The idea
Things that go with a room.
Venues hire out rooms, and they hire out things: a projector, the tea urn, the caretaker to set out the chairs. An extra is a thing that goes on a booking, and it is the only place I count kit as well as rooms, so nobody has to book the projector as if it were a room. Extras and their count are on every plan, Free included. Putting a price on them is part of Diary & Billing.
An extra is a name, and on Diary & Billing a flat price
You name it on Settings, then Resources, beside your rooms, and on Diary & Billing you price it there too. The price is per booking whatever its length: a projector for an hour costs what a projector for a day costs. Zero is a real price, for a thing you want booked but not charged. On the other plans an extra has no price at all, and nothing is charged for it. You can have up to 20 extras on offer at a time, and an extra you no longer offer is archived, never deleted, so old bookings still say what they had.
For example
Projector and screen, $15. Tea and coffee for twenty, $25. Caretaker set-up and pack-down, $30. Flip chart, $0, because it still has to be somewhere.
Leave it alone if
Everything you lend is fixed to a room or free for the taking. Then you have no extras, and the booking form never mentions them.
How many you have
Leave the quantity blank and the extra is unlimited: a charge, not a thing. Give it a number and that is how many you own, across every room. I count them at the moment of booking, inside the same check that stops two people taking one room, so two bookings can never hold the same projector at the same time. The booking form shows how many are left for the chosen time, never who has the others. Lowering the number later cancels nothing; it only stops new bookings until the current ones finish.
For example
One projector, quantity one. When the Tuesday class in the hall has it, the meeting in the small room cannot, and the form says so before anyone presses Book. The urn has no quantity because it never runs out.
Leave it alone if
Nothing you offer is scarce: tea, cleaning, a flat charge for the kitchen. Leave the quantity blank and I never count.
On the booking, and on the statement
On the booking form, after the time, members tick what they want, and on Diary & Billing they see the price beside each one. The total on the confirmation includes them. When the statement is made, each extra is a line beneath its booking, and it is priced the way the room is: whatever it costs on the day the statement is made, then fixed. A booking on a room that costs nothing carries its extras free, because a $0 rate card means free, and I do not smuggle a charge in through the projector. An admin booking a priced extra for a member on their behalf gets the same nod from the member that a priced room would.
For example
A member books the hall at $20 an hour for two hours and ticks the projector. The confirmation says $55. On the statement the projector is its own line beneath the booking, at the price it had on the day of the statement.
Leave it alone if
You do not send statements, or you are on Free or Diary. Extras still count, still show on the booking, and are simply never billed.
Changing your mind, and what an extra is not
The extras on a booking can be changed after it is made, by the member or by an admin, until the statement carrying that booking has been sent; then they are settled fact, like the room. An extra is not a room: it cannot be booked on its own, only with one. An extra does not go on a repeating series; if a series asks for one I refuse the request and say why, rather than quietly dropping the projector. And an extra has one price: a rate card cannot change it, and the only way it is free is when the room itself is free.
For example
The hall is booked on Tuesday and the tea order lands on Thursday: the member opens the booking and adds the urn. The Thursday yoga series wants the PA every week and cannot have it as an extra; the admin adds it to the first session by hand, or the class brings its own.
Leave it alone if
You only ever add kit to one-off bookings, at the moment of booking. Most halls are here.
What I never do
- I never let two bookings hold the same projector at the same time. The count is checked in the same breath as the room.
- I never charge an extra by the hour. One price per booking, whatever the length.
- I never tell a member who has the projector. The form says how many are left, and nothing else.
- I never delete an extra. Archived ones stay on the bookings that had them, and still bill.
- I never add a charge to a free booking through the back door. A room at $0 carries its extras free.
Where it lives
Settings, then Resources, the Extras card: name, how many, and the price on Diary & Billing. The booking form shows them after the time is chosen. A booking’s detail lists them under the cost, and the statement lists them under the booking. What a room itself costs is on How pricing works (bookwithdoris.com/guides/how-pricing-works); when the statement goes out is on How billing works (bookwithdoris.com/guides/how-billing-works).