Rentals & Bookings settings

All the store-wide settings for Rentals & Bookings are on one page: Rentals › Settings. They are defaults. Most of the Calendar and Pricing settings can be changed for a single product, which has a Use Default… switch next to each of them.

Each tab opens one section. The number next to a tab is how many settings it holds. Hover the ? next to a setting to read what it does. Most tabs are saved with the Update button in the bar at the bottom of the page. License, Calendar Styler, Search Builder and the four Custom Fields tabs have their own save button inside the tab.

Which tabs you see #

The tabs depend on your edition and on the add-ons you have installed. Lite is the free plugin, Regular adds the features marked below, and Pro is Regular plus the Contracts, Security Deposits, Subscriptions and Custom Fields add-ons.

Tab	What it covers	Edition
License	Your licence key, for updates and support	Regular, Pro
Contracts	Signing at checkout and the rental contract PDF	Pro
Pricing	Whether the return day is charged, seasonal and rental-length pricing rules, advanced pricing display	All (pricing rules: Regular, Pro)
Calendar	Store hours, closed days, padding, what date-only rentals are booked by, turnover buffers, rental length limits, fixed rental periods	All (fixed rental periods: Regular, Pro)
Calendar Styler	Which date picker customers see, the product page layout, colours and labels	All (Lite has one picker and one layout)
Inventory Rules	What happens to reserved stock when a rental goes out or comes back early	Regular, Pro
Date Formatting	How dates and times are written in the date fields	All
Advanced	Production / Developer mode and the key for the bookings calendar feed	All
Emails	Pickup, return and overdue reminder emails: when they go out and what they say	All (overdue reminder: Regular, Pro)
Extend	Letting customers extend a rental from My Account	Regular, Pro
Search and Search Builder	The search-by-date form and how product listings follow the visitor’s dates	Regular, Pro
Text messages	SMS and WhatsApp reminders	Regular, Pro
Custom Fields, Field Groups, Damage Waiver, ID Verification	Extra checkout and product fields, a damage waiver fee, and ID document uploads	Pro
Upgrade	A comparison of Lite, Regular and Pro	Lite only

License #

Edition: Regular and Pro.

Enter your licence key and click Save key, then Activate License. An active key lets the site receive plugin updates and gives you access to support tickets. A green dot on the tab means the key is active. Until it is, the settings page opens on this tab and the other tabs are greyed out.

• Your key is in your account on rentalbookingsoftware.com, under Purchase History.
• A key works on a limited number of sites. Click Deactivate License before you move the key to another site.

Contracts #

Edition: Pro (the Rental Contract Signing & PDF add-on). This tab controls the signature box at checkout and the rental contract PDF. For what the customer sees, read Rental contracts: how it works.

Setting	What it does	Default
Signature Required for Checkout	How the customer signs: Typed Only (type their name), Signed Only (draw with a mouse or finger), Typed or Signed (their choice) or None.	Typed or Signed
Show Signature Only If Order Contains Rentals?	Ask for a signature only when the cart has a rental in it.	On
Attach Rental Contract PDF To New Orders?	Attach the contract PDF to WooCommerce’s New order email, the one sent to the store.	On
Rental Contract Title	The heading of the contract PDF.	Rental Contract
Terms & Conditions Title	The heading of the terms section.	Terms & Conditions
Include Terms & Conditions on PDF	Print the terms below on the PDF.	On
Include Customer Signature on PDF	Print the customer’s signature on the PDF.	On
Rental Contract Terms & Conditions	The contract text. You can use {site_title}, {site_address}, {site_url}, {store_address_line1}, {store_address_line2}, {store_city}, {store_state}, {store_postcode}, {customer_first_name}, {customer_last_name}, {order_date}, {order_number}, {rental_start_date} and {rental_end_date}.	A sample equipment lease agreement
Store Logo	The logo printed on the contract PDF.	None
Consent Statement	The text next to the required checkbox under the signature box. It is recorded on the order when the customer ticks it, as their consent to sign electronically and to receive the signed contract by email.	Empty (uses the built-in wording)
Email Signed Contract To Customer	Attach the signed PDF to the customer’s order emails (on-hold, processing, invoice, completed).	On
Append Signature Certificate Page	Add a last page to signed PDFs with the signer’s name, email, IP address, browser, the time (UTC), the consent statement, document fingerprints and the audit trail.	On
Business Legal Name	The issuing party printed on the signature certificate.	Empty (uses the site title)

Pricing #

Edition: all editions. The date and length pricing rules need Regular or Pro.

