Reservations & rentals

What a reservation is

A reservation is an invoice with three money steps. The customer pays a deposit at booking, the remaining balance is charged to the same card on a date you set, and a separate security hold is placed on the card shortly before the start date and released after the end date unless you charge against it. Use it for rentals of any kind: rooms and units, cars, boats, snowmobiles, equipment, event space.

Rental units: your rate and your availability

A rental unit is the thing you rent: a cabin, a boat, a skid steer, a set of kayaks. Set it up once under Reservations → Rental units and two things happen from then on. The reservation prices itself, because the unit carries your rate and the form counts the nights, days or hours from the dates. And the unit cannot be booked twice for the same dates, because every new reservation is checked against the ones already on it.

On the New reservation form, pick the unit first, then the dates. The reserved item, the security hold and the charge lines fill in from the unit, and a line under the dates tells you whether it is free. If it is already reserved or you blocked those dates, the form says which reservation is in the way and the Create button stays off. You can still edit the charge lines for a booking that is priced differently; once you edit one, the form stops rewriting them.

A reservation holds the unit from its start until its end plus the unit's turnover hours, so a cabin with 4 turnover hours that checks out at 11 AM cannot check in again before 3 PM. A reservation still waiting for its deposit holds the dates too, because your customer already has the link. Cancel or delete it to free them.

The Reservations page shows Availability for the next 28 days, one row per unit: open days, reserved days and blocked days, with the reservation one click away. If you use Scheduling, the same rentals appear as a Rentals strip above your appointment board for the week you are looking at. Rentals do not take a staff slot and never block an appointment.

Weekend and seasonal rates

One rate is rarely the whole story. A rental unit can carry a weekend rate and any number of seasonal rates, and a reservation is priced night by night (or day by day) from them. A Thursday to Monday stay at $289 a night with a $349 weekend rate comes out as one weekday night, two weekend nights and one more weekday night, each on its own line so your customer can see how the total was built.

The weekend rate applies to the days you mark as your weekend. For a unit priced per night, mark the nights that cost more: Friday and Saturday nights is the usual lodging weekend, because those are the nights a weekend guest sleeps there. For a unit priced per day, mark the days.

A seasonal rate is a date range with its own price: July 4th week, summer, the off season. Inside a season its rate replaces the everyday rate. If you give the season its own weekend rate, that replaces your weekend rate inside the season; if you leave it blank, the season rate covers weekends too. When two seasons overlap, the shorter one wins, so a holiday week set inside a summer season is priced as the holiday week. A season can also require a longer minimum stay than the unit normally does, such as five nights over a holiday.

Units priced per hour take the rate of the day the booking starts on. Rates never change a reservation you already made: a reservation keeps the price it was booked at.

Availability at a glance

The Availability card on the Reservations page covers the next 28 days, one row per unit. A solid day is fully reserved, a lighter day with a number means that many of a multi-unit row are out, a striped day is blocked, and everything else is open. Click a reserved day to open its reservation.

A day counts as reserved when any part of it is covered, so both the check-in day and the check-out day are filled. Turnover hours are not drawn on the grid, but they are enforced when the next booking is made.

Create a reservation

Reservations has its own row in the Tools menu (Accept Payments → Reservations) and in the Invoicing group, a card on the Billing Tools hub, and a Reservations button at the top of the Invoices and Estimates pages. Click New reservation. Enter the customer, what is reserved and the start and end times, the charge lines, and the three money settings: the deposit (a percent, a fixed amount, or the full amount), how many days before the start the balance is charged, and the security hold amount with its place and release days. The panel on the right shows exactly what the reservation will do and on which dates.

What your customer sees

The customer receives an email with a link. On that page they see the deposit due today, the balance amount and date, the hold amount and window, and your rental agreement, and they must tick the box to agree before the deposit charges. Their card is then kept on file for this reservation. If the customer's card is already on file, pick it on the form and the deposit is charged immediately with no email step.

The balance and the hold run themselves

From then on the reservation runs itself. Three days before the balance date the customer gets a reminder; on the date the balance is charged and both of you get a receipt. If the card declines, the customer gets a pay link and the charge is retried on a short schedule; you are told when it gives up. The security hold is placed on its date and renewed automatically one day before the card issuer's window closes (30 days for lodging and vehicle rental categories, 7 days for most others), so it never lapses during a long stay. After the end date it is released and the customer is told.

Move a reservation to other dates

Plans change. Open the reservation and click Move dates to give it a new start and end, and if you like a different rental unit. The new dates are checked against the unit exactly the way a new booking is, so you cannot move a reservation on top of another one or into dates you blocked. The reservation's own dates do not count against it, so shifting a stay by a day or two works even when it overlaps its old dates.

