Many community organisations and membership associations offer their facilities to the wider public and managing this process can be time consuming, especially when you are relying on lots of volunteers.
Good booking software for your community centre, hall or meeting space can remove this hassle by allowing people or local groups to book and pay for use of a venue online. Many of the software options also provide tools for managing resource allocation, like whether a TV or catering is needed.
While lots of the room and venue booking software is aimed at larger organisations managing multiple meeting rooms in their offices, this post features cheaper and simpler options that will be more appropriate for small community organisations. We have prioritised software tailored for the UK market.
Most of the options in this list carry some monthly cost but a few have a free package for very basic users.
Hallmaster
A UK based venue booking solution for community halls and other venues offering space to community organisations. The booking system can be embedded online within your existing website.
Pricing: From £137 per year
Booking Live
Booking Live has a friendly and simple interface that would be well suited to a small organisation managing one or two spaces. It has resource management functionality and like most of the options on this page is cloud based so multiple people could easily collaborate to manage and track bookings
That Booking Live targets organisations making significant revenue from their space is evident from their stated ‘minimum level of engagement’ of £2,500+VAT. This may exclude some small community organisations.
Pricing: minimal level of engagement £2,500+VAT
Skedda
Skedda is a US-based venue management system and it has some entry level packages that will be attractive to smaller organisations.
If you don’t want to automate payment it’s possible to use the software for free for up to 5 different spaces. Only $19 per month will allow you to take online payments which in most cases should be worth the money for the time and hassle it will save. Custom fields or anything unusual will lead to the cost increasing quickly.
Pricing: from free
Get A Room App
A simple cloud based room booking tool that offers Five rooms in one location for $99 per month. A 14 day free trial is available.
Pricing: from $99 per month
YArooms
The focus of YArooms, a Romania-based company, is clearly on meeting room booking in larger offices. However, the software is clean and simple and their low pricing for a simple feature set makes it a good contender for smaller organisations too. A 14 day free trial is available.
Pricing: from $35 per month paid annually
