Made with care for the volunteers who keep Britain's halls running.
Product updates
Everything we have changed, and when
Most of what is on this page started as an email from a village hall. We write these in the same words we send our
halls, so you can see for yourself how often this thing actually moves.
Update the app to version 1.0.5. If your hall has given you the permission to record only your own spending, open the menu and press Your spending. Press Record spending, say what you bought and how much, and photograph the receipt. The list shows only what you recorded yourself. If the entry is not there after updating, sign out and back in.
New feature
Webhooks: tell your own website the moment something changes
For halls whose own website or system works with Village Hall Hub. Go to Settings, then Webhooks, and press Add a webhook. Give the address your website developer gives you, and tick what it should hear about: bookings added, changed, cancelled or deleted, invoices raised, sent or paid, and payments recorded. We then send it a message as soon as it happens, so it no longer has to keep asking. Press Send a test to check it arrives, and Recent messages to see what was sent and whether it got there; anything that did not can be sent again. Every message is signed, and Signing secret shows what your developer needs to check it. Every plan has webhooks: Community 1 address and 500 messages a day, Standard 3 and 2,000, Professional 10 and 10,000. Messages that cannot be delivered are tried again for a few hours, and a webhook that keeps failing is turned off so you can fix it. How it works is in the API documentation at villagehallhub.co.uk/docs/public-api.
Fix
An enquiry for a time already taken can be cancelled
Go to Bookings, open a booking and press Edit. If an enquiry had come in for a time another booking already had, changing its status to Cancelled would not save, because of the very overlap you were cancelling it for. It now saves, with your notes. You can also add a note to a booking that overlaps another without being stopped. Nothing else has changed: a booking still cannot be confirmed, held as provisional or moved on top of another one. The same applies in the phone app. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for reporting it.
New feature
Record why an enquiry did not become a booking
Go to Bookings, find an enquiry or a provisional booking and press Decline. You are now asked why it did not go ahead: the hirer did not go ahead, the date or room was not available, not suitable for the hall, the price, or another reason. There is a box for anything you want to add, which is kept in your own notes on the booking and never shown to the hirer. Both are optional. The same question appears on the booking itself when you press Edit and change the status to Cancelled. To look back at them, use the Why it did not go ahead filter on the Bookings list, or switch on the column of the same name. It is also in the bookings file under Settings, Export your data. Declining from the phone app works as before, without the question for now. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for the idea.
New feature
Find a booking by its number
Every booking has a number, and you can now find one by it. Type the number into the search box at the top of any page, or into the Search box on the Bookings list, and the booking comes up. A short reference in front of it is fine too, so 9613, #9613 and LCC-9613 all find booking 9613, which helps if your own website gives hirers a reference built on our number. The number is shown on the booking itself under Booking number, and there is a Booking number column you can switch on from the columns button on the Bookings list. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for asking.
New feature
Approve and Decline are on the row for bookings waiting for an answer
Go to Bookings. An enquiry or a provisional booking now has Approve (a green tick) and Decline (a red cross) on its row, beside Edit, so you no longer have to open the three dots to answer it. Hover over either to see which is which. On those rows they replace View, since clicking the row opens the booking anyway. Every other booking looks as it did. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for asking.
New feature
Monthly charges: see who still needs their rent invoice, and avoid billing twice
For halls with hirers on a monthly charge. On Finance, Invoices, the Raise this month's rent invoices button now shows how many hirers have not had this month raised yet. Press it and you see each hirer with their monthly figure and a tick box, so you choose who it is raised for. If a hirer has already been invoiced for bookings in that month that are not marked as covered by their monthly charge, it tells you which invoice and how much. Where that amount is the same as their monthly charge, they start unticked, because raising it as well would bill them twice. Invoice a month of bookings also now says plainly that a monthly charge is not added there and has its own button. Thanks to Andrea Vaughan at St Paul's Church and Centre for raising it.
New feature
Importing bookings: regular bookings now come in as a full series
When you import bookings under Settings, Import your data, a weekly class no longer needs a row for every week. Give one row with its first date, and in the column you match to How it repeats write Weekly until 31/12/2026, Fortnightly until 31/12/2026 or Monthly until 31/12/2026. Every date up to that day is added as one repeating booking, which you can then change or cancel as a series. A date that overlaps another booking is still brought in and marked for you to check. If you only import bookings from a certain date onwards, a regular booking that began earlier starts at its first date after that. Undoing the import removes the whole series. Wording we cannot act on, such as term time only, is kept as a note on the booking as before. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for reporting it.
Fix
Recording spending in the app works for halls with sub-headings
In the phone app, tap More, then Spending, then add a payment. If your hall has sub-headings under a spending heading, such as Electricity and Water under Utilities, the list of headings failed to load. It now loads, and each sub-heading is shown with its heading in front of it, for example Utilities - Electricity. There is nothing to update on your phone.
New feature
Let somebody record just their own spending
For a committee member who holds the hall card and needs to record what they bought, without seeing the rest of what the hall spends. Go to Settings, then Team Members, find the person and press Customise. Under Money out and accounts, tick Record their own spending only, and see just what they recorded, and leave See spending and Record spending unticked. They then get Finance, Spending with a Record a payment button, where they enter what they bought and attach the receipt, and a list of only the payments they recorded themselves. They cannot see other spending, Other Income, the budget or the accounts, cannot add headings, and cannot change or delete a payment once it is in. Payments recorded before today belong to nobody, so they will not see those. Spending now also remembers who recorded each payment. The phone app follows in its next update, version 1.0.5. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Choose whether we email hirers when you confirm a booking
We have always emailed the hirer when you confirm their booking, and that has not changed. If you would rather tell them yourself, for example because bookings are taken on your own website, go to Bookings, then Booking Settings, find Telling Hirers Their Booking Is Confirmed and switch off Email the hirer when a booking is confirmed, then press Save booking settings. For halls using our API: a booking request made through the API now emails your enquiry addresses, and alerts the phone app, in the same way as a request from your booking page.
New feature
See what is waiting to be confirmed, from your dashboard
When you have enquiries or provisional bookings still to answer, your Dashboard now shows them in a Waiting to be confirmed list, soonest first, with an Approve and a Decline button on each, so you can answer requests without leaving the Dashboard. Approve and Decline now work for provisional bookings as well as enquiries, here and in the three-dot menu on each row of the Bookings page. A tile at the top shows how many are waiting; press it, or See them all, and you land on Bookings showing just those. You can get the same list yourself: go to Bookings, press the filter button (the funnel) above the list, switch on Waiting to be confirmed and press Apply. Requests whose date has already passed are left out. The tile only appears when something is waiting. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for the idea.
Most of this came from a village hall asking
If your hall needs something this does not do yet, say so. That is how nearly everything above got built.