Anyone Chartering and Using Online Booking ?

[off-the-grid]

Can customers book through your website?
Can they also make payments on your website?
What software are you using?

I'm trying to decide between a full booking system that has payments integrated, or just a simple calendar and a PayPal button. As nice as option 1 looks, I'm wondering if configuring it may be just as much, if not, even more work than simply manually managing option 2. Especially when I factor in that with what I'm doing, time, length of trip, type of trip can all change depending on what the customer wants to do, and if I already have something booked that day. As much as I love a fully automated system, I'm not sure if it even is possible to configure one with these parameters. Not to mention trips being sold through outside sources such as tour ops.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by grouchyturtle

Can customers book through your website?
Can they also make payments on your website?
What software are you using?

I'm trying to decide between a full booking system that has payments integrated, or just a simple calendar and a PayPal button. As nice as option 1 looks, I'm wondering if configuring it may be just as much, if not, even more work than simply manually managing option 2. Especially when I factor in that with what I'm doing, time, length of trip, type of trip can all change depending on what the customer wants to do, and if I already have something booked that day. As much as I love a fully automated system, I'm not sure if it even is possible to configure one with these parameters. Not to mention trips being sold through outside sources such as tour ops.

You might want to look at ZohoCRM and Zoho Invoice. CRM can track leads etc, and you can invoice using that info, and Invoice does except PayPal (and maybe others).

They also integrate with Goolge Docs if I am not mistaken.

[wolves]

Originally Posted by grouchyturtle

Can customers book through your website?
Can they also make payments on your website?
What software are you using?

I'm trying to decide between a full booking system that has payments integrated, or just a simple calendar and a PayPal button. As nice as option 1 looks, I'm wondering if configuring it may be just as much, if not, even more work than simply manually managing option 2. Especially when I factor in that with what I'm doing, time, length of trip, type of trip can all change depending on what the customer wants to do, and if I already have something booked that day. As much as I love a fully automated system, I'm not sure if it even is possible to configure one with these parameters. Not to mention trips being sold through outside sources such as tour ops.

We use this online booking engine for our salon but can't see why you couldn't use it for sailing trips www.smartbookings.co.uk