Facilities and Facility Hire

Audience: Riding school owners, organisation admins, and staff with the Facilities area (View to see the Facilities page, Manage to change availability and rate cards)

▶ Watch: Setting up a facility (1:44)

Overview

Facility hire lets you rent out your arenas, round yards and other facilities by the hour, half day or full day: to your own clients from the appointment book, or to the public through your club site. This guide covers the three places you'll work with:

Requires: a Riding School, Instructor or Club Site Premium subscription (the $10 Club Site plan doesn't include facility hire), a venue you administer, and at least one facility on that venue marked Bookable.

Facility hire has a master switch. In Settings → Riding School, under What you offer, the Facility hire tick box ("Visitors hire an arena, round yard or wash bay online") adds the Facility hire option to your Book now page and your club site's booking widgets. Turn it off if your facilities are for lessons only. With it off, no facility of yours is publicly bookable no matter how it's set up, and Facility hire also disappears from the New booking menu in your appointment book. Staff can still put a facility on a lesson booking.

Before you start: your venue needs bookable facilities

Facilities belong to a venue, not directly to your organisation. If you open the Facilities page and see No venue of your own, you don't manage a venue yet. Use Search for Venue to request management of an existing venue (a Horsify administrator approves the request and you get an email when it's decided) or Create New Venue, which is yours to manage straight away.

If you see No bookable facilities, your venue has no facilities with the Bookable box ticked. Follow the Edit this venue link, add or edit each facility (type, name, description) and tick Bookable. Only active, bookable facilities appear on the Facilities page and in online booking. See Venue Facilities for the full facility fields.

The Facilities page

Choose Facilities under Riding School in the organiser menu (the menu down the left of every organiser page; on a phone, the small tab on the right edge of the screen). If you work with more than one organisation, switch with the organisation menu at the top of the page; if the organisation manages more than one venue, pick the venue from Select Venue.

The page opens with Where you teach: your own venue, plus any other venues you teach at (Add a place you teach). Adding someone else's arena there lets riders book lessons with you at it; it doesn't give you any control over that venue or its bookings. Below it, each bookable facility on your own venue has its own panel.

Each bookable facility gets its own panel with three tabs.

Availability Settings

This is the facility's own timetable, separate from your organisation's Booking Hours and from any instructor's availability. A facility with no availability rules offers no online slots at all.

• Weekly Hours: adds a recurring window for one day of the week (Day of Week, Start Time, End Time; the form starts at 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM). Add one row per day you hire the facility out; add a second row on the same day for split hours.
• Block Out: blocks a specific Date between a Start Time and End Time, with an optional Reason for Block (for example Maintenance, Private Event). Blocked periods show as unavailable in the hourly booking grid, with the reason.
• Saved rules are listed under Weekly Schedule and Blocked Dates. Use the pencil icon to change a rule's day or date, its hours or a block's reason, and the bin icon to remove one. To turn weekly hours into a block (or a dated block into a weekly one), add the new rule and remove the old.

A Block Out closes only the hours you block: in the hourly grid, in the half-day and full-day slots, and again at checkout. The rest of that day stays bookable. To close a facility for a whole day, block it from opening time to closing time.

Rate Cards

Rate cards set the price. A facility with no active rate card is not offered online at all. It is left off the public list of bookable facilities entirely, rather than appearing and then showing no availability. This is deliberate: it's better for a visitor never to see a facility than to pick one and be told it can't be booked.

Add a rate card and the facility appears publicly straight away.

Click Add Rate Card:

• Name: e.g. Standard Rates, Peak Season, Off-Peak.
• Pricing: Hourly Rate, Half Day (4hrs) and Full Day (8hrs). Each one is optional, but a card needs at least one. A duration no active card gives a rate for isn't offered for that facility, so an arena you only let by the day needs no hourly rate.
• Member rates (optional): what a current member of your club pays when they book online: Member hourly, Member half day and Member full day. Leave one blank and members pay the standard rate for that duration. Enter $0 to let members hire free; each hire is still booked and shows in your book. A member rate never makes a duration available by itself: the card needs a standard rate for it too. Bookings you make from the office are priced at the standard rate.
• Priority: when more than one card could apply, the higher priority wins.
• Add this rate to lessons held here: ticked, each rider in a lesson held in this facility pays the card's hourly rate for the lesson's time, on top of the lesson price. Leave it off when your lesson prices already include the facility, for example your own arena that you also hire out. Hire is charged at the card's rates either way. New cards start with it off; cards created before this option existed stay ticked, so check yours if your lesson prices already include the arena.
• Applicable Conditions (Optional): restrict the card to particular Days of Week ("Leave unselected for all days"), a Start Time / End Time window, or a Season Start Date / Season End Date.

