Repeat bookings

Book a regular hirer into the same slot every week in one go, see which dates clash before you save, and either charge their card automatically before each date or record that they pay you outside ClubPal.

A Pilates class every Tuesday evening, a toddler group on Thursday mornings, a five-a-side team on Fridays: regular hirers are the steady income of most halls and venues. A repeat booking books a member into the same slot every week until a date you choose, checks every date for clashes before anything is saved, and then either charges their saved card a few days before each date or leaves the money to the arrangement you already have, such as a standing order.

Every date of a repeat booking is its own booking. It shows on the calendar, holds its slot, can be checked in and cancelled, and is refunded exactly like any other booking. The repeat booking ties the dates together so you can extend them, cancel them and see their payments in one place.

Before you start

• You need the Manage Facility Hire permission. See Permissions.
• A repeat booking is always for a member of your club, as any booking made on a member's behalf is. Add the hirer as a member first.
• Charging the member's card automatically needs your club to take card payments through ClubPal Payments. On any other payment provider you can still create repeat bookings, but only as Paid outside ClubPal (for example standing order).
• Repeat bookings are weekly: the same day, start time and duration every week.

Create a repeat booking

1. Go to Admin > Facility Hire > Bookings and choose New booking.
2. Choose the Member, the Facility, the Date of the first session, the Start time and the Duration, as for a single booking. The first date's day of the week is the day the booking repeats on.
3. Turn on Repeat every week.
4. Under Ends, choose how the series ends:
   • On a date: fill in the End date. The last session is the last week on or before it.
   • After a number of weeks: fill in the Number of weeks, counting the first date. Ten weeks is the first date and the nine weeks after it.
5. Read the list of dates that appears under Dates (see below).
6. Under Details, answer any extra questions the facility asks. Your answers are stored on every date.
7. Choose how the series is paid (see below), and select Create repeat booking.

ClubPal opens the new repeat booking's page when it has been saved.

Check the dates

As soon as the facility, first date, time, duration and end are filled in, every date of the series is checked against existing bookings, blockouts and the facility's changeover time, exactly as a single booking made by an admin is checked, and the list updates whenever you change one of them. Like any admin booking, a series can be made on a day the facility is normally closed or outside its opening hours. The summary reads, for example, 12 dates, 3 unavailable, and under Dates each date is listed as Available or with the reason it cannot be booked. Where another booking is in the way its reference is shown, and where a blockout is in the way, its reason.

Saving books only the available dates. A date that clashes is skipped and never double-booked: there is no override. If you want a clashing date, move or cancel whatever is in the way, then add the date as a single booking, or extend the series if it is at the end.

Create repeat booking stays switched off until the dates have been checked. If you change the facility, the time, the duration or the end afterwards, the summary asks you to Check the dates again. If someone else takes one of the dates between your check and your save, the booking is still made with the rest, and a message after saving says how many dates could not be booked.

How long a series can run

A series runs for at most 12 months from its first date. With an end date further away, or a number of weeks that would go past it, the dates after the limit are left out and the list says so. The most weeks you can ask for is 53.

Bookings made by an admin are not held to the facility's minimum notice or maximum advance rules, so a series can run further ahead than members can book themselves. To carry on past 12 months, extend the series nearer the time.

Set the price

The price of each date is the facility's price for that slot, worked out from its pricing and the member's package, as for a single booking. Select Override price to set a different price for every date, including zero. Every date is charged in full: deposits do not apply to repeat bookings.

A series with a price of zero shows No payment needed. Its dates are booked as paid in full and nothing is sent to the member.

Choose how it is paid

When your club is not on ClubPal Payments, the card option is greyed out with Needs ClubPal Payments. underneath.

With the card option, Charge (days before) says how many days before each date its charge is taken, from 1 to 60. It starts at your club's setting, which is 7 days unless you have changed it. Each date is charged overnight, on or just after that day.

