Rates and Fees
QReserve provides you with a tremendous level of control over the rates a user sees for resource reservations. You have the ability to segregate rates based on user group membership, day-of-week, time-of-day, multiple uses, and more.
Overview
Each resource in your site that can be reserved or requested can, optionally, have one or many rates associated with it. These rates are used to provide cost estimates to end users and are available to administrators in usage reports. Each rate can be customized and configured to apply only to specific situations so that correct rates are automatically presented to your users.
Multiple rates can also be made available to users who will have the option to select the appropriate rate at the time of booking or site moderators may select the appropriate rate after the fact. Multiple rates are useful in situations when a resource may be used in different configurations at different costs.
If at least one rate is available to a user at the time of booking then a rate must be selected and associated with that reservation or request, unless the Request a Quote option is enabled.
Creating a Rate and Rate Options
- On your Resources page in Administration, click on the pencil icon next to the resource you want to edit.
- Go to the Reservations tab and then select Rates from the side menu.
- Click the Add Rate button to instantly create a new rate with default values on your resource.
Rate Options
Group | Limit this rate to show only to the selected user group. For example, a rate may only apply to internal users or external users. By creating the appropriate user groups you can limit who is able to see and select this rate. Leave the default of All Users selected to make this rate available for all users. | ||||||||||
Description | A short name or description of the rate that will be shown to users. You can control the order rates are shown by prefixing your descriptions with A), B), C), etc. Rates will sort according to this prefix but the prefix will not be displayed to the user. | ||||||||||
Rate | The numerical value of the rate that will take on the currency of your site determined in Administration > Site Settings > Location. | ||||||||||
Basis |
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Unit |
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Visibility & Invoicing | Publicly visible: When turned on, this rate will be shown to users in public portals and on the resource information page in your site to all users. Requires acct. #: When turned on, users who are using this rate must provide an account number in the account number field either from their stored list of account numbers or manually. Invoice automatically: When turned on, any reservations or requests made with this rate will automatically generate an invoice for the user. Debit spending account automatically: When turned on, QReserve will attempt to charge for the request or reservation with this rate from the users currently active spending account. | ||||||||||
Taxes & Accounting | Tax Code: Set a custom tax code if you choose to set up a custom tax rate for this rate. Tax Rate: Tax rates are only required if the site-wide default tax rate must be overridden. Tax Note: Add a note to your custom tax rate for this rate, if required. SKU: Add a SKU to your custom tax rate for this rate, if required. | ||||||||||
Advanced Options | Rate Script: Add a custom Rate Script to implement custom pricing logic for this rate. See our documentation for more details on Rate Scripts. Off-Hours Rate: When enabled, you can charge users a different hourly rate for specified hours in the week, billing a "blended" total depending on the number of hours reserved in the "standard" and "off-hours" time periods. Edit Rate Time Options: Use the Weekly Blocks time selector to identify when your standard rate should be unavailable OR when your off-hours rate should be available (if you have enabled off-hours rates). You can also configure minimum and maximum durations this rate can be reserved for. |
Off-Hours Rate
Configure your resource Rates to charge users a different price for reservations made during “off-hours”, all within a single Rate for a resource. Reservations booked for resources with an off-hours rate configured can span across the “standard” and “off-hours” for that rate, while accurately charging the blended rate depending on the duration of time reserved in each rate time period.
Step 1: Access the Rate Manager
You can do this in one of two ways:
- Go to the Resources tab in Administration, then select the Rates page.
- From a specific resource's profile, go to the Reservations tab and then the Rates page.
Step 2: Configure the Rate
In the Rate Manager, you'll configure your rate with the off-hours functionality.
- Set an hourly rate price. This will be your standard rate.
- Enable the off-hours rate functionality.
- Click "Edit Rate Time Options."
Step 3: Define the Off-Hours
Now, you'll specify which times are considered "off-hours."
- Use the weekly calendar view to select the days and times when the standard rate will not apply. This is your off-hours period.
- Enter your off-hours rate price (e.g., $40.00).
