What does Hallbooking Online offer?
Hirers can see a calendar of all the bookings for your venue. They can make a booking which the Bookings Secretary can then review and approve.
The bookings are made on the Hallbooking Online website. Your venue will also have information pages telling your hirers about the venue, with photographs and documentation.
Yes! There are two ways to test the online booking system.
The 60-day free trial has no obligation and we don't need any payment information in advance.
I'm new here! How can I set everything up?
You can get going very quickly. You'll need to know the Bookings Secretary's username and password to login.
To log in, head to https://hallbookingonline.com/admin.
Enter your username and password. You'll then be taken to the Unapproved Bookings page.
You need to do the following:
Do I need to download software?
No. This is all managed online. You can manage bookings from a computer, an iPad or even your telephone.
Does the Bookings Secretary need special computer skills?
No. We've designed the system to be simple to use. The Bookings Secretary just needs to be able to go to a webpage and click to approve bookings.
Our system also sends an email about new bookings, so your secretary needs to be able to read an email.
It's just £10 per month. That's £120 per year, paid annually.
Remember - there's a no-risk, no-commitment free trial of our booking system.
The price includes invoicing and all the rooms for your venue.
There's also free support and telephone training both before and after the free trial period.
Not everyone has a computer. Can we still take bookings by phone?
Yes. The Bookings Secretary can very quickly add a new booking. You don't have to force people to go online!
Our venue has multiple rooms. Can people choose which rooms to book?
Yes. They can select specific rooms - or the whole building.
Can we use this booking system for a Village Hall / Church Hall?
Yes. Any venue is fine.
Can we personalise the description of the venue and add photographs?
Yes. You can write your own description and add photos with captions. If you need to make any changes later on, you can do so easily.
Yes. You can send an email with a PDF invoice. The invoice can be personalised to tell hirers how to pay. For example, you might want to write who to make a cheque out to, or bank transfer details. You don't have to send out invoices: it's an option that's available if you would like to use it.
Can we change the invoice currency?
Yes. On the Settings page, click on Advanced Settings. You can choose the currency from a dropdown list.
How are hiring charges calculated?
You can upload a PDF with the hiring charges. You can also add them to the description page.
We appreciate that venues have varying systems for calculating hiring charges, including discounts for local residents and repeat bookings.
When sending an invoice, the Bookings Secretary simply writes in the amount due. Our system will invoice for that amount.
Carry on with your existing payment system. Hirers can download booking and payment forms, if you wish. The Bookings Secretary or Treasurer can mark bookings as 'paid'. You can put the BACS info or bank transfer sort code and account number either on the invoice, or on the provisional booking email.
Can we integrate this onto an existing website?
Yes - you can display an upcoming events calendar on your website. This will include a button to click to make a booking.
How does someone make a booking?
He/she just goes to a webpage and checks the calendar. A demonstration page is here. You are welcome to make a test booking: it's not a real village hall.
The hirer then enters the booking details, and we'll send you (and the hirer) an email about the provisional booking.
If you have regular hirers, they can create an account so that they don't need to keep typing in their contact details. They can also look up future and past bookings.
Are these provisional or confirmed bookings?
All bookings are initially set as provisional.
When a provisional booking is made, the time is blocked off. The system will send an email telling the hirer that the booking is provisional.
The venue administrator can decide whether to accept a booking. When the administrator confirms a booking, the system will send the hirer a confirmation email.
Is the hirer's contact info public?
The hirer can choose to hide his contact information on the public calendar.
There are three privacy settings choices:
You can set the default level of privacy as either 'Private' or 'Hide Contact Info'.
Does the hirer need to make an account?
No. Hirers have the choice of just making a one-off booking, or creating an account and logging in to make a booking.
If the hirer creates an account, he/she doesn't need to type in contact details each time. The hirer can also view all bookings, past and upcoming.
If the hirer is just making a one-off booking, he/she can make the booking without creating an account.