To change the starting value for every new repeat booking, set Repeat Bookings: Charge (days before) under Default Booking Rules at Admin > Facility Hire > Settings. Leave it empty for 7 days. Changing it does not change repeat bookings already made: each series keeps the number it was created with.

The member agrees to the charges

For a card series, the member is emailed Please agree to your repeat booking at the facility's name, with the facility, the time, the price per date, how many days before each date it is charged, and the dates. The email's Review and agree button opens their repeat booking page.

That page lists the Dates to agree to and which saved card will be used. The member ticks the agreement, which names your club, the price, the number of dates and the facility, and selects Agree. ClubPal keeps the wording they agreed to and when they agreed.

• If the member has no saved card that can be charged without them, the page asks them to Add a card first. They save one without paying anything and come back to agree.
• Each date is charged to the member's default saved card at the time of the charge, or to another saved card if that one cannot be charged, so a member who adds a new card later does not have to agree again.
• A date already at or past its charge day when the member agrees is charged there and then, including a date that has already happened.

The agreement link does not expire. If the member has lost the email, use Resend setup link on the repeat booking's page.

Before the member agrees

The dates hold their slots from the moment the series is created, and they are never released by themselves: you chose to hold them, so only you can cancel them.

Until the member agrees, nothing is charged, and each date shows Awaiting the hirer's agreement on its booking page and in the bookings list, and Not agreed on the facility's overview, where it counts towards Needs attention. The repeat booking's page shows how many dates are awaiting agreement.

When a date reaches its charge day and the member still has not agreed, its charge is not attempted. From the day after its charge day it is listed as overdue in Outstanding Payments, under Needs Attention, while the date itself still shows Awaiting the hirer's agreement. Deal with it in one of these ways: chase the member to agree, take the money another way and use Mark as paid on the date's booking page, or cancel the date. If the member agrees later, every date already at or past its charge day is charged straight away.

If the member is never going to agree to card payments, use Switch to paid outside ClubPal on the repeat booking's page (see below).

How each date is charged

Once the member has agreed, each date's booking page shows the amount and the day it will be charged, for example "£40.00 to be charged on 3 Mar 2027", and the member sees the same on theirs. On the charge day the card is charged overnight and the member is emailed a receipt. There is no reminder before each charge, because the member agreed to the dates up front.

Each charge is tried once, the same way as a deposit balance:

• If the card is declined, or the member has no card that can be charged, it is not tried again. The date's payment is marked overdue at once, it appears under Needs Attention in Outstanding Payments, and the member is emailed Payment could not be taken, with a link to pay it themselves.
• If the charge never reached the card, because of a problem on our side or with your club's payment account, it is tried again the next night, and marked overdue for you if it still has not gone through by the third night. The member is not emailed about that.
• The booking is never cancelled because a charge failed. It stays confirmed, and what to do about an unpaid date is up to you.

An expiring card. If the card a charge would use expires before the date it is charged, the member is emailed Please update your card about a week before the first charge it affects. They get that warning once for each card, not once for each date.

A member who removes every saved card stops the charges in effect: each date then fails in the way above, and the member is sent a pay link for it.

The repeat booking's page

Open it from any of its dates: the date's booking page at Admin > Facility Hire > Bookings shows Part of a repeat booking, which links to it.

The page shows the member, the facility, When (for example "Every Tuesday, 19:00 to 21:00"), the Price per date, how it is paid, and whether the hirer has agreed (Hirer agreed, with the date, or Not yet). Under Dates, every date is listed with its booking, its status and its payment:

Resend setup link

Resend setup link emails the member the agreement link again, listing the dates still to come that they have not agreed to. It is shown on a card series while any such date remains.

Switch to paid outside ClubPal

Switch to paid outside ClubPal moves a card series to being paid however you arrange with the member, for example by standing order. It is shown while any date is still awaiting agreement.

Every date still awaiting agreement then becomes Paid outside ClubPal, and its pending charge is withdrawn, so the agreement link no longer works for it. Dates the member already agreed to keep their charges, whether paid or still to come.

