Inventory Items
Checkfront is an inventory based system. Your inventory is made up of Items, Events, Rules and Discounts.
Items are bookable assets with-in the system that can be booked daily, nightly, hourly or as a static good.
Events can control the availability of items and add new pricing layers including seasonal and specials. Discounts allow you to upload vouchers and use discount codes, and Rules enforce your booking policies.
You can access your inventory items tab under the main Inventory menu while logged into your account. This area requires either administrator access, or the inventory control access right set for the logged in account.
Basic Setup
Each item needs to belong to a category, requires a unique Item ID / SKU and should be appropriately named.
Before you can supply pricing, add packages and configure advanced options of an item, you first need to set the basic details and save the item.
- Category: Category of the item. The new link will create a new category.
- Item Name: The name of the item first displayed when browsing items and making a booking.
- Allocation: Daily, Nightly or Hourly allocation. This changes how the item is booked, priced and allocated in the system.
- Item ID / SKU: A unique stock keeping unit. 3 – 30 characters (alpha-numeric).
- Quantity: Total number available to book. Setting this to unlimited disables inventory control and can lead to over-bookings.
- Summary: A short summary of the item displayed along with the name when making a booking. Up-to 300 characters.
- Description: A detailed description of the item displayed when viewing detailed information about the item.
Clicking on the summary or description links will bring up an editor dialog. You can include simple html tags where needed, links and basic markup.
Default Status and Availability
- Available: the item is available by default 365 days a year. Closures can be added via events.
- Unavailable: the item is not available by default, and you would create an event to set availability.
- Disabled: Not available to book. Also see visibility.
Events
Events are used to control the availability and define seasonal price points for item. Events can be set globally (for example to make all of your inventory unavailable during December), per category, or per item. The events button in the sidebar shows you the number of events impacting an item, and allow you to create a new event specific to the item.
For more information on events, see the Events help page.
Pricing
By default each item includes a base price. The base priced used by default. You can further add more price points by date or occupancy. For each booking parameter you have defined (example Adult, Child) a price option will be displayed.
Pricing can be defined per booking, or per allocation (day, night, hour). Per booking will set the price for the item when booked regardless of length. Per allocation will define the price based on the length of the item.
For example: If you set the price to $100.00, a 5 day booking would be billed at $500 when set as per day. It would otherwise be billed $100 for 5 days if set per booking.
Date Based Prices
If you need to change prices based on the date booked, you can create an event that includes a new price point. For instance you can create a new price point for December 1st – December 28th called Christmas. Once created a new price point will show in your item pricing tab.
Simple Pricing
If you don’t require seasonal pricing, discounts or use of events, you can use simple pricing. This is useful and generally only recommend for static goods.
Group Pricing
Group pricing can be added to change the price based on the number of items booked, or participants. With group pricing you define ranges and set the price accordingly. Your range should start at 1, and finish based on the maximum quantity for the item. For example: 1 – 5, 6 – 12, 12 – 30.
Packages
Additional items in your inventory can be attached to a parent item to create a package. When a package is created, child items are grouped together when the parent item is booked. Packaged items can be optional, pre-selected, or required.
- Optionalitems are not required to be selected at the time of booking, but are presented as an optional upsell.
- Pre-selected is similar to optional, but it opts the user in by default.
- Required adds the attached item to the booking and doesn’t allow it to be removed.
When attaching an item to create a package, you are given the option of selecting an existing item or creating a ‘simple item’ in your inventory.
Note: if a required item in your package is not available or sold out, the parent item will also not be available.
Simple items exist in your inventory as static goods. The are not impacted by events, and can only have one price. Unlike regular items, simple items allow you to specify an optional quantity when part of a package. Simple items by default are also not visible outside of a package.
Media
You can upload up to five photos of your item to be displayed along with the item details when browsing available items and making a booking.
Images will be automatically re-sized. For best results photos should be of landscape orientation and minimum of 480 pixels wide and 360px tall. Supported formats are JPG, PNG and GIF. If your image is greater than 8MB please re-size it before uploading it.
You can include an optional Youtube Video link. This will be made available when viewing the details of an item prior to booking it.
Advanced Settings
The advanced settings tab contains some extra options for the item.
- Length: Define the length that this item is booked. For example, setting it to 3 would force any bookings of this item to be 3 days long.
- Weight An arbitrary weight. A higher number will be displayed first, 0 for default.
- Alias ID Alias one item item to another. When this item is booked, it will remove the equivalent amount from the aliased item.
- Visibility:
- Everyone: No restrictions.
- Staff: Only visible and bookable internally.
- Customers: Only visible and bookable by customers.
- Packaged: Only visible when part of a package.
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FAQ
- Can I add up-sells, such as a t-shirt or bottle of wine?
Yes, you can package in simple priced items under the advanced tab.
- Can I use quarter and half hour increments with an hourly item?
No currently, but it’s on our radar.
