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LEGACY Prepaid Booking Passes

Prepaid booking passes allow members to pre-purchase time in your Cobot resources.

Written by Amanda
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Prepaid booking passes let members pay in advance for booking time. They must buy and pay for a pass before they can make a booking on the calendar.

This feature has been discontinued. If you are not seeing it in your plan settings, check out External Bookings or member specific resource access instead.

If you are seeing Prepaid booking passes in your plan settings, then you can still use them. Keep reading to learn more on how these work.

Setting Up Prepaid Booking Passes

  1. Go to Setup » Plans » Add a new plan or edit an existing one » Open the Bookings tab » Click 'Add Booking Passes'.

  2. Enter the price per pass, how long the pass is valid for, and which rooms or resources it can be used for.

    1. You can use decimal points for times shorter than one hour. Each pass includes a set number of hours and can apply to one or multiple rooms.

Members can use a pass in smaller time increments until the total time is used up.

For example, a one-hour pass can be used for two 30-minute bookings. The smallest booking increment is five minutes.

IMPORTANT NOTE

  • Members must be logged into their member portal and have an automatic payment method, such as a credit or debit card, saved in order to buy passes.

How Prepaid Passes Work With Booking Credits

You can include both booking credits and prepaid booking passes in the same plan. When both are available for a resource, booking credits are always used first.

Once a member has used all their credits, they will be prompted to purchase a prepaid booking pass before making another booking.

If prepaid booking passes are activated for a plan, members cannot book any resource unless one of the following applies:

  • The resource has a booking credit or prepaid booking pass assigned to it

  • The resource has a normal price per hour set to 0

If both booking credits and prepaid booking passes are set up for the same resource, make sure the price per hour field in the booking credit is left blank.

This is an image of the settings section for a resource in Cobot called Roof Terrace Lounge. It shows that five hours per month are included, along with a field to set a price per hour, and a note indicating that the price field should be left blank if a prepaid booking has already been populated.

If you add a price to the booking credit and also offer prepaid booking passes, Cobot will always default to prepaid booking passes.

  • When the booking credit has no price attached, credits will be used first. After the credits are used up, members will be required to purchase a prepaid booking pass.

Updating Passes across Plans

If you update an existing plan, the changes will only apply to new members who sign up after the update. Existing members will remain on their current plan settings. To apply changes to current members, you will need to perform a bulk plan change.

How Members Purchase and Use Prepaid Booking Passes

Payment setup

Without an automated payment method, members cannot purchase passes.

Purchasing passes

Members on a plan that includes booking passes see a Buy Booking Passes button on their home page in the member portal.

If no payment method is saved, they are prompted to add one before completing the purchase.

This is an image of a Booking Passes section in Cobot showing that eight hours are left for making bookings. A notification at the top states that PayPal or a credit card must be set up in order to buy booking passes, with a link to set up a payment method.

Once a pass is purchased

  • An invoice is automatically generated and marked Already Paid.

  • The invoice is posted to the member’s account immediately.

  • No payment record appears on the invoice because the payment is processed instantly at checkout.

Prepaid booking passes do not expire. Members can use them until all hours are used or you manually remove them from the account.

Using passes for bookings

Members see how many passes they have to use directly on their member portal dashboard.

They also see how many are left when booking a resource that has passes populated.

This is an image of a Complete Booking screen for the Maker Shed resource in Cobot. It shows that there are four prepaid booking hours remaining and includes a link to buy more passes.

When making a booking, members see how many hours they have remaining.

  • You will also see this see this same information booking on a member’s behalf in the admin portal.​

Monthly invoices and receipts

  • At the end of the month, members who purchased passes receive an invoice listing those passes as already paid. This serves as a receipt.

  • If you want the member to receive an invoice immediately, generate a charge-based invoice.

Cancellations

  • Any cancellation notice set on a resource also applies to bookings made with prepaid passes.
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    This is an image of the Cancellation notice setting in Cobot with a value of twenty four hours entered. It explains that members cannot cancel bookings within the specified number of hours before the booking starts.

  • If a member attempts to cancel within the restricted cancellation period, they cannot cancel the booking and they do not receive a refund or credit for the pass used. They will see this pop up:
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    This is an image of a booking details screen in Cobot showing the date, time, resource, duration, member name, and price paid with booking passes. At the bottom, a message states that bookings can only be edited 24 hours before the start time, indicating that changes are no longer allowed within that window.


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  • To book again, they must use another available pass or purchase additional passes.

Assigning and Deleting Booking Passes as Admin

At the bottom of this section, you see an overview showing how many booking passes are currently assigned to the member’s plan.

Always review this overview before adding or removing passes to avoid mistakes.

This is an image showing a summary of booking hours on a prepaid booking pass left for a member in Cobot. It lists four hours remaining for a Tool Pass, which can be used for the toolbox, bike repairs, and work bench, and four hours remaining for a Room and Event Pass, which can be used for spaces such as the event space, garden lounge, maker shed, and mezzanine meeting room.

Assigning Passes

To assign passes to a member, go to Manage » Members » open the drop-down menu in the Bookings box » select 'Assign/Delete Booking Passes'.

The member's plan needs to have prepaid passes setup for this option to be available.

This is an image of a Bookings and Access section in cobot within a member profile. It shows that the member has four hours of booking passes left, and a dropdown menu is open with options including See Bookings, Add Booking, Assign or Delete Booking Passes, and Manage resource access.

Add the number of passes you want to assign. If you have multiple pass types, you can choose them from the dropdown.

This is an image of an Assign Booking Passes screen in a Cobot member profile. It allows an admin to enter the number of passes to assign, select a booking pass type from a dropdown menu, and confirm the action by clicking the Assign Booking Passes button.

When you manually add passes, the member is not automatically charged as they would be if they purchased passes through their member portal. The passes also will not appear on a future invoice.

To charge the member, either add a one-time charge to their next invoice or create a separate free-form invoice for the amount.


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Deleting Passes

To delete passes assigned to a member, go to Manage » Members » open the drop-down menu in the Bookings box » select 'Assign/Delete Booking Passes'.

  • The member's plan needs to have at least one prepaid passes populated for this option to be available.

  • Choose the number of passes and pass type from the drop-down and click on 'Delete Booking Passes.'

  • Deleting a pass will not refund or credit the amount paid to the member. To do this, add a credit to their account.

  • You can only delete full passes and only if they have not been applied to any bookings.

This is an image of a Delete Booking Passes screen in the member section of Cobot. It allows an admin to enter the number of passes to remove, select the booking pass type from a dropdown list showing the available passes, and confirm the action by clicking the Delete Booking Passes button.

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How to Use Prepaid Booking Passes as a Member
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