# Creating a rental item: price, deposit, availability and handling the booking — MijnEvent

  [Home](https://mijnevent.nl/en) / [Blog for event organizers](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog) / Creating a rental item: price, deposit, availability and handling the booking   modules rentals reservations deposits 

# Creating a rental item: price, deposit, availability and handling the booking

From an empty module to a bookable canoe: create the item, set a day rate and a deposit, add units, block maintenance days and tick the booking off from Picked up to Returned.

 [Jasper Koers](https://mijnevent.nl/en/author/jasper-koers) · 15 June 2026 · 12 min read 

       In short

- A rental item has a booking type (Per day, Multi-day, Parts of the day or Per hour), a price per day and optionally a deposit; with 'pay online' the renter settles the deposit right along with the booking.
- On top of the base price come rate rules for seasons, weekdays and longer hires, extras the renter adds, a rental agreement they explicitly accept, and a cancellation scale.
- Units are the physical items behind one rental item: three canoes under 'Canoe', each with its own status (Available, Under maintenance, Broken, Written off).
- Availability is calculated, not kept in a list: free is whatever remains after blocked periods and running bookings, across the units set to Available.
- Publish the item and it appears on /verhuur on your own subdomain, with every booking landing under the Bookings tab.
- After 'Returned' the deposit screen opens by itself: refund everything, or withhold part of it with a mandatory reason.

  The [Rentals & reservations](/en/modules/rentals) module is built around one question: what can a visitor book on which day, and at what price? Everything you set in the dashboard — items, units, blocked periods — feeds that answer. Below is the whole route, from an empty screen to a canoe that has come back.

*Note: the module video and the dashboard show the Dutch interface.*

# The tabs in the dashboard

Under **Rentals & reservations** there are eight tabs: **Rental items**, **Bookings**, **Calendar**, **Rates**, **Extras**, **Settings**, **Emails** (where you edit the email texts for this module) and **FAQ**. The first three are your daily work. **Rates**, **Extras** and **Settings** you set up once and only touch again when your prices or terms change.

# Creating the item

Click **New rental item**. The form starts with the obvious: a **Name** — "2-person canoe", say — a **Description** and a **Pickup location**.

Then comes the core. Under **Booking type** you pick one of four:

- **Per day** — the customer books individual days.
- **Multi-day** — the customer books a period of several days.
- **Parts of the day** — the customer picks one part of the day, the morning for instance. You define those parts under **Availability**.
- **Per hour** — the customer picks a start time and a number of hours, within your opening hours.

Under **Price per day (€)** you enter the day rate, for example € 35.00. If you want a minimum or maximum on the hire period, use **Min. rental days** and **Max. rental days**; for hourly rentals those fields count in hours.

**Category** groups items on the public shop front — Boats, Bikes, Rooms. No categories yet? Create them under **Settings**. Without a category all your items simply sit in one list.

Optional on top of that: **Service fee (€)** with its own **Service fee label**, in case you want administration costs listed separately on the receipt.

Photos come in a second pass: the form tells you itself that you can add images once the item is saved. Save the item and reopen it, and the fields for a **Header photo** and a **Photo gallery** (up to eight photos) appear.

# Deposit: paid online, back after return

Under **Deposit (€)** you enter the amount, € 50.00 for example. Below it, **Collect deposit** decides how you take it:

- **No deposit** — you ask for nothing.
- **Pay online** — the renter settles the deposit along with the booking. After payment the deposit is held on that payment and stays held until the return.
- **On pickup (outside the app)** — you handle it in cash or on a card terminal at the counter; MijnEvent only keeps the record.

"Pay online" is the version that takes the most work off your hands: no cash in a drawer and no argument afterwards. More on that in the article about [rental deposits](/en/blog/rental-deposit-online-and-automatically-back).

# Rental agreement: accepted before the booking completes

If you rent out things that can break, you want something in writing. Under **Settings** sits the **Rental agreements** card. Click **New agreement** and fill in a **Name** — that one is for you only, something like "Hire terms sloops" — plus the **Text of the agreement**. That is what the renter reads just before paying, so keep it short and concrete: condition on return, damage, fuel, cancelling.

Every agreement has a **version number**. Edit the text and the version goes up. Running bookings keep the version they were accepted under, so you can update your terms without old arrangements quietly changing colour.

