Waivers

Collect signed waivers from visitors before they arrive. Choose a single signature from the booker or one per visitor, and Session handles the sharing, reminders, and record-keeping.

What waivers do

• Capture consent - health declarations, safety rules, house rules
• Keep an audit trail (who signed, when, from which IP, on which version of the waiver) for insurance purposes
• Cut paperwork - nothing to print, nothing to store
• Remember returning customers so they don't sign again unless the terms change
• Re-prompt returning visitors automatically when you update the terms

Managing waivers

Head to Settings → Policies and find the Waivers section.

1. Click Create waiver (or edit the one already there) and complete the fields
2. Pick an agreement method:
   • Checkbox - visitor ticks a box
   • Signature - visitor draws their signature with finger or mouse
3. Pick a signing mode
   • Single signature - the booker signs once on behalf of everyone on their booking.
   • One signature per visitor - each person attending signs their own waiver via a shareable link or QR code. The booker signs at checkout (counting as visitor 1); the rest sign before the session.
4. Decide whether it's your default waiver. New waivers are set as the default on save, so the waiver goes live everywhere as soon as you create it. Only one waiver can be the default, so making one the default stops your current one being it - turn the switch off before saving if you're still drafting, or if this waiver is only for one location or one session type.

The Waivers list shows a Used for column so you can see at a glance what each waiver is doing: Default for the one that applies everywhere, plus the name of any location or session type set to use it. A waiver marked "Not default" is still live wherever something points at it.

Using a different waiver for some sessions

Most venues need one waiver. If you run something that needs its own terms - a studio class alongside your sauna, a parent-and-child session, an event with a different risk profile - you can point it at a different waiver instead of rewriting the one everyone signs.

Session picks the waiver for each booking in this order:

1. The session type's waiver, if one is set
2. The location's waiver, if one is set
3. Your default waiver

The first one that's set wins, so a waiver set on a session type follows that session wherever it runs, including to a second location.

Set a waiver for one location

Available when you have more than one location. Open Settings → Company, find the location, and pick a waiver under Waiver. Leave it on "Use the venue default" to inherit.

Every session at that location uses it, unless the session type sets its own.

Set a waiver for one session type

Open the session in Sessions, go to the Messages section, and pick a waiver under Waiver. Leave it on "Use the venue default" to inherit - that option names what the session would fall back to, so you can see what inheriting gets you before you choose it.

Writing a good waiver

Session doesn't provide legal advice - talk to a lawyer or your insurance broker if you need watertight terms. Some patterns that work well:

• Summarise the terms in the summary - this is good practice for long documents
• Start with "By signing, I confirm…" - makes it clear the visitor is affirming specific things
• Keep it short and use formatting to make it scannable - select text in the content editor to make it bold or italic, add a link, or turn lines into a bullet list. A waiver nobody reads is worse than a short one everyone does
• List the specific conditions that disqualify someone - pregnancy, heart conditions, recent surgery, whatever's relevant to your activity
• Cover what happens if something goes wrong - your right to refuse entry, liability for personal belongings, session cancellation

When you change the wording of a live waiver, Session automatically bumps the version number and re-prompts returning visitors to sign the new version; previous agreements stay as an audit record tied to the version they signed. Formatting-only changes - bolding a line, adding a link, tidying the layout - aren't a wording change, so they won't re-prompt anyone.

How customers sign

Before completing their booking, the customer sees the waiver overlay with the agreement method you chose.

In single mode, they sign once and finish checkout. That's it.

In per-visitor mode, they sign for themselves and then - if there's more than one visitor - Session surfaces a shareable link in three places:

• The confirmation page the booker lands on after checkout
• The booking confirmation email
• The booking details panel staff see on the day

Each visitor opens the link in their own browser, types their name, optionally their email, and signs or ticks. Adding an email means Session saves that visitor to your customer list and won't ask them to sign again next time they visit, so the form nudges them to include it.

Returning customers don't sign again unless you've changed the terms. Session recognises a signed-in customer by their account, and a guest (no account) by the email address on their booking - so a returning guest who books with the same email skips the waiver automatically.

Checking multi-visitor signatures on the day

Every multi-visitor booking shows its signature progress inline, so you can scan a full session or open the booking to gather signatures.

• Running count and progress bar - "2 of 4 signed"
• Signer names and timestamps - one row per visitor
• QR code to show a visitor on the front desk iPad or your phone - they scan, sign on their own device, done
• Open here to pull the waiver up on your own device and hand it over
• Add customer on an awaiting-signature slot to attribute it to an existing customer at the door - if they've already agreed the current waiver it reuses that, otherwise it records a staff attestation and tags the slot as added by staff

Security, versioning and audit trail

• Editing the wording bumps the version number automatically (formatting-only changes don't)
• Every signature records which version was signed, when, and from which IP
• Returning visitors are re-prompted when the version changes
• You can't delete a waiver that has signatures - stop using it instead (turn off the default switch, and clear it from any location or session type). The audit trail stays intact

If the link ends up somewhere it shouldn't (public socials, wrong recipient, left on a shared tablet), open the booking and use the More menu:

• Regenerate link - rotates the token. The old URL stops working; a fresh one is issued for you to share with the right people. This is the action you want 95% of the time.
• Revoke link - invalidates the old link without issuing a new one. Rare; mostly redundant with cancelling the booking outright.

Common questions

1. A returning customer was asked to sign again. Why? Two things trigger a re-sign. Either you edited the waiver's terms (a version change re-prompts everyone, by design), or Session couldn't match them to a previous signature - a guest who books with a different email than last time, or who left the email blank when signing per-visitor, isn't recognised. Ask returning guests to use the same email each time.

2. Do the people who sign a waiver get added to my customer list? Anyone who makes a booking is on your customer list. For per-visitor signing, a visitor who adds their email when they sign is saved to your list too; a visitor who leaves the email blank is recorded on that one booking only. That's why the signing form encourages an email.

3. Can I force everyone to sign again after I update my terms? Yes - just edit the wording of the waiver's content. Session bumps the version automatically and re-prompts every returning customer on their next booking. Editing only the title, summary, signing mode, or formatting (bold, links, layout) does not re-prompt.

4. A customer signed the wrong waiver. Why? Check what the session resolves to on its Messages section. A session with no waiver of its own uses its location's, and a location with none uses your default - so a session that looks like it should use a special waiver may be inheriting one further down the chain. Setting the waiver on the session type itself is the surest fix, because it follows the session wherever it runs.

5. Do I have to make a waiver the default to use it? No. A waiver marked "Not default" is live wherever a location or a session type is set to use it - that's what the Used for column shows you. Only make it the default if you want it to apply to everything you haven't set explicitly.