This is where you decide whether the return day is charged, and set store-wide pricing rules: prices that change on certain dates (holidays, weekends, high season) or with the length of the rental. A product uses these rules while its Use Default Date Based Pricing Rules and Use Default Booking Length Based Pricing Rules switches are on. Turn a switch off to give that product its own rules. For how a product’s own rates work, see Adding Rental Booking Products.

Setting	What it does	Default
Also charge the return day	For rentals booked by the day. No: the 1st to the 3rd is 2 days, because the return day is free. Yes: it is 3 days. Nights are always charged per night. A product can use its own choice. See Also charge the return day.	No
Show add on periods for advanced pricing?	Advanced pricing has a main period price plus an add-on price, for example $100 / Month + $5 / Day. When this is on, the add-on part ($5 / Day) is shown as well.	On
Number of price points to show for advanced pricing on product listing pages	How many price points are listed on shop and category pages and in the admin product grid. Too many can look crowded.	1
Date Based Pricing Rules	One row per rule: From and To date and time, Repeats (None, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly), then either new rates (Fixed, Hourly or Daily Price) or a Price Adjustment.	No rules
Booking Length Based Pricing Rules	One row per rule: From and To rental length in hours or days, then new rates or a Price Adjustment. Leave To empty for no upper limit.	No rules
Apply Rule To Entire Rental Booking	When a rental is long enough for a length rule, price the whole rental with that rule. Example: the product costs $5 a day and a rule says From 7 days, Daily Price $3. With this on, a 7-day rental is charged $3 for every day, not only from day 7.	On
If more than one Length Based Pricing adjustments apply	Which adjustment wins when a rental matches several length rules: Greater Rental Length Rule, Lesser Rental Length Rule, or Apply All Adjustments. With rules for 1–5 days and 5–10 days, a 5-day rental usually should get the 5–10 day rule, the greater one.	Greater Rental Length Rule

Also charge the return day #

This setting is for rentals booked by the day. It changes the price and nothing else. Which days are held is set by Booked by on the Calendar tab.

• No (the default): a rental from the 1st to the 3rd is 2 days. The return day is free.
• Yes: the same rental is 3 days.
• Rentals booked by Nights are always charged per night, so the check-out day is never charged. A rental from the 1st to the 3rd is 2 nights.

Each product can use its own choice: see Adding Rental Booking Products. It is set in the product’s Pricing tab, in Also charge the return day, where Store setting follows this page.

How a price adjustment is written:

• 10% raises the price by 10%.
• -50% is a 50% discount.
• A number without % adds or takes off that amount: 25 adds 25 in your store currency, -10 takes 10 off.

A date rule only affects the part of the rental that falls inside its dates. A +50% holiday rule that covers 2 days of a 4-day rental raises that rental’s price by 25%.

Example: holiday and weekend pricing #

To charge 50% more over Christmas, add a date rule with From December 24 00:00, To December 26 23:59, Repeats Yearly and Price Adjustment 50%. Repeating yearly means you set it up once.

Weekend rates work the same way with Repeats set to Weekly. The second row in the screenshot adds 20% from Friday 17:00 to Sunday 23:59, every week.

Example: weekly and monthly discounts #

To give 30% off monthly rentals, add a length rule with From 30 Days, To left empty and Price Adjustment -30%. An empty To means there is no upper limit, so every rental of 30 days or more gets the discount. Use 28 days as the From if a February rental should count as a month. The first length row in the screenshot adds a smaller discount, 10% off rentals of 7 to 29 days.

Calendar #

Edition: all editions. Fixed rental periods need Regular or Pro.

These rules decide which dates and times customers can pick on the product page. Products follow them unless the product’s own Use Default… switch for that rule is turned off.

