How to simplify facility rentals for municipalities

Whether you’re managing one arena or a community center, the old way of handling facility rentals on paper and pen doesn’t scale. Your team’s time is too valuable to be chasing down forms or manually checking calendars.

In this article, we’ll break down the problem and show how a modern online approach more and more municipalities and small towns use to save time and make things easier for residents.

We’ll explore:

• Main Frustrations with Facility Rentals
• What Citizens Expect when Booking City Facilities
• Automate the whole process (or not)
• How to Set Up Online Facility Rentals

Main Frustrations with Facility Rentals

• Too many manual steps
  Phone calls, emails, and paper forms slow things down and increase the chances of mistakes.
• Double bookings = angry citizens
  When your schedule lives in a spreadsheet or on a wall calendar, booking conflicts are almost inevitable.
• Chasing payments and waivers
  You shouldn’t need to send three reminders to collect a $60 deposit or get a signed contract of liability waiver.
• Lack of transparency for residents
  Residents want to know what’s available, how much it costs, and how to book without the phone tag.

What Citizens Expect when Booking City Facilities

Your residents are used to booking everything online now. Airbnbs, restaurant tables, and swim lessons, all with a few clicks. They now expect the same from their municipality and even a small town.

If your facility rental process still involves “call us for availability” or “print and sign this form,” you’re creating friction with your residents.

What it should look like:

• Residents go to your website and see a real-time calendar of available time slots.
• They choose a facility, select a date, and fill out a form with all the information you require.
• Ability to pay online, upload insurance, and digitally sign the rental contract.
• Your staff gets notified, and the booking is instantly added to your facility rental calendar.

 

Automate the whole process (or not)

Modern tools like Activity Messenger go far beyond simply taking bookings. They help you automate your entire rental workflow (or parts of it, if you prefer to maintain manual control over certain aspects) so that nothing falls through the cracks.

Here’s how:

Send automated reminders
No more last-minute phone calls or forgotten bookings. Activity Messenger can automate a reminder email or SMS to go out a few days before the rental, personalized with the renter’s name, time, and location.

If someone on staff needs to be notified to help prepare the room, click the notify assigned resource, and the staff member assigned to the booking will also receive a notification.

Follow up with surveys or rebooking links
Once the event is over, Activity Messenger can automatically send a follow-up message. It might include:

• A short feedback survey (“How was your experience?”)
• A thank you note
• A direct link to rebook the same space next month

Set flexible rules, pricing, and approval flows
Build an online facility booking process with your built-in rules. You can:

• Charge different rates for residents vs. non-residents
• Offer discounts for local nonprofits
• Automatically require supervisor approval if booking outside regular hours
• Apply minimum rental durations for certain facilities (e.g. gym minimum: 2 hours)

How to Set Up Facility Rentals

Create a rental process

Start by figuring out the details and information you need for your rentals. Here are a few things to think about.

• Facility, date, and time selection (with real-time availability)
• Rental details (type of rental, number of participants, equipment needs)
• Contact info and special requests
• Upload options for documents like insurance, permits, or photo ID
• Custom questions for different facilities (e.g., “Do you need access to the kitchen?”)
• Customize pricing per facility, time slot, or renter type (resident vs. non-resident, private vs. nonprofit, etc.).

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Create your facilities (the resource to be booked)

Every rental form is linked to one or more resources or facilities. These can be anything from a gymnasium to a community room, pool, tennis court, or meeting space.

For each resource, you can set:

• Available hours (ex: 9am–9pm, Mon–Fri)
• Blocked dates (for events, holidays, or recurring activities)
• Hourly pricing, flat fees, deposits, or tiered rates
• Booking rules (minimum/maximum rental time, resident-only hours, recurring booking options)

Each facility has specific availabilities and rules, so you never have to worry about overbooking.

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Set facility availability

Start by figuring out the details and information needed for your rentals. Activity Messenger gives you a real-time availability calendar that residents can see directly from your website. This is based on the availability you set and is updated live based on manual bookings from staff and online bookings from residents.

For example:

• If a slot is already booked, it won’t show up
• If you need to block a slot manually, you can do that instantly
• If you’re have recurring bookings, the system prevents conflicts

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Accept payments online (including Interac e-Transfer)

You decide how and when to charge:

• Full payment upfront
• Deposit now, balance later
• Manual approval before charging

You can accept credit cards, offline payments or Interac e-Transfer. Invoices go out automatically, and you can track online and offline payments in a single place.

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Automatically generate rental contracts

Once a resident completes the form, Activity Messenger can generate a contract using the information they submitted.
Here’s how it works:

• Auto-fill their name, dates, and rental details into a pre-approved contract template
• Include rules, terms, or cancellation policies with an I read and accept box to check.
• Require a digital signature
• Store the signed copy in the citizen’s profile.

Here is an example of a drag-and-drop contract builder that can be automatically or manually attached to facility rentals that citizens will need to sign.

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Keep everything organized

All of your data, like bookings, contracts, payments, attendance, notes and messages, is centralized in one dashboard that includes an internal calendar. You can filter by date, location, renter type, and more.

Perfect for reporting, tracking, and year-end wrap-ups, start with the details and information you need for your rentals. Here are a few things to think about.

Activity Messenger gives you a real-time availability calendar that citizens can see directly from your website. This is based on the availability you set and is updated live based on manual bookings from staff and online bookings from residents.

Ready to Try It?

Moving to online facility booking is not about replacing staff. Most Parks and Rec departments are running lean. Giving them better tools helps them focus on serving the community, not chasing down paperwork.

If your rentals are still stuck in spreadsheets, phone calls, and sticky notes, try Activity Messenger. You can start with a single facility or location and scale up as needed.

Want help setting it up? Meet with one of our experts to learn more