Cards can be edited or deleted from the list; inactive cards are labelled Inactive. Each card also says either Added to lessons held here or Hire only, not added to lessons.

An arena that is hired out and also charges a separate per-rider lesson fee: a card ticked for lessons can also be used to price hire, so give the hire card the higher priority.

Booking Calendar

A day/week/month calendar of this facility's bookings, colour-coded Confirmed, Pending, Completed and Cancelled, with a refresh button. It is read-only: open a booking from Riding School → Bookings to change it.

Facility hire settings elsewhere

A few more settings shape what hirers are offered, charged and told. They live outside the Facilities page.

Hire durations and who can book

Two settings on each facility, in the venue editor (Edit venue → the facility):

• Hire durations offered: Hourly, Half day (4 hours) and Full day (8 hours), all ticked to start with. A duration is offered only when it is ticked here and an active rate card gives it a rate. A half day is always exactly 4 hours and a full day exactly 8; hourly hire covers up to 4 hours.
• Who can book it online: Anyone with an account (the default) or Current members of the club only. With members only, a hirer needs a current membership of your club to book the facility online: the booking page says so before they pick a time, and a hirer without one is refused when they add it to their cart. You can still book anyone in from the office.

Deposits

By default a hirer pays the whole price at booking. To take part of it up front instead, go to Settings → Riding School and, in the Facility hire section (shown once the Facility hire switch is ticked), choose:

• Deposit: None: pay in full at booking, A percentage of the fee or A fixed amount, and the percentage or amount.
• Balance due (days before): 0 means on the day of the hire.
• The deposit isn't refunded if the hirer cancels: tick if you keep it.

The hirer pays the deposit at checkout and sees the terms on the booking page and their receipt. The balance is charged to the same card automatically when it falls due. Two things to know:

• A deposit needs online card payments. If your club doesn't take payment online, hirers pay the full price at booking whatever the setting says.
• A hire booked after its balance would already be due is paid in full at booking.

A payment link from the organiser's own facility hire form (below) is always for the full price.

Telling your insurer about hires

If your insurer (or anyone else) needs to know who is using your grounds, add their address under Settings → Communications → Facility hire notifications (Also notify: who they are and up to five email addresses). They get a short email when a hire is booked, moved or cancelled: the hirer's name and membership number, the facility, date and time, never the price or contact details. Hirers are told their name is passed on before they book. The same card can also send the club's own copy of each hire (Club's copy of facility hires) to a different address from your other booking notifications.

Booking a facility for a client (organiser)

1. Go to Riding School → Bookings, click the arrow beside New booking, then choose Facility hire ("Book an arena or facility").
2. Client: pick an existing client, or use Add New Client beside the field to add a new one (Name required; Email and Phone optional; an email lets Horsify send booking notifications, and a new client with an email is invited to create a Horsify account).
3. Choose the Venue, then the Facility (each shows its type and hourly rate).
4. Hire Duration: Hourly, Half Day or Full Day. A duration is greyed out unless the facility offers it and its rate card has a rate for it.
5. Pick a date, then click the Available Time Slots you want (30-minute blocks; slots must be adjacent), and press Confirm Selection. Booked slots show the client's name; blocked slots show the reason.
6. Add any Booking Notes (Optional).
7. Tick Generate Payment Link to email the client a secure Stripe payment link so they can pay by card online. Leave it unticked to collect payment yourself.
8. Click Create Booking. The price is worked out from the facility's rate card and the hire duration.

Horsify checks the slots against the duration you chose, using the same rule as online booking: a half day is exactly 4 hours, a full day exactly 8, and hourly hire covers up to 4 hours. A duration the facility doesn't offer is refused. Adjust the slots or the duration if you see a message about this. A hire booked here takes no deposit, whatever your deposit setting: it is billed at the full price.

The booking then appears in the appointment book and on the facility's Booking Calendar. To move it to another time, drag it on the appointment book, or open it and choose Edit. Its length and its arena can't be changed once it's booked, because the hire was priced on them: book any extra time as another hire, or cancel this one and book the length or arena the client needs. Dragging a hire onto another facility's column, or onto an instructor's, puts it back where it was.

Moving a hire never changes its price. If the new time falls under a different rate card (a weekday hire moved onto the weekend rate, say), Horsify shows you both figures and asks before moving it; the hire keeps the price it was booked at, and nothing is charged or refunded for the difference. Hirers moving their own booking online can't move it onto a different rate; they're asked to contact you.