Setting	What it does	Default
Store Open Time / Store Close Time	For products rented by date and time, the time picker starts when your store opens and ends when it closes. The Search Builder’s time slots use the same hours.	8:00 am / 6:00 pm when left empty
Store Closed Days / Holidays	Days customers cannot pick. Each row has From and To, Repeats (None, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly), Applies To and an optional Reason.	None
Start Date Padding	How soon a rental can start, counted from now, in hours or days. With 1 day, the earliest start is tomorrow.	0
Date-only rentals are booked by	Which days a rental with dates and no times holds: Days: returned on the last day, entire return day is booked, Days: can go out again on the return day or Nights: same-day check-out and check-in. See Booked by below. A product can choose its own.	Days: returned on the last day, entire return day is booked
Check-in from / Check-out by	Only with Nights. The times shown to guests, for example 3:00 pm and 11:00 am. They are text only and do not change availability.	Empty
Buffer Before Booking / Buffer After Booking	Turnover time, in hours or days, that keeps the item unavailable before the rental starts and after it ends. Use it for delivery, cleaning or checks.	0
Minimum Booking Length / Maximum Booking Length	The shortest and longest rental a customer can book, in hours or days.	No limit
Maximum Days In The Future A Booking Is Allowed	How far ahead customers can book.	No limit
Fixed Rental Period	The lengths offered by products that use the fixed rental length calendar type (Regular and Pro). See below.	None

Booked by: days or nights #

Date-only rentals are booked by decides which days an item is held when a rental has dates and no times. It is on the Calendar tab, above the buffers. (It used to be called Stay type.) Choose one of three:

• Days: returned on the last day, entire return day is booked. The item comes back on the last day, so nobody else can start a rental that day. The next rental can start the day after. This is the default.
• Days: can go out again on the return day. The item comes back on the last day and can go out again the same day. Another rental can start on the day the last one comes back. Turnover time still applies. This replaces the old switch “Allow rentals to start on the same day as they are returned”: a store that had it on was moved to this choice.
• Nights: same-day check-out and check-in. Like a hotel. The check-out day can be the next guest’s check-in day. Prices and lengths read “per night”.

Example: a rental from the 1st to the 3rd. With the first choice the 3rd is held, so the next rental can start on the 4th. With the second choice the next rental can start on the 3rd. With Nights, the guest checks out on the 3rd and the next guest can check in that day.

Booked by only decides which days are held. What the return day costs is set separately, under Pricing. Rentals that are already booked keep the rule they were booked with. A rental with a time of day is held to the minute, whatever you choose here. A product can choose its own under Calendar Rules.

Closed days and holidays #

A closed day cannot be chosen as a start or end date, but a rental can run through it. Someone can rent from Saturday to Monday even though the store is closed on Sunday. Use Applies To to block only one end of a rental:

• Both: no pickups and no returns that day.
• Start Date: no pickups, but returns are fine. The second example row stops pickups on Sundays.
• End Date: no returns, but pickups are fine.

If you fill in Reason, customers see it when they hover the greyed-out day. Otherwise the day just says “Disabled”.

Buffer time #

Buffers add time before the start date and after the end date that the customer picks, and the item stays reserved during that time too. For example, with 2 days before and 3 days after, a customer who rents from January 10 to 12 blocks the item from January 8 to 15. The customer is only charged for January 10 to 12. Buffers apply with every Booked by choice.

Fixed rental periods #

If you use fixed length rentals, set your standard lengths here, for example 7 days and 30 days. On the product page the customer picks a start date and chooses 7 or 30 days from a drop-down. By default the drop-down says “7 Days” or “30 Days”. Fill in Text To Display Override to change that text, for example to “1 week”. A product can also have its own lengths instead of these.

Calendar Styler #

Edition: all editions. Lite has the Popup Range Picker and the Modern Pricing layout. The other pickers and layouts need Regular or Pro.

This tab sets the date picker your customers use and how it looks. The Live preview on the right is the real calendar with sample bookings: sold-out days, “1 left” days, a booking that blocks part of a day, and two closed days. Colour and corner radius change the preview straight away. Other changes reload it. Nothing is saved until you click Save Changes, and Reset to defaults puts every option back.

