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.
Visitors can open the full details of an event, with clickable links
On your public What is on page, each event now has a Full details button (clicking its name does the same). It opens the whole write-up over the page, however long it is, with the picture, the date, the time and where - so the part saying who sells the tickets is no longer cut off after three lines. On your public booking calendar, clicking an entry shows its full name and times, and the write-up too for anything you advertise. Web addresses and email addresses you type into the write-up now become links people can click, so you can point to a donations page or a ticket seller - to add one, open the booking under Bookings, turn on Advertise this on our website, and type the address into What to say about it. This works on your own website too, if you have the calendar or What is on page on it. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Tick off receipts as they arrive, and see which ones to chase
Go to Finance, then Spending. There is a new Receipt column with a tick box on every payment: tick it when the receipt turns up, straight from the list, whether or not you upload it. Uploading a receipt ticks it for you, and payments that already had one uploaded are ticked already. To see what is still missing, open the filters and choose Receipts to chase - it lists the money that has gone out with no receipt in hand yet. Bills still to pay are left off that list, as there is nothing to chase until they are paid. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for the idea.
New feature
Print all your hall's tasks on one sheet for a meeting
Go to Governance, then Action Log, and press Download tasks report at the top of the page. You get one PDF with everything still to do: the open actions your committee has agreed, your maintenance jobs and your safety checks, each with who does it and when it is due. Anything overdue comes first in each list, and there is a blank column down the side for notes at the meeting. Actions only appear if your plan includes meetings, and maintenance and safety checks only if it includes Building Safety - the same as the screens themselves. Thanks to Alison Dickens at Rampton Village Hall for asking.
New feature
App
The app stays signed in, and can unlock with your fingerprint or face
Committee members no longer type their email, password and code every time they open the Village Hall Hub app. Sign in once and the app opens straight back into the hall you last had open, for as long as you use it at least once a month. If you would like a lock on it - the app shows hirers' details and the hall's money - tap More, then Settings, and turn on Unlock with fingerprint or face. The app then asks for your fingerprint, face or phone PIN when it opens, and again if you come back to it after more than five minutes away. It is off unless you turn it on, and it is a setting for that phone only. To stop the app staying signed in, tap the sign-out arrow at the top right of the Today screen. Update the app from the Play Store to get this. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Give your hirers the wifi, and how to open up and lock up
Go to Bookings, then Booking Settings, and there is a new section called Hall Guide for Hirers. Put in your wifi network name and password, and write out how to open up and lock up - where the light switches are, turning off the urn, bolting the fire exits, whatever your hall needs. Once you save, your hirers get a Hall Guide tab in their portal, so they can look it up whenever they like instead of ringing you. If you leave it all empty there is no tab, so nothing changes until you write something. The password and the instructions are stored encrypted. Please do not put your key safe code in there: every hirer can see this tab at any time, while the code under Getting In only goes out shortly before each booking. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for asking.
New feature
Read your bank and cash statement newest first
Go to Finance, then Bank & Cash, and open the Statement for any account. Next to the dates there is now an Order switch: Oldest first, as before, or Newest first, which puts today's closing balance at the top and the most recent payments straight under it - the way most banks show their own statements. Each line still shows the balance after that payment, so nothing changes except which way up you read it, and the CSV download follows the same order. The page remembers your choice, so you only set it once, and it is yours alone: everyone else on your committee keeps the order they had. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for asking.
New feature
Close your hall's account yourself, whenever you want to
Until now the only way to leave was to email us, or - if you pay by card - to find the cancel button inside Stripe's billing portal. Go to Subscription, then Billing, and at the bottom of the page there is now a section headed "Thinking of leaving?" with a button to close your hall's account. Your subscription stops at the end of the period you have already paid for, so you keep everything until then; if you are on trial, nothing is ever charged. We ask why you are leaving and you do not have to say - there is a short list to pick from and a box to write in, and both are optional. Nothing is deleted: afterwards you can still read your diary, your hirers and your invoices, and if you would like your records deleted properly you can ask us and we will do it. Changed your mind? The same page has a button to keep the account open, and if you are still inside the period you paid for it simply carries on as before.
