Taking bookings

Vashana can take real bookings and real payments straight from your site. The money goes to your own payment account — Vashana never holds it and takes no cut of what you earn.

The three shapes

Booking works three ways, and the words in the dashboard follow whichever one you set up:

You pick the shape per item, under This is booked as — so one site can rent kayaks and sell places on a guided paddle.

Before you start

1. A way to take payment. Either Vipps MobilePay (Norway, NOK only — it also confirms who your customer is through BankID) or Stripe (everywhere else: cards plus whatever local methods you enable in your Stripe account). Both run on your own merchant agreement, so apply for one first if you don't have it — approval can take a few days. You pay the provider's normal transaction fees; Vashana adds nothing.
2. Your own terms. Vashana suggests an agreement, but it is a starting point, not legal advice. For anything with real risk attached — handing over a trailer, taking people out on the water — have your own terms checked for your industry and country.
3. For unattended handover only: a combination lock on the item and a PIN code, plus written confirmation from your insurer that renting out is covered.

Setting it up

Open Bookings on the creation's card in the dashboard. The Overview tab is a four-step checklist and tells you exactly where you are:

1. Enable booking on this site — turns the engine on and sets the currency.
2. Connect a way to take payment — Vipps or Stripe. Keys are validated against the provider as you paste them, and stored encrypted.
3. Add bookable items to a page — each item gets a name, description, image, price, and whatever else its shape needs (longest rental, places per departure, service list and opening hours).
4. Publish your site — booking runs off files baked into the published site, so nothing takes real bookings until you publish.

Until payment is connected, the site shows "Online booking opens soon" instead of the calendar.

The dashboard tabs

• Overview — the setup checklist, what needs you today, and what is coming up next.
• Bookings (called Appointments or Who is coming, depending on the shape) — every booking with its status; cancel, and handle deposits, here.
• Availability — block out dates for servicing, holidays or your own use.
• Items & prices (Services & prices, Tours & prices) — your bookable items, their prices, schedules, policies and pickup PINs.
• Payments — which provider you use, and the currency your prices are in.

Currency and payment provider belong together: Vipps takes NOK only, so any other currency needs Stripe connected. If both are connected, bookings go through Vipps, because it also confirms who your customer is.

What your customer experiences

1. They pick dates, a time or a departure on your site, and pay — or, for appointments where you have ticked Customers pay in person, they simply confirm.
2. If the item requires an agreement, they accept your terms before paying.
3. They get a confirmation email with the details and whatever note you wrote under How to collect it / Where to meet / Before the appointment.
4. For unattended handover, the confirmation carries a link that reveals the lock PIN — but only once the booking is paid, the pickup window is open, and any deposit is reserved.
5. Where photo evidence applies, they upload pictures at pickup and return, which protects both sides.

You get your own email for every new booking, with the customer's contact details.

Deposits

Deposits belong to the rental shape — they are handover machinery, and they disappear from the form for appointments and tours.

Set a deposit on an item and the amount is reserved on your customer's card or Vipps at pickup, not charged:

• Clean return — press Release and the reservation is dropped.
• Damage — press Claim and enter an amount up to the deposit.
• Left alone — the deposit is released automatically 3 days after the return. A reservation cannot stand longer than 7 days in any case; after that a claim is a matter between you and your customer, with the agreement and the photos as evidence.

Cancellations and refunds

Cancel a booking from the dashboard and the dates are freed immediately.

Whether money comes back is your policy, set per item under Free cancellation (hours before):

• Set to a number of hours — a customer cancelling that far ahead is refunded automatically.
• Left empty — nothing is refunded automatically; you refund by hand in your Vipps or Stripe portal. Vashana never moves money on your behalf beyond the refund you have promised.

One exception is automatic: in the rare race where two customers pay for the same slot, the second one is refunded.

Plan limits

Your plan sets how many bookable items one site can have — one trailer, one chair, one tour each:

The limit applies when you publish, not when you change plan. Publish with more items than your plan allows and the extra ones stop taking new bookings, with a warning telling you so. Nothing is deleted and existing bookings are untouched — upgrade and publish again to bring them all back.

Troubleshooting

• The site says "Online booking opens soon" — payment is not connected yet, or you have not published since connecting it.
• The customer can't see the PIN — check that the item has a PIN in Items & prices, that the booking is paid, and that any deposit is reserved.
• "Claim" is rejected as expired — the reservation is older than 7 days. Take it up with the customer directly, using the agreement and photos.
• A customer paid but no booking appears — confirmation can lag by a minute or two; if it never lands, contact [email protected].
• Booking links point at the old address after a domain change — publish the site again.
• You changed prices and nothing happened — publish. Prices are baked into the published site.