Setting	What it does	Default
Date picker	In Line Range Picker: one panel on the product page that walks the customer through pick-up date, pick-up time, return date and return time. Popup Range Picker: the same steps, opened from a “Select your dates” field. A floating card on desktop, a bottom sheet on phones. Separate Date Pickers: start and end date fields with popup calendars, plus time slots on time-of-day products. Previous Date Picker: retired in 1.0.74. A store that used it now gets the Popup Range Picker, in the Original layout it showed, with nothing to set.	In Line Range Picker (Lite: Popup Range Picker)
Product page layout	Original: price lines under the title, and the summary bar and Reserve button under the calendar. Modern Pricing: only the price changes, to a “From” pricing card with a rate table. Modern Pricing & Layout: the pricing card plus a booking bar that keeps the total, quantity and Reserve button in view, and a calendar that folds to one line once the dates are chosen.	Modern Pricing & Layout (Lite: Modern Pricing)
Style	Airy (rounded cells on a light card), Card (taller cells, deeper shadow), Bold (dark header band, high contrast) or Classic (the plain flatpickr look).	Airy
Main colour	Selected days, buttons, the today marker and the progress bar all use this colour. The lighter shades are worked out from it.	#0274be
Availability badge colours	Text and background colours of the “3 left” badge under a day number, for normal stock and for low stock.	Green and amber
Low stock below	At this many units left or fewer, the badge switches to the low-stock colours.	2
Corner radius	How rounded the calendar’s corners and cells are.	10px
Time slot interval	The gap between the pick-up and return time buttons on time-of-day products.	30 minutes
Show progress legend	The Start Date · Start Time · End Date · End Time row at the top of the picker. Each finished step shows its value and can be clicked to go back.	On
Show price per day	The price of a one-day rental under each day number, so seasonal prices are visible before a date is picked. Not shown on time-of-day or composite products.	Off
Show units left in each day	For quantity-based stock, shows “2 left” under the day number.	Off
Labels	Your own wording for Start Date, Start Time, End Date and End Time. Leave a box empty to keep the default. With WPML String Translation or Polylang you can translate them per language (see Translating Sales Igniter Rentals & Bookings).	Empty

Inventory Rules #

Edition: Regular and Pro. Both rules work with Send and Return.

Setting	What it does	Default
Update Start Date With Turnover On Early Send	If you ship out a rental early, the stock is reserved from the moment it was sent, including the turnover buffer, instead of from the original start date.	Off
Update End Date With Turnover On Early Return	If a rental comes back early, the booking ends when it was returned, plus the turnover buffer, so other customers can rent the item sooner. With this off, the item stays unavailable until the original end date.	Off

Date Formatting #

Edition: all editions.

This controls how dates and times look in the date fields once the customer has picked them on the rental calendar. The admin Add / Edit Booking screen uses the same format.

Setting	What it does	Default
Customer Side Date Field Input	The date format. There are 15 to choose from, such as 2022-01-10, 01/10/2022, 10.01.2022, 10 Jan 2022 or Monday, January 10, 2022.	Month day, Year (January 10, 2022)
Customer Side Time Field	The time format: 4:33 am, 4:33 AM or 04:33 (24-hour).	4:33 am

Advanced #

Edition: all editions.

Mode: leave this on Production. Developer mode is for people working on the plugin’s code. It also opens two hidden developer pages, Testing and Tools (wp-admin/admin.php?page=sibooking-tools). Tools links to the tester for the REST API.

ICS Export Security Keys: the key in the address of the store-wide bookings feed. You can copy that address from the ICS feed box on Rentals › Bookings Calendar and subscribe to it in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar. A key is created for you the first time. The feed lists every booking with its order number and customer name, so treat the address like a password. To cut off a calendar that has the old address, replace the key: calendars that use the old address stop updating.

To share one product’s availability with Airbnb, Booking.com or another calendar, or to block dates booked somewhere else, use the per-product feeds instead. See Calendar sync (iCal).

Emails #

Edition: all editions. The overdue reminder needs Regular or Pro, because only Send and Return records whether a rental has come back.

The top of this tab sets when reminders go out. Add one row per reminder to the Pickup, Return and Overdue tables. Each row has an on/off switch, an optional name, how long before pickup (or before or after the due date), the unit (days or hours) and, for days, an optional time of day to send. The same timings also drive the text reminders.

Below the timings you edit what each of the three emails says: whether it is sent, the subject, heading, body with merge tags, wording for other languages, additional content, BCC recipients and the email type. These are the same values as in WooCommerce › Settings › Emails, so a change on either screen shows on both. The full guide, with every merge tag, is Email Reminders.

Extend #

Edition: Regular and Pro.

Let customers extend their own rental from My Account › Orders. The new return date is checked against your stock first. The price is the rental price of the new period minus the price of the original one. It is charged to the payment method saved on the original order, or the customer pays through a new order. You get an email when a rental is extended.

Setting	What it does	Default
Enable rental extensions	Show the Extend option on upcoming and current rentals in My Account.	Off
Require the rental to be checked out before extending	When on, only rentals that have been sent from the Send page can be extended. When off, upcoming rentals can be extended too. A returned rental can never be extended.	Off

Search #

Edition: Regular and Pro.

Once a visitor has searched for dates, your shop can show which products are free on those dates. This tab sets where the search form sends visitors and how product listings react to the dates. The full guide is Search rentals by date.

