Short-term accommodation (STA) and respite bookings

Take, confirm and manage short-term accommodation (STA), respite and medium-term accommodation (MTA) bookings on a rooms-by-days calendar, with clash checks, check-in and check-out.

Before you begin

• The house’s Accommodation type must be STA (respite) or MTA.
• You need Manage stays to create and change bookings, and View stays to see them.
• Guests who are participants should already have a participant record.

Open the bookings calendar

1. Go to Homes → STA and MTA bookings.
2. If you have more than one STA or MTA house, choose the house at the top right.
3. Read the stats: Occupancy next 30 days, Staying now, Arrivals next 7 days and Enquiries and tentative.
4. Use the arrows and Today to move through the six-week calendar. Each booking bar is coloured by status: Checked in, Confirmed, Tentative, Enquiry or Completed.

Create a booking

1. Select New booking. The New STA or MTA booking drawer opens.
2. Under Guest, choose A participant and pick them, or Someone new and type the Guest name.
3. Choose the Type (STA, MTA or Respite) and the Room.
4. Set Arrive and Depart, and add Notes.
5. Check the message below the form: it confirms the nights available in the room, or shows Room taken with the free rooms.
6. Select Confirm booking, or Save as tentative to hold the enquiry without confirming.

Confirm, check in and check out

1. Select a booking bar, or a row in All bookings, to open it.
2. For an enquiry or tentative booking, select Confirm.
3. When the guest arrives, select Check in.
4. When they leave, select Check out. The message confirms the stay is ready to invoice.
5. To cancel a booking that hasn’t started, select Cancel.

The booking drawer shows Nights, Funding, Daily rate, Stay value and Billing days when recorded. For MTA, keep the NDIA approval on file: MTA is funded while a participant waits for a long-term home (up to 90 days).

Find bookings

1. Use the All bookings table under the calendar.
2. Filter by Status or Type, or search by guest name.
3. Export the list from the table for your records.

On a house page, Rooms and residents shows a link to the bookings calendar when short stays use its rooms.

Tips

• Stays cancelled with less notice than your organisation’s setting (7 days by default) count as short notice and can be billable.
• Rooms on the calendar come from the house’s rooms. A house with no rooms shows an empty calendar.

If something goes wrong

No STA or MTA houses

The page says Set a house’s type to STA or MTA to take bookings. Edit the house in Settings → Organisation and sites and change Accommodation type.

Room taken: the room is booked or occupied for some of these nights

Choose one of the free rooms listed, or change the dates. Confirm booking stays greyed out while the room is taken; you can still save the booking as tentative.

“Depart must be after arrive.”

Set a Depart date later than Arrive.

“Not possible now: This stay is …”

The action doesn’t fit the booking’s status, for example checking out a stay that isn’t checked in. Refresh the page and check the status.