If you are renting meeting rooms at your location, Operate makes it easy for you to manage them, by providing a default product type, which you can use to add information that is specific to such a product.
You can add meeting rooms by going to Space > Products in the top navigation menu. Click Get Started if there is no product in your system, or New if there is. Select Meeting Room to get started.
Add Basic Information
Name your room.
Enter an Online Alias - This is the name of the meeting room that will be displayed on the portal and can be the same as the product name.
For example, you may call the meeting room 'Ground floor boardroom' but the meeting room might be called the 'Ben Nevis Meeting Room'. In this instance the product name would be 'Ground floor boardroom' and the online alias would be 'Ben Nevis Meeting Room'Select the Product Group to which the Meeting Room belongs. In our example, this will be Meeting Rooms.
Select the Location where you are renting the space.
Enter the Floor.
Add the GL Code to link the revenue to the correct chart of accounts in your accountancy software.
Enter the Tax rate that applies to this meeting room.
Use the Description box below to add details about your meeting room.
Upload a Picture, this will be displayed in the portal and mobile app. Recommended resolution is approx. 300x300.
Add a Start Date when you want the room to be available and End Date if you want to set a period when the room would no longer be available.
Check the Discontinued box if/when the product is no longer available.
Check Make Available Online to allow this Meeting Room to be booked using the external booking widget.
Enter Meeting Room Properties
Add the No of People (max) that the room can accommodate
Select the Meeting Room Type - This could be a Conference or Meeting Room.
Add the Clearance Time - Enter the number of minutes needed to clear the room and make it available for the next booking.
Tip: The Portal does not take clearance time into consideration. This is because it can reduce portal bookings even by 50%.Select the Styles that describe the room. Select a style on the left, then use the right side arrow to move the style in the right side panel, to finalize your selection.
You can also choose whether you would like any packages or meeting room credits to be applied against bookings by ticking Include in Meeting Room Discounts, if this option isnt selected customers discounts will not apply to the room.
Add Rates
Use the button above the rate fields to toggle between basic and advanced rates.
Enter an hourly rate, as well as half-daily and daily rates
Add rates that correspond to residential clients - internal rates - as well as to non-residential clients - external rates.
Set the timing corresponding to your rates:
Mins - Here is where you can change how much an hour lasts / how many minutes your hourly rate includes.
Lowest - Lets you set the lower time limit under which you would charge the rate to which the value corresponds.
Highest - The upper time limit, which if reached, would determine the client to be charged the next rate.
For example, if a customer spends 3h20min in your space, you can set this as a Lowest value under the hourly rate and only charge the customer for 3h, at the hourly price. If the customer spends 3h30 mins in your space, then they would be charged for 4 h, applying the four-hour rate.
Learn more about how meeting room bookings interact with meeting room rates.
Add Availability Information
Simply select a location on the left and click the right side arrow to make the product available at that particular location. Click the double arrows to move all listed locations to the right side panel and make the product available in all of them.
note that amending the availability will not make the meeting room appear under the location within the calendar - it will make the meeting room available for use by customers at the locations for which it has been made available.
Add Related Space
This is used to add a related space that already exists in the system - For example, you might separately rent the desks that are found within this meeting room; or rent the entire meeting room. In such a case, you simply need to select the desks as related spaces. Or you have a meeting room that can be booked as one large meeting room or divided and booked as two separate rooms, you need to create 3 meeting rooms: The two individual rooms (without related spaces) and the whole room with the individual rooms as related spaces.
Add Additional Information
Hide From Point of Sale is great to use for products that you are never selling through the Point of Sale feature, which you would generally use for auxiliary products such as food and drinks. Office space fits into this category.
Can Book On Portal allows the product to be booked directly on your website if you set that up.
Product Can Be Bundled allows you to sell this product in a bundle package with other products.
Recurring Service - Check this option if the product is a recurring service.
Retainer - Enable this if your product represents a deposit/retainer that customers need to provide when renting space.
Check SMS Item if this is the case
Check Metered Charge if the product you’re creating will be used to charge customers based on metered usage (i.e: electricity).
If you cannot see any of the fields discussed above, you can add it by customizing the page layout.
When you are ready, click Save to complete your setup.