The idea
A hire for someone who will never sign in.
Halls live on one-off hires: a birthday party, a wake, a quiz night, a polling station. The people who book them are not members and should not have to become members. A guest booking is an admin writing a hire into the diary: who it is for, how to reach them, what they pay and when. The guest never gets an account. The booking itself, with a name, a phone number, an email and a note, is on every plan, Free included; the paperwork around it is part of Diary & Billing. It is off until you switch it on.
Taking the hire
Only the owner and full admins take guest bookings. Once the switch is on, Guest booking is the third door on Make a booking. A name and a phone number are required; an email is optional, and on Diary & Billing it is the only way I can send the guest anything. Notes are for you and your admins, never for the guest. On Diary & Billing your own questions follow, text or a tick box, required or not, up to 20 of them, and you choose the rate card the hire is priced from, so a community group and a commercial party can pay different prices for the same room; left alone, it is the Default card. Extras go on a hire as on any booking, on every plan; a price on them is Diary & Billing. On Free the hire goes in the diary and counts as one of the month's bookings, and that is all: no email, no deposit, no price.
For example
The secretary takes a call for a first birthday party: the main hall on Saturday afternoon, priced from the Community card, the tea urn as an extra, and a note that the side door needs opening at half past one.
Leave it alone if
Your building is members-only, or everyone who books is someone you would rather add as a member. Leave the switch off.
What the guest receives
If you gave an email, the guest gets one confirmation when the hire is made: the room, the date and time, a reference, and your How to pay text if you have written one. It carries no price, none of your notes and nothing to sign in to. Correcting the details later does not send it again. There is no hire agreement or contract in Doris; if you need one signed, that stays your own paperwork.
For example
A photographer hires the studio for Tuesday morning. Her email says which room, which morning and which hours, gives her the reference to quote, and ends with the studio's bank details for the deposit.
Leave it alone if
The guest has no email, or you would rather write to them yourself. Leave the email blank and I send nothing.
Deposit, balance, and getting paid
The money side is a record of what was agreed: a deposit with its due date and a paid tick, and a balance, which I suggest as the price less the deposit. The balance falls due a set number of days before the event, one rule for every hire: 14 days unless you change it, and never more than 56. If the booking moves, its balance date moves with it; the deposit’s date is the one you typed and stays put. Record payments on the booking or from the Guest bookings page.
With card payments connected you can email or copy a pay link. The guest pays the deposit and the balance separately, straight into your own Stripe account, and I take no cut. Once a due date has gone by unpaid, I email the guest one reminder for that half, showing everything still owed with the pay link, and never another; without a guest email, or without card payments connected, the chasing is yours. A tick you make by hand always stands over a card payment that arrives later. A hire never appears on a member’s statement, and an unpaid one shows on Payments under Outstanding.
For example
A wedding reception in June. The secretary records a deposit due when they book and the balance for the rest; the balance falls due the set number of days before. The couple move the date by a week, and the balance's due date moves with it.
Leave it alone if
Hires are paid in cash on the day. Leave the payment record empty and the hire simply sits in the diary.
The morning of the hire
Whoever opens up can have the day’s bookings by email each morning, the daily digest, sent to up to 5 addresses, none of which need a Doris account. Against a hire it shows the guest’s name and phone number, the answers to your questions, your notes and anything still unpaid. The day sheet shows the owner and full admins the same list. The digest covers every confirmed booking that day, not only hires, so a members-only building can use it too. It goes at the hour you choose, in your venue’s time, or at seven in the morning if you never choose one.
For example
The caretaker has the day's list at seven. Against the Saturday party it shows the parent's name and mobile, the answer to Will there be music, the note about the side door, and the balance still owed.
Leave it alone if
The admins open the building themselves and read the diary on their own phones.
What I forget, and when
A guest’s details are deleted 12 months after the date of their booking; Booking rules shows the figure for your organization. What goes is their name, phone, email, answers, notes and rate card. The booking stays in the diary as a guest booking with no name, and so does its payment record, so your history and your income are intact; only the person is forgotten. This happens whatever plan you are on, and even after you switch guest bookings off. Until then you can correct the details from the booking.
For example
The birthday party in March stays in the diary for good, as a guest booking with its payments. The following March the parent's name, number and email are gone from it.
Leave it alone if
A hirer comes back every year. Add them as a member instead; a member's details stay for as long as they belong to your organization.
What I never do
- I never give a guest a sign-in, an account or a place in your member list.
- I never take a payment when a hire is booked, hold the money, or take a cut of it.
- I never send your notes to the guest.
- I never send a guest more than one reminder for each payment, and never cancel a hire because it is unpaid.
- I never keep a guest’s details past the date your organization has set, whatever plan you are on.
Where it lives
Settings, then Booking rules, carries the Venue hire group: the Guest bookings switch, Balance due, What you ask guests for and the Daily digest; the rows and their defaults are on Booking rules (bookwithdoris.com/guides/settings-booking-rules). Hires are taken from Make a booking and followed up on the Guest bookings page, which appears in the sidebar once the switch is on. Connecting card payments is on Payment settings (bookwithdoris.com/guides/settings-payments), and rate cards are explained on How pricing works (bookwithdoris.com/guides/how-pricing-works).