Moving never changes the money. The total, the deposit already paid and the balance stay as they were, because that is the price your customer agreed to. What moves is the schedule: the balance date and the security hold's place and release dates are recalculated from the new dates, keeping the same number of days before and after. A hold that is already on the card keeps running and only its release date moves.

If the new dates would cost more or less at today's rates, the page tells you the difference after the move so you can decide what to do about it. To actually charge a different price, cancel the reservation and book it again. A reservation that is completed, cancelled, or has already had a charge made against its hold cannot be moved.

When the reservation has an email on file, the customer is sent the new dates, the previous dates and the re-dated charges. Untick the box in the Move panel to move it quietly. Every move is written to the reservation's Activity timeline with the old and new dates.

Let customers change their own dates

With Customer rescheduling on, every confirmation email carries a Manage your reservation button. It opens the customer's own page for that reservation: what they booked, when, the payment schedule, a button to pay the deposit if it is still unpaid, Change your dates, and your cancellation policy with a Cancel this reservation button when your policy allows cancelling online. Turn it on under Reservations → Reservation settings → Customer rescheduling. It is off until you turn it on.

The customer picks one thing: a new start date. The unit, how many, the length of the stay and the check-in and check-out times stay exactly as booked, so moving three nights to the following week takes two clicks and turning three nights into five is still a call to you. Days the unit is taken are crossed out, and the move is checked against the unit the same way your own moves are, so a customer can never move onto another booking or into dates you blocked.

The price never changes on a move, so the page protects you from a cheap booking sliding into expensive dates. A date is only offered if the stay would cost the same or less there at today's rates than it does on the booked dates. Moving a weekday stay onto a holiday week, or onto weekend nights when you charge a weekend rate, is refused with a note to contact you. Moving to cheaper dates is allowed and the price stays as booked.

You set two limits. Changes close a number of hours before the start (72 unless you change it), and one reservation can be moved online a set number of times (2 unless you change it). A reservation that is completed, cancelled, or has had a charge made against its hold cannot be moved online. When a customer moves, the balance date and the hold dates move with the stay, they get the new-dates email, you get an email saying who moved and from when to when, and the move is on the reservation's Activity timeline.

Change the length of a stay

Moving a reservation keeps its price. When the length changes, the price should change too. Open the reservation, click Move dates, set the new start and end, and tick Re-price this stay for the new dates. Before anything happens you see the new charge lines, the current total, the new total, and what that means for the money.

The reservation's invoice is re-priced in place at today's rates, with your weekend and seasonal rates applied night by night and the same sales tax rate the invoice already carries. Lines you added yourself, such as firewood or a late check-out, are kept exactly as billed. The customer never gets a second invoice and the deposit they paid stays on it.

A longer stay adds the difference to the balance, charged on the balance date. If the balance date has already passed, the card on file is charged right away; if it declines, the customer is emailed a link to pay and the usual retries run. A shorter stay lowers what is still owed first, and anything the customer has paid beyond the new total is refunded to their card.

Some reservations cannot be re-priced automatically: one you priced by hand rather than from a rental unit's rate, one with a discount, or one with catalog items on it. For those, cancel and book the new dates. You can also let customers change the length themselves, under Customer rescheduling. They see the new price before they confirm. A longer stay simply adds to their balance. A shorter stay is only offered online while your cancellation policy still refunds in full; after that it is a call to you, so shortening can never be used to get around your policy.

Cancellation policy and refunds

You decide what a cancellation costs. Under Reservations → Reservation settings → Cancellation policy, choose one of two things. No online cancellation means customers contact you to cancel and you decide any refund when you cancel the reservation. Customers can cancel online means they can cancel from their own reservation page, and the refund depends on how far ahead they cancel.

For online cancellation you write the rules as tiers: cancel this many days or more before the start, get this percent of what you paid back. Two tiers of 14 days at 100% and 7 days at 50% read to your customer as: 14 days or more before the start, full refund; 7 to 13 days, 50%; less than 7 days, no refund. A partial day does not count, so 13 days and 23 hours out is 13 days. For a non-refundable booking, allow online cancellation with no tier above 0%. The box under the tiers shows the exact sentences your customers will read.

Customers see the policy three times: on your online booking page before they book, on the deposit page above the box they tick to accept your agreement, and on their reservation page. A reservation keeps the policy it was booked under. If you change the policy in March, a customer who booked in February is still held to, and protected by, the February policy.

