matters. (If you’re still settling what those terms should be, our guide to taking deposits for guided trips is a good place to start.)

What lands on your side

As soon as a request is sent, owners and admins get an email and an in-app notification linking straight to the booking. Guides don’t, since they can’t act on it and their inboxes are busy enough in season. The request also sits in your dashboard’s action items until you answer it, with no dismiss button, so the only way to clear it is to deal with it. On the booking, a Client requests card shows what was asked along with the client’s message and the dates or companion details they asked for. For a cancellation it also shows the policy they acknowledged and when, the deposit paid to date, and whether they had cancellation protection.

You decide, and approving does the work

Approving runs the same steps you’d take from the booking page yourself, and the dialog tells you exactly what will happen before you confirm:

• Cancel: the booking is cancelled, its outstanding invoices are voided and the client is emailed. Fishing Outfitter doesn’t refund anything on its own, so any refund is yours to make. For a regular you want back next season you can choose Put on hold instead, which frees the slot, stops payment reminders and keeps any deposit toward a future trip.
• New dates: the trip moves, open payment due dates move with it, and the client is emailed. If the dates don’t work, because they fall outside the season or clash with something else, you’re told why and the request stays open, so you can move the trip to different dates yourself or mark it handled with a note.
• Companion: approving marks it handled and links you to the booking’s edit form, with the companion’s details kept on the card to copy across. That form is the one place that recalculates the total, tax and any cancellation-protection price correctly.

If you’ve connected Google Calendar, a cancelled or held trip comes off everyone’s calendar within the hour and a moved one moves with it. You can also deny a request, which needs a note that reaches the client by email and in their portal, so “we can’t move you to the second week, but the first week of November is open” reaches them in your own words.

Turning it on

Client change requests are included on the Solo, Pro, Business and Elite plans and are on by default. If you’d rather keep taking changes by phone, the Client Change Requests switch in Settings hides the buttons from your clients’ portal. While you’re there, it’s worth writing your cancellation policy into your trip types if you haven’t already, because it’s what your clients will read, word for word, before they ask to cancel.

The phone will still ring, and some conversations should stay conversations. But the client who wants to move a week, bring a partner along, or cancel knowing what it costs can now tell you in a way that arrives with the booking attached. See pricing for plan details, or start free.

Start free on the Starter plan — or try a paid plan free for 14 days.