If you offer hourly rentals or any variation of hours in a day (i.e. 2 hour, 4 hour), it is likely that you will need to build in time between each booking to prepare for the next customer. You may need to clean, refuel, or deliver the equipment.
BookingCentral offers two way to build a buffer between rental bookings.
1. Build in a buffer using Start Times.
When setting up your Price List for your rentals, you can set specific start times that will automatically build in time between rentals.
To do this, go to Settings - Rentals - select rental to Edit.
- Select the Price List tab for the rental
- Select + Add Price to create your length
- For each length, you can choose your Start Times
- Select Other to create specific start times.
- Add the times, such as 9:00am and 1:30pm.
- Save your changes.
Pro Tip! When adding start times using the Other option, make sure you use the Enter key after you add each time, this will lock that time in place and allow you to add more times as needed.
Now when a customer books online, they can only choose a 9am or 1:30pm start time for a half day rental which will automatically give you a 30 minute buffer between bookings.
2. Add a Buffer to your Rental Resources.
When assigning your resources to your rentals, you have to option to include a Buffer time. Adding the time here will block that time on the calendar, so you won't get back to back bookings. The system will show the next available time for the rental based on the buffer time.
See more information here about buffers.
