Create an offering

Everything customers can book with you is called an offering in the Manager: a yoga course, a workshop, a treatment or a rental. This page shows step by step how to create an offering and what the individual sections mean.

Create a new offering: the process

You create a new offering in the Manager under Offerings (app.bookicorn.net/angebote).

1. Open Manager → Offerings.
2. Tap New Offering. On a phone, this is the plus sign at the top right.
3. Under "How are the sessions arranged in time?", choose the type of offering.
4. Fill in the required details in the General section.
5. Add the other sections below as needed, for example For customers or Booking rules.
6. Tap Create Offering.

As long as a required detail is still missing, the button reads Next. It then jumps to the section where something is missing and highlights the field.

Admins can always create offerings. Trainers only see the button if they have been given this right.

Choose the type of offering when creating

The type of offering determines how customers book. There are four types to choose from when creating:

If the required addon is missing, the type stays visible but shows a lock and the note "Available as an addon". Tapping it takes you to the Addon Store.

The type of offering can't be changed after creating. When you edit an existing offering, the choice no longer appears. If you want to switch the type, you create a new offering. Which type suits your case is explained in Types of offering at a glance.

Required details in the General section

The General section is at the top of the form and contains everything needed to create the offering.

• Offering title: at least 3 and at most 100 characters.
• Payment types: at least one must be switched on (see the next section).
• Max. participants: how many people can book a session. With the Unlimited number of participants switch, there is no limit. If a room is selected, the number can't exceed the room's capacity.
• Duration in minutes.
• Date and Start time: only for fixed sessions. This is the offering's first session.

With free time selection, max. participants and duration are not in the General section. You set both in the Availability section instead, see Free time selection.

A category is not a required detail.

Payment types and price of an offering

Under Payment types you switch on how customers can pay for this offering. You can choose from the payment methods your studio has set up:

• Stripe (online payment), once Stripe is connected
• PayPal, once PayPal is set up
• Manual: bank transfer/PayPal, once bank details or a PayPal address are stored
• Payment on site
• Credits (or the term your studio uses for credits)
• Free: taking part costs nothing, and neither a price nor credits are required.

Payment methods that aren't set up yet are listed at the bottom under More payment methods with the Set up button, which takes you to the payment settings.

As soon as a payment type involving money is selected, the Price field appears. With Stripe, the price must be at least 0.50. With payment on site and bank transfer, it can be 0. If credits are selected, a separate field appears for the number of credits per booking, at least 1.

You find more about the ways to pay under Payments.

Sessions of an offering with fixed sessions

For fixed sessions there is the Sessions section. Without any further details, exactly one session is created from the date and start time in the General section.

With the Session series switch, Bookicorn creates all sessions of a pattern at once:

• Series name: optional.
• Recurrence: Daily, Weekly, Every 2 weeks or Monthly.
• Weekdays: required for weekly and every 2 weeks. The date in the General section must fall on one of the selected weekdays.
• Days of the month: for monthly. Without a selection, the session repeats on the day of the start date.
• End of the series: Never, Until date or Count.

Below that, Preview: … sessions shows which sessions will be created when you save.

When saving, Bookicorn creates at most 52 sessions at once. A session series on the offering is then extended by a nightly run:

• Never: sessions are added continuously, so that sessions are always bookable 12 weeks in advance.
• Until date: sessions are added up to the end date.
• Count: sessions are added until the offering has that many sessions in total. Cancelled sessions count too.

The nightly run only applies to active offerings. It only applies to the session series you set here on the offering. A series you create later with New Appointment is not extended automatically, see Create sessions.

If you bring the end date forward on an existing offering, the Manager shows when saving which sessions already created after it will be removed, and only removes them after you confirm. Sessions with bookings stay; cancel them one by one if they should not take place.

You can create more sessions on the offering at any time later, see Create sessions.

Resources

Only for offerings of the type Appointments: resources: in the Resources section you set under What is booked? which resources customers book, whether they choose the resource and the item themselves, how many they get, and what is Booked along automatically. Everything about it is under Resources.

Duration and price

In the Duration and price section you set how long people book and what it costs.