Public online facility booking

▶ Watch: Hiring a club facility (1:00)

Clients reach facility booking from your club site's Book Now page under Facility hire ("Choose a facility to hire"), or directly from the Book Our Facilities page, which lists every bookable facility with a View availability button. Facilities are shown for every venue your organisation owns. A facility is only listed if your organisation has facility hire switched on, the facility is active and bookable, and it has an active rate card; it only shows times once it also has availability rules.

The booking page for a facility (Book [facility name]) is a three-step wizard: Duration → Date & time → Your details.

Step 1 · Choose a hire duration

Hourly, Half Day or Full Day (only the durations the facility offers), each showing the price from the rate card.

Step 2 · Select date & time

If your organisation sets a minimum booking notice, one line above the times says so, for example Facilities cannot be booked online within 24 hours.

Hourly: the page opens on the first date that can be booked, with its times already showing. That is today, or a later day if your organisation sets a minimum booking notice. Pick another Date if you like, then click one or more 30-minute slots. The legend shows Available (green), Selected (blue) and Booked (red); blocked-out periods are also shown as unavailable. Hourly bookings can total up to 4 hours; for longer, choose Half Day or Full Day.

Half Day / Full Day: Horsify searches ahead and shows the next 6 available slots, so the client can see at a glance when the facility is free:

• A full day slot is 8 hours starting at the facility's opening time for that day, and is only offered on days the facility is open for at least 8 hours.
• Half day slots are 4 hours: a Morning slot from opening time and, if the facility is open 8 hours or more, an Afternoon slot straight after it. Slots are labelled by date, e.g. Sat, 21 Mar - Morning.
• Only free slots are shown: anything overlapping an existing booking or a Block Out is skipped.
• Use Search from Date (optional) and Search to look further ahead: Horsify shows the next 6 available slots from that date. Leave the date blank to search from today. The search looks up to 90 days ahead of the chosen date, so try a later start date to see beyond that.

The client selects one slot.

Step 3 · Your details

Contact Information: First Name, Last Name, Email and Phone. Bookings are made with a Horsify account, so signed-in clients see their verified details pre-filled and locked ("To update your contact details, visit your profile page"). A visitor who isn't signed in is asked to Sign in or Create an account at this step, and comes straight back to the facility, duration and time they chose. Then Notes (Optional), and Add to Cart.

This step also shows what the hire will cost: the Member price for a signed-in current member of your club where the rate card has one (anyone else is shown what members pay), and, if you take a deposit, the Deposit due now, the Balance and the date it's due.

Cart and confirmation

Facility hire goes through your club site's cart and checkout like any other booking. If the client pays online, the booking is created as Pending and confirms once payment is complete; a facility-only hire paid by another method you accept (for example bank transfer) is confirmed straight away. Either way the client receives a confirmation email, and the booking appears in your appointment book and the facility's Booking Calendar. If someone else takes the same slot while the client is choosing, they'll see "This time was just booked by someone else. We've refreshed the available times for you."

Troubleshooting

"The facility doesn't appear on the public booking page." Work through these in order:

1. The Facility hire switch is ticked under What you offer in Settings → Riding School.
2. The facility is Active and Bookable on the venue (see Venue Facilities).
3. The facility has an active Rate Card. Without one it is not listed publicly at all. This is the most common cause.
4. The facility has at least one Weekly Hours rule, or it will be listed with no times available.

"Half Day / Full Day is greyed out." (or a duration is missing from the public page) Either the facility doesn't offer that duration (check Hire durations offered in the venue editor), or none of its active rate cards has a rate for it. Tick the duration, or add the missing rate.

"No half-day or full-day slots come up, but hourly works." A full-day slot needs the facility open for 8 continuous hours from its opening time; a half-day slot needs 4. Check the Weekly Hours windows for those days.

"A member says they can't book a members-only facility." They need a current membership of your club on the account they're signed in with. Check their membership status in Member Management; if it has lapsed, they can renew and then book. You can also book them in yourself from the office.

"The client can't find a date a couple of months away." Half-day and full-day searches show 6 slots at a time and look up to 90 days ahead of the chosen start date. Ask them to enter a later Search from Date and press Search.

Related Features

• Riding School Management: the full Riding School feature set
• Venue Facilities: adding facilities to a venue and marking them bookable
• Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours: why facility hours, instructor availability and booking hours are three separate schedules

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