Facilities

Room Bookings

Room Bookings

Students reserve practice rooms for self-directed practice. Staff create bookings directly (auto-approved) or students request them via the Family Portal (staff approves). Each booking snapshots the room's pricing at creation; staff mark the booking completed afterwards - if it Happened, an invoice is posted to the requester's account. Conflict detection flags overlapping lessons from active classes so staff see when a room is already busy.

Reserving a room for something that is not a class: a rehearsal, a parents evening, a private hire. Bookings compete with classes for the same rooms, so conflict detection covers both.

Adding a new room booking

Pick the room, date, start time and duration, then search for the student who is booking it. Before you save, check that the time does not overlap a lesson from an active class, because conflict detection will flag the room as busy. The booking uses the room's current pricing and keeps it, so any price change after this has no effect on it. Use Request notes for what the requester sees in the Family Portal, and Notes for anything only staff should read.

Inside a room booking record

Open a booking to confirm its status, time, requester and the price it was booked at. Bookings that staff create are approved straight away, but a request from the Family Portal waits here until you approve it. Once the session is over, use Mark completed to record what happened. If the student will not use the room, cancel the booking instead, so no invoice is posted.

The record is organised into tabs: Mark completed. Each one is scoped to this record, so what you see is only this record's data.

Mark completed

Once the practice session is over, use this to record whether it actually happened. Choose Happened only if the student used the room, because that posts an invoice to the requester's family account at the saved price. If they did not show up, record that instead so the family is not charged. Take care before you confirm, since a posted invoice has to be corrected in billing.

Rentals

What is a rental?

A rental is a loan of one or more inventory items to a student, picked up on a specific date from a location and due back by another. You can mix serialized units (a specific violin) and bulk items (3 sheet-music binders) on the same rental. Rentals that return on time - with no base fee - leave no paper trail. When a fee or a late-return charge applies, an invoice is generated automatically at return time and routes through the normal billing flow (notifications, accounting push, autopay). Lost rentals flag their serialized units as Lost, removing them from the available pool.

Equipment that leaves the building with a student, most often instruments. Tracks who has what, since when, and what it costs. The rental fee can ride on the family invoice rather than being collected separately.

Adding a new rental

Pick the student and the location the items leave from, then set the pickup date and the date they are due back. Add at least one item before you save, and you can mix a specific serialized unit like a violin with a quantity of bulk items on the same rental. Leave the rental fee blank for a free loan; if you enter one, it is not charged now but invoiced automatically when the items come back. Notes are internal, so families never see them.

Inside a rental record

Open a rental to check its status at a glance: an Overdue badge means the due date has passed and a late charge may apply when it comes back. The student and pickup date are locked once the rental exists, but you can still push the due date out if you agree to an extension with the family. Use Return when the items are back, or Mark as lost if they will not be, which pulls any serialized units out of the available pool. Only delete a rental that was created by mistake, since deleting it removes the record rather than closing it.

The record is organised into tabs: Return. Each one is scoped to this record, so what you see is only this record's data.

Return

Record the return here once the items are physically back at your school or studio. Check the return date carefully, because a date after the due date is what triggers the late-return charge. If the rental had a fee or comes back late, an invoice is created automatically and follows your normal billing flow, including notifications and autopay; an on-time, free rental closes without any invoice. Returned serialized units go straight back into the available pool, so inspect them before confirming.

Inventory

What is Inventory?

Your Inventory is the full catalog of physical things the school owns: instruments, costumes, balls, microphones, tablets - anything you'd want to know the location of. Build a catalog of Items, then register each physical Unit with its own identifier, condition, and placement (a Location, Room, or Warehouse). Every time you move a Unit, the system logs a Movement so you always know where it has been and who touched it.

What you own and where it is: instruments, equipment, teaching materials, costumes. Items can be assigned to a room, to a show, or out on rental, so the answer to where something is does not depend on who you ask.

Adding a new inventory item

Start here to add a new Item to your catalog, such as a guitar model, a costume size or a cable type. Only the name is required, and you can leave SKU blank so one is generated for you. Decide on Track each unit individually before you add stock. Turn it on for serialized gear like instruments and tablets, and leave it off for bulk stock where you only count quantity. Turn on Consumable only for things that get used up in lessons or events, such as glue sticks or sheet-music copies.

Register each physical piece of an Item here and say where it lives by choosing a Location, Room, Warehouse or the whole school. For serialized items, enter the serial number or asset tag as the Identifier so you can tell identical pieces apart later. For bulk stock, leave the Identifier blank and set a quantity instead. Filling in the purchase date and price now makes depreciation and replacement decisions much easier down the line.

Inside an inventory item record

Opening an Item lets you edit its catalog settings and see every Unit registered under it in one list, with each Unit's placement, condition and status. Use New unit at the bottom to add another piece without leaving the page. Be careful about changing Track each unit individually once Units exist, because it changes how quantities and identifiers work for all of them. To retire a model you no longer stock, set it to inactive rather than deleting it, so its history stays intact.

Open a single Unit to update its condition and status as it wears or goes out for repair. Use Move to relocate it instead of just editing the placement, so every move lands in the Movement history with who made it and when. Quantity is locked to 1 on serialized items because each piece is its own record. The repair, movement and consumption logs below fill in as staff work with the unit, so check them before you buy a replacement.

The daily checklist lists every lesson and event at one location for the date you pick, along with the items each one needs. Print it the evening before or first thing in the morning so staff can set up rooms without guessing. If Items needed shows zero even though classes are running, link the right inventory to your event types or events so the list has something to show. The date follows the location's time zone, so double-check it for sites in a different region.

Maintenance

What is Facilities Maintenance?

Two complementary lists for keeping each location running. Issues track things that need fixing - broken AC, peeling paint, stuck drawers - with photos so the maintenance team sees the problem before they show up. Supplies track consumables and hardware that need to be bought (paint, masking tape, screws). Both feed into Tasks automatically, so what's open here also shows up on the staff inbox.

Servicing and repair against inventory items. A piano that needs tuning every six months is a scheduled task here rather than something someone remembers.

Adding a new maintenance issue

Use this form to log something at a location that needs fixing. Title and Location are required. Pick a Room or fill in the area detail too, so whoever comes to fix it can find the problem without asking around. The Description is internal and never shown to families, so it is a good place to say who to call. Photos are added after you save, from the issue's own page.

Add anything that needs to be bought for a location, from paint to screws. Write the quantity the way you would say it (20L, x2, one tin) and paste a purchase link so whoever does the shopping gets the exact product. Fill in the estimated cost if you want to see spending coming before it happens. Set the priority honestly, since it decides how the request ranks on the staff inbox.

Inside a maintenance issue record

Open an issue to move it along as work happens: mark it in progress when someone takes it on, then done once it is fixed. Add photos here so the person doing the repair sees the damage before they arrive. Cancel it if it turns out not to need fixing, and keep Delete for mistakes, since a cancelled issue stays in the history. Edits to the fields only stick after you click Save Changes.

A supply starts as requested and waits until someone buys it. Once it is in hand, click Mark bought so it drops off the open list and out of the staff inbox. If plans change, cancel it rather than deleting, so there is still a record of what was asked for. Update the quantity or link here if the first choice is out of stock.