The refund is a percent of what the customer has actually paid so far, the deposit plus the balance if it was already charged. It goes back to the card automatically, newest charge first, and the customer gets an email saying how much. The security hold is released first. When you cancel a reservation yourself, the Cancel panel shows what the policy refunds right now and fills that amount in; you can change it to refund more, less, or nothing.

Sometimes a refund cannot be sent automatically: it is over your refund verification limit, which needs a code only you can enter, or the payment is too old to refund without the card. The reservation is still cancelled and the dates still open up. The amount is shown in red on the reservation as owed to the customer, it is on the Activity timeline, and you get an email. Send it from Transactions and it is done.

Reinstate a cancelled reservation

A cancelled reservation is not gone. If the customer calls to say they still want it, or wants to pay after an online booking lapsed, open the reservation and click Reinstate reservation. It comes back with the same number, dates, price and invoice, so nothing has to be typed again.

The dates are checked again first. If someone else booked them after the cancellation, the reservation stays cancelled and you are told the dates are no longer free; create a new reservation for other dates. A reservation cannot be reinstated once its dates have started, or when money was refunded for the cancellation. In that case create a new reservation, so the record of what the customer paid stays accurate.

The invoice that was voided with the reservation is restored, and the customer pays the deposit on the same invoice page as before. Tick Email the customer that it is reinstated and they get a message with the Pay the deposit button. A balance that was still to be charged and a security hold that was still to be placed are scheduled again.

An online booking whose deposit is still unpaid gets a new hold period, starting from the moment you reinstate it, with the same warning and the same automatic cancellation if it is not paid. A reservation you created yourself does not lapse on its own.

1. 1Open the cancelled reservation.
2. 2Click Reinstate reservation and read what it will do.
3. 3Leave the email box ticked to send the customer the link to pay.
4. 4Click Reinstate reservation again to confirm.

Charge against the hold

To charge for damage, excessive cleaning, missing property, unauthorized guests or events, or another charge the agreement allows, open the reservation and click Charge against the hold. Enter the amount (up to the hold), pick the reason, describe what happened, and attach photos or receipts. The amount is captured from the hold, the rest of the hold is released, and the customer receives a receipt naming the reason and listing the documentation on file. A hold can be charged once.

The reservation page and the Security holds report

Everything is on the reservation page: the three legs and their status, the card on file and the agreement the customer accepted with its timestamp, every authorization placed for the hold (when it was placed, when it renews, when the issuer window ends), claims with their evidence, and a timeline of every step. The Reservations list also has a Security holds report across all reservations. Charge the balance now, place or release the hold now, waive the balance, or cancel from the same page. Cancelling releases any live hold and waives the balance; refund the deposit from the invoice if your agreement calls for it.

Online booking: let customers reserve from your website

Online booking gives you a public page where a customer picks one of your rental units, picks dates on a calendar that already crosses out the days that are taken, sees the price built from your weekend and seasonal rates, and continues to pay the deposit. Turn it on under Reservations → Reservation settings → Online booking. You get a link to share and a snippet to embed the page on your own website.

The customer's price and payment schedule come from your settings: the deposit, the balance date and the security hold use your Reservation settings defaults, and a unit's own hold amount when it has one. Sales tax is added once they type their ZIP. When they continue, the reservation is created and they land on the same deposit page your emailed links open, where they read your rental agreement, tick the box and pay. The booking then appears in Reservations marked Booked online, and you get an email.

An online booking holds its dates only while the customer is paying. If the deposit is not paid within the time you set (60 minutes unless you change it), the booking cancels itself, its pay link stops working and the dates open up again. This is what keeps an abandoned booking, or a bot, from blocking your calendar. A reservation you create yourself is different: it holds its dates until you cancel it.

The customer is kept informed while the clock runs. When a quarter of the time is left (45 minutes into a 60 minute hold, 3 hours into a 4 hour hold, 3 days into a 4 day hold) they are emailed that the reservation will be cancelled if still unpaid, with a button to pay the deposit. If the time runs out, they are emailed that the reservation was not confirmed and the dates were released, with a Book again button and a note that you can reinstate it. On the reservation's page you see the same deadline: Booked online. The dates are held until a date and time.

Dates on the page are read in your time zone, and nightly units use the check-in and check-out times on the unit. Untick Show on my online booking page on a unit to keep it for bookings you enter yourself. The page never shows who has a unit, only that the days are taken.

Reservation settings and your agreement

Defaults and the agreement text live under Reservations → Reservation settings. Set the card issuer window override there if your business qualifies for the 30-day window under a category other than lodging or vehicle rental.