Once you've completed these steps, your rate will be configured to charge the standard price during your specified standard hours and the off-hours price during the times you just defined. When a user books a reservation that spans both time periods, the system will automatically calculate the appropriate blended rate. If you have different rates on a resource for User Groups, you can configure rates for each User Group with off-hours rates enabled to accurately charge your users for their reservations.
Please note that off-hours rates are only available when a rate is charged “per hour”.
How to migrate multiple rates to off-hours rates
Migrating from your previous, two-rate setup to the new, single off-hours rate (for a single User Group) is straightforward. Since your existing rates already have time restrictions set, you will be consolidating them into one.
Step 1: Identify and Edit Your Main Rate
First, identify the rate you currently use for your standard hours. You'll be adding the off-hours pricing to this existing rate. Navigate to this rate and edit its settings.
Step 2: Define the Off-Hours Value
In the rate's settings, you'll now see a new field for "Off-hours rate". Enter the price that you previously used for your separate off-hours rate. There is no need to “re-configure” the hours that your “off-hours” rate is available, since they should already be selected to represent the hours your “standard” rate is unavailable.
Step 3: Delete the Secondary Off-Hours Rate
Once you've entered the off-hours price into your main rate, you can safely delete the second rate you created (previously) specifically for off-hours. Since your main rate already has the correct time restrictions for when the standard and off-hours periods are valid, the system will now use those same restrictions to apply the correct pricing from the single (main) rate.
Rate Tax Overrides
When a reservation is added to an invoice, or a rate from a resource is selected as an invoice item, the tax rate set will be the default site-wide tax rate (or no tax rate if none is set). You can override this on a per rate basis by setting the Tax Code, Tax Rate, and Tax Note values for that resource rate.
Important Notes about Rate Taxes
- Tax rates are only needed if you must override the site-wide default tax rate.
- A tax rate is saved on a reservation when made so changes to a rate's tax rate will not change existing reservations.
- Tax rates are not visible to users until they are used on an invoice.
Rate Quotes
Enable the Custom Rate Quote Option to create a special rate (in addition to any other rates available) that allows users to request a rate from site moderators or administrators. By enabling this option then administrators are able to override rates with any rate at any time.
Note: We recommend that at least one moderator or administrator is set as an Approver so that they are notified of price quote requests. Any pending price quote will appear on moderator and administrator dashboards and when a price is provided, the original requester will receive an email and have the option to cancel the request if they do not agree to the quote.
Automatic Invoice Generation
When the Invoice automatically option is enabled for a rate then each reservation or request made with that rate will cause an invoice to automatically be generated and presented to the user.
By default, this invoice acts as a standard invoice that defaults to a Final / Sent status and can be paid by the user with any available payment methods.
Expiring Unpaid Invoices and Reservations
You can require payment upfront for reservations and services by turning on auto expiring reservations and invoices for a resource. When combined with an automatic invoice generating rate, this will put a time limit for how long a user may take to complete payment on an invoice. If the invoice remains unpaid after the time limit then both the invoice and the request or reservation will be voided and cancelled.
Between the time of a reservation first being created and expiring, that reservation is a real reservation in your calendar and thus double bookings cannot be created. This can be thought of a pending reservation that provides a grace period for payment to be received. Within approximately 2 minutes from the invoice expiring, the reservation will be cancelled and the user notified automatically. Please note that there will be a 1 to 2 minute grace period on top of the expiration time you configure to allow for payment processing transaction times and ensure a seamless experience for users.
Rate Description Only
QReserve's rates module can be used for purposes outside of charging currency for a reservation or request. It may be used as a simple credit system, a way to specify reservation type options, or could be used to create different time restrictions on a per user group level. In these cases it can make sense to hide information about a rate from users other than the description itself. By enabling the Show Rate Description Only option, only the description is shown to users and when all resources in a reservation or request have this enabled, the rates selection are labelled Option rather than Rate.
Pay From Account Automatically
When the Pay from account automatically option is enabled, any reservations that add this invoice at the time of creation will attempt to add a payment for the amount of this reservation from the user's currently active spending account.
If a spending account has a balance below the price of the the reservation then the entire spending account will be applied and the invoice will be left with a balance.
This is a great feature to use when you want spending account balances to be used ahead of any other balances when paying for certain resources.