Setting	What it does	Default
Search results page	The page the [sibooking_search] form sends visitors to. Leave it empty to use the WooCommerce shop page. If you pick your own page, put a product listing on it (for example [products limit="12" columns="3" paginate="true"]) and tick “Related products and product shortcodes” below.	Empty (shop page)
Filter products by the visitor’s dates	Mark: show every product and mark the ones that are booked. Hide: leave booked products out. Off: listings ignore the dates. Nothing changes until a visitor has chosen dates.	Mark
Where it applies	Shop and category pages, site search results, and related products and product shortcodes.	Shop and category pages, site search results
Wording on an unavailable product	The label on a booked product when Mark is chosen.	Not available for your dates

Search Builder #

Edition: Regular and Pro.

Design the search form that the [sibooking_search] shortcode shows, with a live preview. Save it with Save search form. Settings are grouped like this:

• Layout: Bar (one row, for a homepage hero), Stacked (a column, for a sidebar) or Card (a padded panel, for a landing page).
• Fields: the pick-up and return dates always come first. You can add times, how many, type (product category) and keyword, and put them in any order. The time slots run from your store open time to close time.
• Products: search only rental products, categories to leave out of searches (memberships or subscriptions, for example), and the categories the Type field offers.
• Wording, Look and Colours: heading, button and field labels, the calendar skin and picker, corner radius, shadow and colours. Empty boxes use the built-in wording, which follows the site language.
• Place it: the shortcode to copy, and how to change one form with attributes, for example [sibooking_search layout="bar" fields="dates"].

Step-by-step instructions are in Search rentals by date.

Text messages #

Edition: Regular and Pro.

Send pickup, return and overdue reminders by SMS or WhatsApp through your own Twilio account, or WhatsApp directly through Meta. The timings are the ones on the Emails tab. This tab covers:

• Send text reminders (off by default) and Dry run (on by default). A dry run builds every message and sends nothing, so you can check everything first.
• The provider for SMS and for WhatsApp, and the connection. Credentials are stored apart from the other settings and are never shown again after you save them.
• The sender number, the countries you are willing to text, a daily limit (500 by default) and a staging number that receives every message instead of your customers.
• For each reminder: the channel (off, SMS, WhatsApp, or WhatsApp then SMS), the message, other languages and approved WhatsApp templates.
• Consent and quiet hours: the opt-in checkbox at checkout, whether to text only customers who opted in, and quiet hours (21:00 to 08:00 by default).

The full setup is in SMS and WhatsApp rental reminders, with provider guides for Twilio, and WhatsApp via Twilio and WhatsApp via Meta.

Custom Fields, Field Groups, Damage Waiver and ID Verification #

Edition: Pro (the Custom Fields, Damage Waiver & ID Verification add-on). Each of these four tabs has its own save button.

Custom Fields #

Add your own fields to the checkout, the registration form, the product page or My Account. The answers are stored with the order, and a field can add to the price. You can also export all field definitions as JSON and import them on another site. See Creating custom fields.

Field Groups #

A field group is a named set of your custom fields plus one rule for which products it applies to. You point a group at forty products once instead of editing forty products. See Field groups.

Damage Waiver #

Offer a damage waiver: a non-refundable fee, added at the cart and checkout, that limits the customer’s liability for accidental damage. You set its name and description, a fixed amount or a percentage of the line price with an optional minimum and maximum, whether it is multiplied by quantity, charged per item or once per order, required or optional, taxable, and which products it applies to. A product can override this on its own Damage Waiver tab. See Damage waiver.

ID Verification #

Ask customers for a photo of an identity document before a rental goes out, and review uploads under Rentals › ID Verification. You choose the documents you accept (passport, driver’s licence, national ID card, insurance card), whether one is required at checkout, the back side and expiry date, where the upload box appears, a minimum age, the largest upload, automatic approval, email alerts, whether customers can manage their documents in My Account, how long scans are kept, and which products it applies to. See ID upload and verification.

Settings that live elsewhere #

• Subscriptions and memberships have their own settings page. See Setting up Subscriptions (Recurring Billing).
• Security deposits: see Security deposit settings.
• Per-product calendar feeds are set on each product’s edit screen. See Calendar sync (iCal).
• Rental rates, rental type and stock are set on each product. See Adding Rental Booking Products.

These settings belong to the Rentals & Bookings plugin for WooCommerce from Sales Igniter — see the full feature and pricing page for what each edition includes.