• Booked in: Minutes, Hours or Days.
• How long?: Always the same with a fixed length, or Customer chooses the length from and to. With minutes you choose In steps of 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Lengths in minutes go in steps of 5, for example 25, 30 or 65, otherwise gaps appear between two bookings.
• Price per booking or per time unit, for example per day, per hour or per 15 min if customers choose in 15-minute steps. Plus the credits per booking if credits can be used.
• Base fee: only with a selectable length and optional. It is added once per booking, for example for cleaning or setting up the skis. Tiers don't discount it, and additional people don't multiply it.
• Tiers: only with a selectable length. From the length you enter, the new value applies to the whole booking, not just the time after it. Example: 20 euros per day, from 7 days a discount of 5 euros per day. A week then costs 7 days at 15 euros, so 105 euros, and not 6 days at 20 euros plus 1 day at 15 euros.
• Discount applies: only for bookings by days with tiers. To all days calculates as above. From this day on keeps the days before at full price: from 3 days 25 % off then means days 1 and 2 at full price, from day 3 each 25 % less.
• Discount from an answer: only for offerings with resources. The discount depends on a question when booking, for example children under 10 get 25 % off via a question of type Date (date of birth, counted on the first rental day). Depending on the question you choose Age under or Age from, an answer, Answer is yes or Answer is no, Less than or More than. With From day the discount only applies from a certain rental day. If several discounts apply, the largest one counts per person and day, nothing is added up.
• Additional people: shows whether every additional person pays the full price. This applies to all offerings of your studio and can be changed in the Group booking addon under Extra people cost extra.

Under Example, the Manager shows what a booking costs as soon as price and length are complete. With tiers there is one example per tier, for example "1 day: €20 · 7 days: €105".

Price by time

In the Price by time section you set a surcharge or discount on certain weekdays, times or days, for example an evening rate. With Add rule you enter Label, Weekdays, time From and To, Valid from and Valid until and Surcharge or Discount in euros or percent. The calculation goes like this: base price, then price by time, then tiers, then additional people, then base fee, then price per group. Price by time applies to both kinds of free time selection.

Times

For offerings with resources: bookings follow the usage times of the resources. With Offer only at certain times you narrow this further with an availability profile. If the resources have no availability profile and the offering doesn't restrict anything, the Manager warns: Bookable around the clock. Below the chosen profile the Manager shows its times, for example "Mon-Sun 16:30-19:00", so you don't have to switch to the availability profiles.

For bookings by days only the days count, not the times: a period can start and end on any day on which resource and profile are open. You set when customers pick up and return under Pickup and deposit.

Pickup and deposit

In the Pickup and deposit section you switch on Is something handed out and returned? if customers pick something up and bring it back. Then you record pickup and return under Pickups & returns.

• Pickup (for bookings by days): With Add pickup option you define how customers pick up. Each option has a Name, a Note for customers, the Pickup day (First rental day or Day before), a time window From and Until and a Type. With Any time, customers name a time within the window, any number at the same time, for example for Click & Collect. With Appointment there are appointments at an Interval of for example 15 minutes with Places per appointment. Each booking takes one appointment, no matter how many people, and places count per location across all offerings. With pickup the Day before, items are taken from pickup on, only the rental days are charged.
• Without a pickup option the booking page does not ask for a time and whole days are booked. With several options, customers first choose how to pick up, then the days and then the time.
• Return: With Fixed return time you enter Return from and Return until. Without a fixed time, customers return on the last rental day, without a time.
• Note on handover: appears when choosing pickup and return, in the booking confirmation, in the reminder and on the offering page, for example "Pickup at reception, please bring ID".
• Deposit with Amount per booking, collected On site or Online with the booking. Online only works with Stripe or PayPal. With online collection, your payment provider keeps the fees for the deposit payment. The deposit is not revenue.

For customers section: description, image and category

The For customers section contains everything customers see on the booking page:

• Appearance: Description, Colour and Image of the offering.
• Classification: Main category, Additional categories and Difficulty level. Customers can filter by these.
• Gallery: further images customers can browse in the offering.
• Notes for participants: Requirements and Note for participants. These texts appear in the offering and in the confirmation email.

You can create new categories directly from the selection. More under Categories.

Location & Trainer section: location, room and who leads it

In the Location & Trainer section (where your studio's term replaces "Trainer"), you set where the offering takes place and who leads it.

• Location: if your studio has exactly one location, it is preselected.
• Room: only selectable once a location has been chosen. Until then it says "Select location first". Only rooms at this location appear.
• Location for customers: if the offering doesn't take place where the location and room are, for example by phone or off-site, enter what your customers should see, such as “By phone” or the address of a nursery. This text then appears in the confirmation and reminder, on the booking page, in the customer app and in calendar entries, instead of location, room and map. Location and room stay assigned and reserved, just as without this field. If you leave it empty, customers see location and room as before. Online offerings don't have this field.
• Online offering: with this switch, location and room are dropped. You choose a platform (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Cisco Webex or Other) and enter the Online link, which is then required. With the Zoom Meetings addon, the Zoom platform also offers Create a meeting for every session automatically: every booked session then gets its own Zoom meeting, and the online link is no longer needed.
• Trainer: who leads the offering. If left empty, this stays open.
• Also occupies: with the "Resources" addon for fixed sessions, blocks and free time selection. During this time customers can't book these resources. More under Resources.

