Seating areas

A seating area is a room or space where guests sit — the tasting room, the patio, the bar. Each one has its own page at /admin/locations/:locationId/areas/:areaId, with three tabs: Details, Floor plan and tables, and Service layouts. This guide covers that page. For how seating areas fit into the live floor, and what a service layout is, start with Floor & seating.

"Surface" is now "seating area"

Until 10 October 2026 the web admin called a seating area a surface and a service layout a profile. Only the words changed; your areas, tables and layouts are the same. If a runbook says "Surfaces page" or "profile", read it as "seating areas" and "service layout".

Who can use it

• View — surfaces.read: every role.
• Change details — surfaces.update: Manager and Admin. Others see View only in the header.
• Floor plan and tables — floorplan.upload to upload a drawing, floorplan.update to place tables and publish, and tables.create, tables.update, tables.delete for the tables themselves: Manager and Admin.
• Service layouts — floor.sections.manage: Manager and Admin.
• Remove an area — surfaces.delete: Manager and Admin. The Remove this area panel is hidden otherwise.

Open a seating area

1. Go to Settings → Locations and choose the location.
2. Open its Seating tab. Each row shows the area's tables and seats, its floor plan (No drawing, Not published, or Published) and its status (Ready, Needs tables, or Not in use).
3. Choose the area's name.

The header shows the area's colour and name, "Seating area at" the location, and In use or Not in use. Beside the tabs, What this area needs lists what is done and what is missing, and Other areas here links to the location's other seating areas.

To add a new area, use Add or change seating areas on the Seating tab — see Floor & seating.

Change an area's details

On the Details tab, changes save as you go.

• Name — what staff see on the floor, the POS and in reports.
• Short code — up to 4 letters. It starts each table's code.
• Colour on the floor — pick a colour, or No colour to clear it.

On the floor holds four switches:

Switch	What it does
In use	On: shown on the floor and offered for reservations. Off: hidden from both; tables and history are kept.
Step-free access	Says a guest can reach it without steps. Leave off unless someone has checked — the booking filter trusts it.
Outdoors	Marks bookings there as depending on the weather.
On the daily sheet	Shows the area on the daily operations sheet with its own lead.

Used by counts the area's tables and cart profiles, and names the printers that print for it. If it says None, choose Assign a printer — see Printers.

Edit the floor plan and tables

The Floor plan and tables tab holds the floor plan editor for this one area. The side panels step aside to give it the full width.

Saving changes the live floor

There is no draft. "Saving positions changes the live floor straight away." Make layout changes outside service hours where you can.

1. Upload a drawing. With no drawing yet, the tab shows No floorplan image uploaded — choose Upload Image and pick a PNG, JPEG, or WebP file up to 10MB. Replace swaps it later.
2. Add tables. Batch Add creates several at once; the plus button in the Unplaced Tables list adds one, with Table Name, Table Shape, Min Guests and Max Guests.
3. Place them. Drag a table from Unplaced Tables onto the drawing, then drag it to where it really sits. Select a table to change its name, size and position in the panel on the right.
4. Save. An Unsaved changes badge appears as soon as you move anything; Save writes the positions.
5. Publish. A new drawing is a Draft. Choose Publish and confirm — "The floor shows its drawing from now on." Unpublish takes the drawing off the floor again.

Keyboard shortcuts with a table selected:

Key	What it does
Arrow keys	Move the selected table. Hold Shift to move further.
R	Turn it 15 degrees. Shift+R turns it back.
Delete	Take the table off the plan (the table itself is kept).
Escape	Deselect.
Ctrl+Z	Undo.

Set up service layouts

The Service layouts tab lists the area's layouts on the left and the selected layout's sections on the right. Floor & seating explains what a layout is for and which one runs on a given day. The steps:

1. Add a layout. Type a name in the box under the list (the example reads "Private Event") and choose the plus button. The first layout you add becomes the Default.
2. Add sections. With the layout selected, type a section name (the example reads "Bar") and choose the plus button.
3. Put tables in each section. Tick the tables that belong to it. Only tables in this seating area are offered. A table already in another section is marked (in another section); ticking it moves it. Tables in no section are listed after Not in a section:.
4. Start from an existing layout. Copy duplicates the selected layout so you can adjust it instead of rebuilding.

To rename a layout or a section, type over its name. Remove section takes a section out of the layout.

Make a layout seasonal

Under When it runs, pick one and choose Save:

• By default — "Whenever no season or daily-sheet pick says otherwise."
• Between two dates — a season. Set From and To (inclusive). The layout then runs by itself on those dates, and its dates show under its name in the list.
• Only when picked — "On days someone picks it on the daily sheet."

Two seasons on the same area cannot overlap; only one may cover each day. The default layout cannot be made seasonal or picked-only until you make another layout the default with Make default.

Remove a table, a layout, or an area

Each has its own rule.

• A service layout is retired, not deleted. Retire asks you to confirm: the layout "can't be picked on the daily sheet any more. Its sections are kept, and you can restore it." Retired layouts sit under Retired with a Restore button. To retire the default, make another layout the default first.
• A table can be deleted from the floor plan editor. "This can't be undone. Reservations assigned to it become unassigned." A table with blocks on the reservation calendar cannot be deleted until those blocks are removed.
• A seating area can be removed from Remove this area on the Details tab. Choose Remove area, then Remove to confirm or Keep it to back out.

Removing an area cannot be undone

The area's tables move out of any area and off the floor plan. Its service layouts and floor plan drawing are deleted, and printers stop printing for it. If you only want to stop using an area, turn off In use instead — its tables and history are kept.

Avero refuses to remove an area that is still used by an experience, a reservation, an event area, an event booking, or a cash drawer session. The message names what is using it and nothing is changed. Turn off In use instead.

Troubleshooting

• "No tables" / "Guests can't be seated here until it has tables." — add tables on the Floor plan and tables tab.
• "… not on the floor plan" — the tables exist but have not been placed. "Staff can't tap them on the floor until they're placed."
• "Floor plan not published" — choose Publish in the editor. Publish stays disabled until a drawing is uploaded.
• "No default service layout" — open Service layouts and choose Make default on the layout that should normally run.
• "No kitchen printer for this area" — orders from this area cannot be fired to the kitchen. Assign a printer under Printers.
• "A season needs both a start and an end date." / "The season ends before it starts." — fix the From and To (inclusive) dates.
• "Those dates overlap …" — another seasonal layout on this area already covers some of those days. Change one of them.
• "This seating area can't be deleted: …" — something still uses it. Turn off In use instead; its history is kept.
• "This table has … on the reservation calendar. Remove them first, then delete the table." — clear the table's blocks in reservations, then delete it.
• "This seating area has no tables" on the Service layouts tab — add tables before dividing the area into sections.

Related

• Floor & seating — the live floor, seating guests, and how a service layout is chosen each day.
• Locations — the location page whose Seating tab lists these areas.
• Printers — choosing which areas a printer prints for.
• Daily operations — the daily sheet, where a layout is picked for a date.