New feature
Send a new hirer their portal link, conditions and invoice in one email
Confirming a party booking used to mean three jobs: raise the invoice on the booking, send it, then go to Hirers to send the portal link - and nothing anywhere asked the hirer to agree to your conditions of hire. Now it is one. When you approve an enquiry, the Approve box has a tick, "Also send them their portal link, PIN and conditions of hire", and ticking it sends a single email with their booking, their portal link and PIN, a link to read and agree to your conditions, and the invoice attached as a PDF if one has been raised. For a booking you confirmed earlier, or a hirer who has lost the link, the same email is on the three dots at the end of the booking row as "Send portal link and conditions". It goes to everybody named on that hirer - the secretary who books and the treasurer who pays - and a hirer who has never had a PIN is given one rather than emailed a blank. The tick is off unless you tick it, so nothing goes out in your name unless you say so, and halls with no conditions written down simply do not have that line. Thanks to Sarah Peacey at Binfield Memorial Hall for the idea.
New feature
Every button, download and export now checks its own permission
For a tick box to mean anything, the button behind it has to ask for it. Every PDF download, every CSV export and around thirty buttons that used to check only your plan, or nothing, now check a permission - and each has a box of its own on the Roles and Customise pages, so you can hand out or take away exactly that. Five are new: Change payments, Sign off minutes (circulating, signing and reopening them), Export the compliance report, Import data, and Manage permissions. Nobody has lost anything: every role has been given the boxes for everything it could already reach, so the day this arrived your screens looked the same. If you want a treasurer who cannot export the CSVs, or a secretary who can write the minutes but not sign them off, those are now single ticks.
New feature
Customise one person, and see exactly what anyone can do
One person often has two jobs on a committee, and until now the only way to give the booking secretary the money pages was to make them an Admin. Go to Settings, then Team Members, and press Customise on a person. Their role stays as it is and is the starting point; tick things on or off for them alone and press Save. Their badge on the team list then says "plus 2, minus 1", so you can see at a glance who has been adjusted. To find out what anybody can do without setting up a test user and logging in as them, press What can they see on their row: it is the same page, read-only, with a tick beside each box their role gives and a tick in each box they actually have, and anything added or removed for them marked. The owner of the hall can never be trimmed, and nobody can be given Billing. Only the owner can customise people, unless the owner has ticked Manage permissions for somebody; anybody who can see Team Members can use What can they see.
New feature
Roles: decide what each role at your hall can see and do
Every committee is different, so what "Treasurer" means at your hall is now yours to decide. Go to Settings, then Roles. You will see the six roles you already have, with how many people are on each, and any role you make yourself. Press Edit on a role and you get a page of tick boxes, grouped into cards - Bookings, Hirers, Money in, Money out and accounts, Safety and compliance, Documents, Committee and meetings, Grants, GDPR, and Hall - with a tick beside each box the role gives out of the box. Tick things on or off, press Save, and everybody on that role at your hall follows from then on; other halls are not affected. A refined role is marked "Refined by your hall", and Reset to default on its page puts it back. Press Add a role to make one of your own, such as "Bookings and money" or "Bar manager": pick the role to start from, tick what it should have, give it a name, and it appears in the role picker when you add or edit somebody under Team Members. Only the owner of the hall can change roles, unless the owner ticks Manage permissions for somebody else; everybody who can see Team Members can look. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall for the idea.
New feature
A statement for each account, to check against the bank
Go to Finance, then Bank & Cash, and press Statement beside an account. You get every movement on that account in date order - hire payments in, other income in, bills out, and moves between accounts - with an opening balance at the top and a running balance down the right, like the bank's own statement, so you can lay the two side by side and see where they part company. Pick any two dates, or press This month, Last month or This financial year, and Download as CSV to put it next to the bank's export in a spreadsheet. Hire payments recorded as Cash are on your cash account's statement if you have one, and every other hire payment on the main bank account, exactly as Bank & Cash counts them - so the closing balance on the statement is always the balance Bank & Cash shows for that day. Bills still to pay are not on it until they are marked paid. Thanks to Duncan Brown at Whatfield Village Hall 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.