Extend a series

Extend adds more weekly dates after the last one, at the same price and paid the same way. Choose an end date or Number of weeks to add, select Check dates to see which new dates are available, then Add dates. As when creating a series, dates that clash are skipped, and the new dates can run for at most 12 months from the first of them. Extend is offered only while the series still has dates to come. To start again after a series has ended or been cancelled, create a new repeat booking.

On a card series the member is emailed a link to agree to the new dates' charges. The dates they agreed to before carry on as they were.

Cancelling

From one date

Open the date's booking page and choose Cancel. For a date of a repeat booking, the dialog asks what to Cancel:

• This date: only this date, cancelled exactly as a single booking is, with the Issue refund to the hirer choice when the date had a price. The rest of the series is unaffected.
• This and all future dates: this date and every later one.
• The whole series: every date still to come, from today.

From the repeat booking's page

Cancel from a date cancels every date from the one you choose under Cancel from. Use it to end a series early.

What happens to the dates and the money

With This and all future dates, The whole series and Cancel from a date:

• A date that has already started, or is in the past, is never touched.
• A date not yet charged is cancelled, and its charge is withdrawn with it, so it will never be taken.
• A date already charged is refunded under the facility's refund rules, exactly as when you cancel any single booking. A date cancelled with enough notice is refunded to the card it was paid with; one inside the refund window is not. See Refund eligibility.
• A date you marked as paid has no card payment to give back. If the facility's refund rules say it is due a refund, its booking shows that a refund is due, as a single booking does, and you return the money to the member yourself.
• A date of a series paid outside ClubPal shows nothing about money when it is cancelled, because ClubPal never knew what was paid. Settle any refund with the member the way they pay you, for example by adjusting their standing order.

The member gets one email listing the cancelled dates and, for each, whether it was refunded. When no date is left to come, the repeat booking's page is marked Cancelled.

The member can cancel a single date themselves from their own bookings, under the facility's normal cancellation rules, like any other booking. They cannot cancel a whole series: to stop, they ask you, and you cancel from the date they want to stop.

Changing a repeat booking

There is no form for editing a series. A booking's price and time cannot be changed once it is made, and that holds for every date of a series.

• One date, for example a week the group needs a different time: cancel that date with This date and make a single booking for the new time.
• The whole series, for example a new day, time, facility or price: cancel with This and all future dates from the first date that changes, and create a new repeat booking from that date. On a card series the member is emailed to agree again, so they agree to the new price or time, and the new dates are checked for clashes.

What the member sees

Each date is listed under their bookings like any other booking. While they have not agreed, it reads Waiting for you to agree to the charges, with an Agree to the charges button on the booking's page. Once they have, it shows the amount and the day it will be charged, for example "£40.00 will be charged on 3 Mar 2027". Each date's page shows Part of a repeat booking with a link to See all dates.

Their repeat booking page lists every date with whether it is Paid, To be charged on a date, Not paid or Paid outside ClubPal. On a series paid outside ClubPal it says that they pay the club for these dates outside ClubPal, so nothing is charged there.

Under Upcoming Payments at My Profile > Payments, a repeat booking shows only its next charge and any that are overdue, rather than every date of the series.

No booking confirmation is sent for each date, and a series paid outside ClubPal sends nothing when it is created, so tell the member it has been set up.

Tips

• Give the member a few days' notice that the agreement email is coming, so they know it is genuine and agree before the first charge day.
• Keep Charge (days before) long enough to act on a failed charge before the date, but short enough that the member is not paying weeks in advance. The default of 7 days suits most weekly hirers.
• Check Needs Attention in Outstanding Payments each week. A date whose charge failed, or whose member never agreed, shows there first.
• For a hirer who pays by standing order, choose Paid outside ClubPal (for example standing order) rather than Outstanding single bookings, so their dates never show as unpaid.

See also

• Booking on behalf of a member
• Managing bookings
• Deposits
• Blockouts
• Payment requests