Online booking
Customers book at 10 PM. You approve at 7 AM.
A booking page on your website for roll-offs and event rentals. Customers pick their dates, see what's actually available, and pay a deposit. Nothing goes on the schedule until you say yes.
Set up once in Settings: turn it on, pick the products, set the deposit, and share the link or embed it on your own site.
What the customer does.
Four steps on one page, branded as your company. No account, no login, no phone call.
- Dates
- A delivery date and a pickup date, inside the notice you need and the window you take bookings for.
- What they need
- Only the products you turned on, each with its price and live availability for those dates. A box that's already out reads “Not available on these dates”, and a short supply reads “Only 2 left for these dates”.
- An estimate
- The rental price for the dates they picked. Delivery and sales tax, if you charge them, go on the booking itself.
- A deposit
- Their name, email, phone and delivery address, then Request booking and pay deposit opens a secure Stripe payment page. They get a “We got your booking request” email once it's paid.
A deposit is a request,
not a booking.
Self-serve booking that writes straight to the schedule sends a truck to a site nobody checked. Here every paid booking waits for your office, so the money comes in early and the decision stays yours.
What the office does.
Paid bookings land in Inbox, Requests, Bookings, under Waiting for approval, and the office is notified like any customer request.
- Approve
- Accepts the booking's quote, puts the delivery and the pickup on the schedule, and emails the customer that it's confirmed. The deposit is credited on the final invoice.
- Change it first
- Every booking is a real quote in Financials, marked Booked online. Wrong price, wrong dates, a different box size: change the quote, then approve.
- Decline
- Refunds the deposit to the card or bank account it came from and emails the customer, with your reason if you add one. Refunds take an owner or admin.
- Unfinished checkouts
- A booking where the customer never finished paying waits under Waiting for deposit. Decline it and the unpaid deposit invoice is voided.
Your products, your deposit, your rules.
Settings, Online Booking: choose which products appear, a deposit as a percent of the total or a fixed amount, how many days' notice you need, and how far ahead customers can book. Add a short message for the top of the page.
- Percent or fixed deposit
- Days of notice
- How far ahead to book
Questions operators ask
What can customers book?
Whatever you turn on under Products customers can book: roll-off containers, event rentals, restroom trailers, any product with a price. Kits and tent systems can't be booked online yet, because they're built from parts the page can't price on its own.
Can a customer book something I don't have?
The page only offers what's free for the dates they picked, using the same availability your office books from. And because every booking waits for your approval, a booking that collides with a phone order taken a minute earlier still never reaches the schedule on its own.
What happens to the customer record?
If the email matches a customer you already have, the booking lands on that customer. If not, PortaPro creates a prospect, and it becomes an active customer when you approve. The delivery address becomes one of the customer's sites, ready for the driver.
What do I need before I turn it on?
Stripe payments connected in PortaPro, because the deposit is paid online. Then switch on Take bookings online, pick the products, set the deposit and dates, and share the link or paste the embed code into a page on your website.
Take the booking while you sleep.
Open the booking page on a demo account, book a box, and approve it from the Inbox.