Questions when booking

In the Questions when booking section you create questions that customers answer when they book, for example shoe size or experience. How this works and where you see the answers is explained under Questions when booking.

Booking rules section: visibility, deadlines and process

In the Booking rules section you control who may book and when.

Status and visibility

• Status: Active means the offering is in operation. Inactive means it disappears everywhere, but stays in the admin area with all its data.
• Visibility: Public appears on the booking page and can be booked by customers. Private doesn't appear on the booking page and can't be booked by customers. You can still book people in yourself, and the sessions take up the calendar as usual.

Deadlines: for Advance booking, Booking cutoff and Cancellation deadline, each deadline shows Same as studio default with the rule that applies as a sentence. With Own rule you deviate for this offering, as Time before or Fixed time, for example the day before at 8:00 pm. When you book someone in yourself in the Manager, advance booking and booking cutoff don't apply. Everything about it under Deadlines. For the cancellation deadline you set under After the deadline whether Cancelling locked applies afterwards or customers can Cancel without refund until the start or pickup.

How a booking works

• Automatically confirm bookings: when switched on, bookings are confirmed immediately. When switched off, they come in as a request that you confirm or reject, see Confirm bookings.
• Offer a waitlist when fully booked: requires the "Waitlist" addon. Below it you see how it is set for your studio. More under Waitlist.
• Allow guest booking for this course: requires the "Guest Booking" addon. If the offering only accepts credits, the Manager shows a warning, because guests can't pay with credits.

Accounting section

The Accounting section is only for your bookkeeping, and customers see none of it. What appears there depends on addons:

• Invoice issuer for this offering, with the "Invoicing System" addon.
• A field for the Trainer share for this offering in percent, with the "Trainer Payouts" addon. The field only appears if a self-employed trainer is assigned and the offering has a price. Otherwise a note explains what is missing.
• Note on invoice and confirmation, with the "Subsidized Courses" addon. The text appears on the invoice below the first item and in the booking confirmation, for example "Course under § 20 SGB V, course ID 123".

Edit, duplicate, deactivate or delete an offering

In Manager → Offerings, tap an offering. The actions are at the bottom of the offering:

• Edit opens the same form as when creating, without the choice of type.
• Duplicate creates a copy with "(Kopie)" added to the title. The copy is initially inactive, and sessions are not copied. Categories, resources including the price per item, price rules and images are copied along.
• Deactivate sets all upcoming sessions of the offering to cancelled, except those you have already cancelled individually. Past sessions stay unchanged. Anyone who has booked receives a notification about the cancellation, but the booking remains and is not refunded. Activate sets these sessions back to active.
• Delete: if the offering has never been booked, it is permanently deleted with all its sessions. If it has been booked, it disappears from all views and booking pages, and its upcoming sessions are removed. Past sessions stay in the calendar as history, and bookings and revenue are kept. If there are still upcoming sessions with confirmed or open bookings, it can't be deleted. The Manager then names the next booked session and takes you there so you can cancel it first.

If you want to end an offering with upcoming bookings, cancel the booked sessions instead of deactivating the offering. When you cancel sessions, participants are notified and refunded, see Holidays, cancellations and cancelling sessions.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I create a new offering? Under Manager → Offerings with the New Offering button, or on a phone with the plus sign at the top right.

Can I later turn an offering with fixed sessions into free time selection? No. The type of offering can't be changed after creating. Create a new offering with the type you want.

Why does the button say "Next" instead of "Create Offering"? A required detail is still missing. Tap Next, and the Manager jumps to the missing detail.

Why can't I select a room? The room only becomes selectable once a location has been chosen in the Location & Trainer section. Only rooms at this location appear.

How do I show “by phone” or an off-site address without freeing up the time? In the Location & Trainer section, enter what your customers should see under Location for customers and keep location and room as they are. They stay reserved, only what customers see changes. For a single session, do this in the session under Edit.

How do I make an offering free? Under Payment types, switch on the Free line. Then neither a price nor credits are required.

How do I hide an offering without deleting it? Under Booking rules, set the visibility to Private. The offering disappears from the booking page, but you can still book people in yourself.

More pages

• Types of offering at a glance →
• Create sessions →
• Free time selection →
• Categories →