How does booking and capacity management work?
Booking and capacity management locks a resource — a vehicle, room, cabin, table or staff member — to a specific time slot, and makes it structurally impossible to sell the same resource to two customers at once. It matches a phone call to an open slot in seconds, tracks how long an option is held, and turns a confirmed request straight into a trip or service record.
Who uses it
The module is built for any business where a resource is scarce and overselling it costs money or reputation directly: a transfer company’s call centre and sales desk, a travel agency’s tour and allotment desk, a hotel’s front office, an appointment or beauty salon’s reception, a boat or yacht charter’s booking desk. The problem is always the same shape: the same vehicle, room or staff member gets written into two different sales at the same hour.
How it works: resource, slot and state machine
Every sellable unit — vehicle, room, cabin, table, seat — has its own resource row, and its capacity is an integer on that row. A booking cannot exist without this row, and a request above capacity is not a warning, it is a hard refusal.
A booking’s duration and which resource or skill it needs are never typed by hand: they come from the service definition in the trip and transfer operations module’s service catalogue. Price is resolved from the current rate list at booking time and stamped immutably onto the row — a later rate change never touches an already-booked reservation.
A booking moves through: request → option/hold (kept for a firm-defined duration; when it expires the slot returns to stock automatically) → deposit (if the firm requires a deposit before a confirmed booking) → confirmed → completed or cancelled. A cancellation or an expired option promotes the next name on the waitlist automatically.
Flight number and flight time are fields on the booking; when they change, the slot lock is recalculated and the assigned resource receives one single change notification, not two. The person who books, the person who receives the service and the person who pays can be three different customer cards — the ledger entry follows the payer, and the cards themselves live in customer management.
Example
Example: A transfer company’s call centre takes a request for a 6-person VIP transfer meeting a flight landing at 14:20 at Antalya Airport. The agent enters the flight code on the booking screen; the system offers an open slot from the 8-seat vehicle resource and holds the request as a 30-minute option. Because the firm’s “no confirmed booking without a deposit” setting is on, the booking cannot flip to confirmed until a deposit line lands in the account; once it does, the booking confirms itself and posts to the ledger. When the flight runs 40 minutes late, the agent only updates the flight time — the system re-checks the vehicle’s and driver’s availability and raises one single change notification.
How it is done in Rotenta
- The agent opens a new booking card on the Booking tab inside the Transfer module and searches for, or creates, the customer’s card.
- They pick the service type from the catalogue; the system fills in duration and the required resource type and lists which matching resources are free.
- The channel field records where the request came from (phone, WhatsApp, agency, OTA) — a field the period report can later filter on.
- Depending on the firm’s setting, the system holds the booking as an option; if a deposit is collected before the option expires the booking confirms, otherwise the slot is released automatically.
- A confirmed booking converts into a trip record without re-entering the passenger data — it carries straight over.
- A request tied to a corporate contract enters the contracts tab’s progress-billing breakdown automatically.
- Confirmation and reminder messages show a real send state (sent/failed/pending) on the card — never an optimistic “sent” before it actually went out.
If the booking originated from an accepted quote, it also matches against the accepted row in quotes and proposals; once the quote is accepted the booking opens on its own. Deposits and payments post to the account inside accounting.
Permissions and audit trail
Who created a booking, who cancelled it, who refunded the deposit — this isn’t a separate log; it’s the same record roles, permissions and audit trail produces for the rest of the panel. Exceptional actions, like manually extending an option or confirming a booking without a deposit, stay visible with who did it and when, and that record can’t be deleted afterward. The booking list and day view also work on a phone screen, so field staff or a duty operator can check availability and the waitlist away from the office, and confirm a new request right there.
Frequently asked questions
Can two agents sell the same vehicle at the same time?
No. Capacity is enforced at the database level: of two simultaneous confirm requests for the same resource and slot, only one is accepted — the other is refused immediately and explicitly. This is a block, not a warning.
Does a booking confirm without a deposit?
Not if the firm has turned on “no confirmed booking without a deposit” — the booking stays in option state until a deposit line has posted to the account.
How does the waitlist work?
Once capacity is full, a request drops onto the waitlist. When an existing booking is cancelled or its option expires, the first name on the waitlist is promoted automatically and the assigned agent is notified.
Can a booking’s price change later?
No. Price is read from the rate list valid at booking time and stamped immutably onto the row; a later rate list update never touches that booking’s price.
How do I export historical booking data?
The booking list exports as a period CSV, with amount and identity columns masked according to your permission level. You can browse how booking connects to the rest of the platform in our module guide, compare plans on the pricing page, and reach our team through contact.
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- How does recurring shuttle planning work?
A route and weekly plan are defined once; public holidays are skipped, one-off exceptions post as billing deductions, and off-plan extra trips enter the statement as their own line.
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Tax ID and scenario data carried on the invoice record flow straight through; send status and the tax authority's reference show on the panel in real time.
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A module that validates and previews your existing spreadsheets, isolates the bad rows, and can undo an import if needed.
- How is workflow automation set up?
Trigger + condition + action rules ship as ready templates, every run is recorded as evidence, and a rule bound to a closed module shows as visibly inactive, never silent.
- How does the consent management module work?
Records customer consent per channel, ties sensitive fields to explicit consent, and exports to Turkey's İYS registry.
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Current account, invoice, cash and instalment tracking brought together in one accounting module, from proforma to day-close.
- How do PDF outputs and letterhead documents work?
One core engine that puts your letterhead on invoices, statements, receipts and passenger lists, and logs every document it produces.
- How are staff shifts and timesheets managed?
Timesheets are produced from realised trips, deductions carry evidence and a dispute path, staff on leave cannot be reassigned, and period close freezes the past.
- How do reports and profitability analysis work?
Every list you own exports at full fidelity, aging buckets of 0-30/30-60/60-90/90+ days sit on one screen, and period profitability drills all the way down to the source trip.
- How do roles, permissions and the audit trail work?
Roles decide who can see what, and the audit trail keeps a permanent record of who changed what and when.
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One record that follows a trip from planning to completion, carrying its passengers, driver, vehicle and price lines together.
- How do contracts and progress billing work?
The contract is the single price source; progress billing is calculated automatically from trip records, penalty clauses apply on their own, and an approved statement becomes an invoice in one click.
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Quote lines read from the published rate list, margin is visible to authorised users, a five-state lifecycle is tracked, and an accepted quote converts to an invoice in one click.
- How does bulk messaging and consent compliance work?
Consent is checked at send time against İYS, the national record; every commercial message carries an opt-out link, and delivery state is kept as evidence.
- How is U-ETDS reporting done?
Every trip already carries the fields U-ETDS reporting needs; send status shows on the trip card and never shows an optimistic 'sent' before it is confirmed.
- How does the AI assistant module work inside the panel?
An in-panel assistant that works within your own permissions, masks personal data, and asks approval before every write.