Yes. When making a booking, you can copy it to another day. You can also find a previous booking and copy that across to a new day.
Your hirers don't need to keep entering all their information repeatedly!
The Bookings Secretary can also create bulk bookings. You can have events that repeat weekly (e.g. every Monday) or repeat daily (e.g. every day for a week).
Yes. You can set a minimum notice period for deleting bookings. (e.g. 30 days.)
The Bookings Secretary can delete a booking (or make changes to it) at any time.
Can someone still book by telephone?
Yes. We understand that not everyone in the community wants to book online. Your Bookings Secretary can still accept bookings by phone and easily add them to the system.
How does a hirer know if the hall is available?
By checking the online calendar. The hirer doesn't need to call anyone.
Keep using your existing payment methods. Your Treasurer (or whoever) can update the booking to show that a payment has been received.
How does a hirer know that a booking has been confirmed?
When the Bookings Secretary clicks to approve a booking, our system will automatically send an approval email.
How is the Bookings Secretary notified of new bookings?
The system will send a notification email.
How does the Bookings Secretary approve bookings?
He/she just goes to a webpage and clicks to approve bookings. A demonstration page is here. Go ahead and approve something: it's not a real venue!
Can the Bookings Secretary add telephone bookings?
Yes. We understand that not everyone in the community is necessarily online.
How does the Bookings Secretary know that a payment has been received?
Whoever receives the payments (the Treasurer) can log in and mark a booking as paid. This will show up when the Bookings Secretary reviews bookings.
Can the Bookings Secretary make changes to a booking?
Yes. All bookings can be edited or deleted by the Bookings Secretary. The hirer can make changes to unapproved bookings and can delete a booking. You can set the minimum notice period needed to delete a booking.
Do hirers have to create an account to make a booking?
No - it's optional.
What are the advantages of a hirer account?
Hirers don't need to keep typing in the same information each time to make a booking.
Hirers don't need to create a password for each booking.
Hirers can view all their bookings (past and future) on one page.
The hirer creates the account. You don't need to do anything.
Where is the setting to turn this feature on / off?
Head to Advanced Settings from your main settings page.
You can send invoices from either the Awaiting Approval tab or the Upcoming Events tab. On the list of bookings, click on the Invoice link.
Can I send one invoice for multiple bookings?
Yes. You don't need to invoice every event. Bring up one of the bookings and click on 'invoice'. You can edit the invoice to cover multiple events.
Click to download example of an invoice sent to a regular hirer for three months of bookings.
Yes. On the invoice tab, click on 'Export CSV'.
You can then choose the period you wish to export. The exported file is CSV format (Comma Separated Values). It can be imported into accounting packages or Excel.
How can I manage invoices I've sent?
Log in as the administrator. At the top, click on the Manage Invoices button .
On the invoice management page, you'll see a list of paid / unpaid invoices. You can mark invoices as paid, resend them and delete them.
Can I personalise the text on the invoice?
Yes. All invoices are based on your template. The text of the header and footer of the invoice can be changed. Click on the Settings Button and then scroll down to the invoice template option.
When sending an invoice, you can add a message to the PDF.
Can I see an invoice I've already sent?
Yes. On the invoice management page, you can download, resend or delete an invoice.
On any administrator page, click on to go straight to the data report.
This year's data is shown by default. You can also click to see other years.
Scroll down, or click on the graph button, to see a graphical representation of both the number of bookings and the total time booked.
What data reporting options are there?
On the Data Reporting page, you can:
Yes. Click on Download Data to export the data set as a CSV file. You'll be able to import the CSV file into applications, including Excel.
What other data can I download?
You can download all bookings data, with the exception of user passwords.
Click on the search icon on any admin page. Click on the link for 'Advanced Search'.
Enter the search criteria. This could just be two dates, or a particular hirer.
You can then choose to download the search result data (full or partial) as a CSV file.
Alternatively, you can download everything from a particular year by going to Settings and choosing a year from 'Download CSV Data'.
How do we set this up for our venue?
