Peak, off-peak and holiday rates for room and equipment hire

Most hire businesses end up with the same price list. A normal rate for most of the year. A higher rate for the busy months. Another for public holidays. And a cleaning fee that is charged once, whether the hire is one hour or three days.

The trouble starts when that list lives in your head or in a spreadsheet. Someone books across the start of a busy season and you have to work out the split by hand. This article shows how to build that price list on your Alion Booking form, so the total is worked out for you.

The steps below use the Pricing Periods and Pricing Rules tabs. Both only appear once you have saved the booking form.

How the price is built

Two pieces work together.

• A pricing period is a reusable set of dates, such as a peak season or public holidays. You create it once.
• A pricing rule is an instruction that sets, adds, subtracts or multiplies the price. A rule can be limited to certain dates.

Rules run from top to bottom, in the order shown. Each one acts on the price built so far, so order matters. A reliable order is: base rate, then special-period rates, then multipliers, then extras.

One more point. If no active rule matches, the total stays at 0.00. Alion does not make up a price. You need at least one active rule that sets a base price for every booking you expect.

Step 1: Set the base rate

This is the price everything else builds on.

1. Open your form and go to the Pricing Rules tab.
2. Click New Rule and name it something like Standard rate.
3. Set Action to Override unit price.
4. Enter the Amount in dollars, for example 60.00.
5. Set Amount is to Per unit, so it is charged for each unit of the booking.
6. Leave the conditions empty and keep Active ticked. Click Save rule.

"Unit" is whatever you chose as the booking unit on the Basic Info tab: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, Day, Night, or One booking. For a meeting room you might use 1 hour. For equipment you might use Day.

Step 2: Create the peak period

Before you write the rule, create the dates it applies to.

1. Go to the Pricing Periods tab.
2. Enter a Period name, such as Summer peak.
3. Choose a Period type. For a season that comes round every year, Repeating date range lets you set a start month and day and an end month and day. For a one-off busy stretch, use One-off date range.
4. Click Create period.

If your peak runs across New Year, for example 1 December to 5 January, a When does this range end? setting appears. Choose Following calendar year. If you leave it on the default, the range matches no dates.

Step 3: Add the peak rate

Now tie a price to that period.

1. On Pricing Rules, add a rule named Peak rate.
2. Set Action to Override unit price, enter the Amount (for example 80.00) and set Amount is to Per unit.
3. Click Add pricing period condition. Choose Is in pricing period and pick Summer peak.
4. Save the rule, then use Move up or Move down so it sits after the standard rate.

Because it comes after the standard rate, the peak price replaces the standard price on peak dates.

A booking that crosses from off-peak into peak is split into segments, one per period. Each segment is priced on its own. A three-night stay that starts a night before the season gets the standard rate for that night and the peak rate for the rest. You do not do anything extra for this.

Step 4: Add a public holiday rate

You can use a holiday calendar condition directly on the rule.

1. Add a rule named Holiday rate.
2. Set Action to Override unit price, enter your holiday Amount, and set Amount is to Per unit.
3. Add a Holiday calendar condition, choose Is public holiday, and pick the calendar for your state or region.
4. Order the rule after the standard and peak rules, so it takes precedence on holiday dates.

A holiday that falls inside your peak season will therefore get the holiday price, not the peak price. Decide whether that is what you want. If your holiday rate is lower than your peak rate, you may want to rethink the order or the amounts.

If the holiday is more than one day

Holidays often change how people book. A long weekend may be busy from the Friday to the Monday, not just on the public holiday itself. On the Pricing Periods tab, a Named holiday window period can be widened. Tick Include days before or after the selected holiday dates, then set a Start date adjustment and End date adjustment, for example start 2 days before and end 1 day after. You can then use that period in a rule with an Is in pricing period condition.

Holiday dates are worked out for each booking year, so you do not need to update them every January.

Step 5: Add a once-only cleaning fee

A cleaning fee should appear once, not once per hour or per day.

1. Add a rule named Cleaning fee.
2. Set Action to Add amount and enter the Amount.
3. Set Amount is to Once.
4. Add conditions only if the fee applies to some bookings and not others.
5. Move it near the bottom of the list, after the main rate is known.

If you charge the fee only for certain bookings, such as when the customer ticks a "catering" option, you can add a Field value condition to the rule.

Step 6: Check the totals with Preview price

Do this before you publish. It is the step that saves you from a wrong quote reaching a customer.

1. On the Pricing Rules tab, find the Preview panel.
2. Choose an inventory item, a start date and time, and an end date and time.
3. Click Preview price.
4. Read the Total, Subtotal, Tax and Price breakdown. The Matched rules list shows which rules fired, on which segment, and how much each added.

Test the awkward cases, not just the easy ones:

• A normal off-peak booking, to confirm the base rate.
• A booking fully inside the peak period.
• A booking that starts off-peak and ends in peak.
• A booking on a public holiday, in and out of peak season.
• A short and a long booking, to confirm the cleaning fee appears only once.

Work out what you expect by hand first, then compare. If the numbers are off, check the rule order and the period dates. The help centre has a page on fixing pricing problems.

A note on setting your rates

The amounts are yours to choose. Look at what you charge now, what demand looks like through the year, and what it costs you to open on a public holiday. Keep the structure simple. A base rate, one peak rate and one holiday rate are easier for customers to understand than many small variations, and easier for you to keep right.

Once your preview totals look right, take one real booking through the public form to see what the customer sees.

More on this: https://alion.com.au/help/pricing/pricing-recipes