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.
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.
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.
New feature
See what a booking will cost before you save it
When you add a booking (Bookings, then New booking, on the Cost & deposit step) or open one to edit it, a line under Hire charge for this booking now says what leaving the box blank comes to, and how: for example 2 hours at the room rate, a dearer first hour, or a fixed fee. It follows the room, the times, the hirer and the rate card as you change them. You still only type a figure in the box when you have agreed a different price. If a room has no rate set, the line says so, so a booking does not quietly come to nothing. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for raising it.
New feature
Download a copy of all your records
Your records belong to your hall, and you can now take a copy of all of them whenever you like. Go to Settings, then Export your data, and press Download everything. You get one zip file holding a spreadsheet each for your rooms, hirers, bookings, invoices, invoice lines and payments, plus a READ-ME explaining them. They open in Excel or Google Sheets. It is on every plan, and it still works if your subscription has ended. You need the export reports permission, and your copy holds only the areas you can already see, so the owner gets everything. The plan comparison on the Billing page also now shows correctly that every plan includes API access. Thanks to Iain Mackenzie-May at Leith Community Centre for asking.
New feature
Filter your bookings by chargeable or not
Go to Bookings and press the filter button (the funnel) above the list. Under Chargeable, pick Chargeable to see only the bookings you bill for, or Not chargeable to see free bookings and sessions already covered by a regular hirer's monthly charge. It works alongside the other filters, so you can ask for one month's chargeable bookings in one room. Press Apply at the bottom of the filters to see the result. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
See at a glance what is new since you last looked
Under Contact in the menu, What's New now shows a number when something has changed since you last opened it. Inside, anything new to you is marked New, the changes are grouped by month, and each one says whether it is a new feature, a fix or something in the phone app. Long entries are shortened with Read more, and you can still narrow the list or search it from the bar at the top.
New feature
Put your prices up from a date
Go to Bookings, then Rate Cards, open a rate card and press Change prices from a date. Pick the day the new prices start and type the new price for each room; today's prices are filled in, so leave alone any that are not changing. Bookings on or after that day are charged the new price, and bookings before it keep the old one - even a regular hirer's March bookings that you invoice in April. Invoices already raised never change. The Room Rates list shows what is coming up, and the Price history tab keeps every price the card has had. Changed your mind? Press Cancel next to a change that has not started yet. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Build your own website on your Village Hall Hub diary
If whoever looks after your website wants your bookings, free times, what's on, prices, hirers or invoices on it, they can now use our public API. Go to Settings, then API Keys, press Make a key and tick only what the website needs. The key comes with full instructions for your web person at villagehallhub.co.uk/docs/public-api. A key only works for your own hall and can never do more than you can. You do not need any of this to use Village Hall Hub - it is only for halls with a website of their own they want to connect.
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.