Sign up for a 60-day free trial! We will set up a bookings page and go through the steps with you.
Can we add photos and booking documents?
Yes. You can upload your venue's documentation whenever you wish. This might include a paper booking form, hire charges overview, general information, alcohol licence application or a plan of the building.
When your documentation changes (such as new hiring charges) you can upload the new documentation.
We have lots of existing bookings. Can they be added to the calendar?
Yes. We can help you with that.
We manage the back end. You'll need someone in charge (the Bookings Secretary) to approve bookings and answer questions from hirers.
Is the hirers' data protected?
Yes. Hirers can choose whether their booking and/or contact information is displayed on the public calendar.
Private information can only be accessed with a password. The password is very encrypted!
As bookings payment is made offline, we don't store (or ask for) anyone's card details.
Sign up for a 60-day free trial! You'll be able to test everything fully, and customise the pages to suit your venue.
If you have questions, please get in touch! Send an email to [javascript protected email address] or call 07805 648935. The consultation is free!
You can also experience some of the functions of the booking system by experimenting with our imaginary venue: Casterbridge Village Hall. You can make bookings and then log in as the Bookings Secretary and approve then. Follow this link.
How do I find out about new bookings?
Our system will send an email to the Bookings Secretary. You can change this email address if someone takes over.
On the Bookings Secretary's dashboard, there is a list of all unapproved bookings. Click on the bookings to approve it. Our system will send an approval email. (You can edit the template for this email on the settings page.)
It's easy! On the unapproved bookings list, click on the invoice button. Enter the amount (plus an optional comment) and the system will send an email with a PDF invoice attached. You can edit the template for both the email and the invoice to suit your venue.
How do I edit the invoice text?
In Settings, head to Invoice PDF & Email Templates. You can choose the template and change the text. For example, in the invoice, you might want to write the BACS details for payments, or who to make a cheque payable to.
How do I upload or change the invoice logo?
In Settings, head to Invoice Logo and click on Manage. Logos on the invoice are optional.
What are the requirements for an invoice logo?
The image should be a jpeg file. The width shouldn't be greater than 400 pixels and the height less than 200 pixels. Contact us if you need help with the image dimensions. An invoice logo image is optional.
Continue using your current systems. We don't take payments from you. Your hirers can pay you by BACS (bank transfer) or Cheque. You can put this information in the invoice, or on your venue's webpage.
In Settings, click on Documentation. You can upload up to ten PDFs. Examples include a paper booking form, if your venue still needs one, hire charges, terms and conditions, useful information, an alcohol licence, a floor plan and a privacy policy. You can decide the name for the documents.
You don't have to upload all of these. Just upload the ones you need.
All the photos can be changed, and you can keep changing them! In Settings, click on Venue Photographs.
How do I change the text on the webpages?
We have a text editor that lets you change the text for your venue. Use it to tell potential hirers all about your venue and why they should book it!
How do I block bookings beyond a certain date?
In Settings, click on Booking Date Limit. You'll be able to edit the final date. You can also block all new bookings temporarily, if needed.
How do I enter repeat bookings?
There are two ways. The Bookings Secretary can enter a booking and choose how many times to repeat the booking. Hirers can 'copy' events to another date. That means your hirers don't need to repeatedly enter the same information.
There are several ways. You can export the data in Settings. Click on Download CSV Data. You can choose the year...or download everything. CSV is a standard data format. You can import that data into other applications, including Excel.
This option isn't available in the public demonstration. However, when you request a free trial of our system, it will be available. (There are no restrictions on the free trial.)
If you're looking to export just a specific set of bookings, you can click on List Events on the Bookings Secretary's Dashboard. Enter the search criteria, and at the bottom of the search results there is a button to export the results as a CSV file.
How do I set up a demo for my venue?
Fill in the simple form and we'll set up a 60-day no commitment demonstration. It will be fully working: you can try everything!
Head to our Free Trial page to get going. We'll soon get you set up!