You link it on the item itself. Tick **Renter must accept a rental agreement** and pick the text that applies under **Rental agreement**. Without a chosen agreement the form will not accept the tick box — a consent tick without a text is an empty promise.

From then on the booking only completes once the renter explicitly agrees at checkout. The booking records when they agreed and which version number they accepted.

# Cancellation terms in tiers

At the bottom of the item form sits **Cancellation terms**. This is where you set out what the renter gets back if they call it off. Click **Add tier** and fill in two numbers per tier: **Hours in advance** and **% back**. For example: 48 hours ahead 100%, 24 hours ahead 50%. You can add up to ten tiers — beyond that no renter reads it anyway.

On a cancellation the strictest tier the renter still makes counts: cancel 30 hours ahead and you fall into the 24-hour tier, so 50% comes back. Too late for *every* tier and there is no promise left, so the refund sits at 0%. Enter no scale at all and the refund defaults to 100%, with you deciding the amount at the moment of cancelling.

# Adding units

An item is the thing a visitor books; the **units** are the pieces you physically own. Click **Units** on the item and add them one by one with a label: "Canoe #1", "Canoe #2". With three canoes, three visitors can book the same day at once.

Every unit has its own status: **Available**, **Under maintenance**, **Broken** or **Written off**. Only units set to **Available** count towards availability — so a torn canoe marked **Broken** disappears from the calendar without you having to take the item offline.

# Opening hours and parts of the day

The item has an **Availability** button. That is where you decide when you rent out at all.

Under **Opening hours** you add rules with **Add rule**. Per rule you pick a **Day**, or **All days**, and fill in **Open from** and **Closed from**. Switch **Open on this day** off and the day is shut. Without any rules the item is open every day. For hourly rentals these times do the real work: they decide which hours the customer can pick.

Below that sit the **Parts of the day**, for items with the **Parts of the day** booking type. Add them with a **Name**, a **From** time and a **To** time — morning 09:00–13:00 and afternoon 13:00–17:00, for instance. The customer picks one. If an item is not set to parts of the day, the screen says so and nothing changes. A part of the day that already has bookings on it is not deleted; you set it to **Inactive**, so old bookings keep making sense.

# Availability: blocking a period

Availability is recalculated on every request, not stored somewhere. Free is what remains after blocked periods and running bookings are taken off.

You block through the **Block dates** button. In the **Blocked periods** screen you fill in a date **From** and **Until** — 12 to 14 May, say — plus a **Reason (optional)**, such as "Maintenance & cleaning". By default the block covers the whole item; through the **Unit** field you take only Canoe #2 out of circulation. Click **Block period** and those days are closed.

# Rates: seasons, weekends and longer hires

One price per day is enough to start with, but in practice a Saturday in July costs more than a Tuesday in March. That is what the **Rates** tab is for.

Start with the **Seasons** card. A season is nothing more than a period with a name: enter "High season", plus a date **From** and **Until**. Seasons apply to all your rental items at once, so you record the Christmas holidays only once. If two seasons overlap, the one with the highest **Priority** wins.

At the top of that same tab sits the **Rates** card. Pick the **Item** first; the screen shows the base price used as long as no rule fits. Click **New rate rule** and fill in what it should apply to:

- **Season** — or **Any season** if the rule holds all year.
- **Weekday** — Saturdays only, for instance, or **Every day**.
- **From (days)** — for a sliding scale: this rate only kicks in from this hire length. For hourly rentals this counts in hours.
- **Rate type** — **Fixed amount** replaces the day rate, **Percentage of the base price** adds or subtracts. 100 is the base price, 150 is half as expensive again, 80 is a 20% discount.
- **Priority** — higher wins. Give a weekend rate a higher priority than a season rate, for example.

Fields you leave empty do not weigh in. If several rules fit the same day, the one with the highest priority wins; if none fits, the item's base price applies. On a multi-day booking that is decided again per day, so a week's hire running across a weekend charges those two days more by itself. Delete a rule later and existing bookings keep the price they were settled at.

# Extras the renter adds

A helmet with the e-bike, a child seat, a fuel pack with the sloop. Those go on the **Extras** tab. Click **New extra** and fill in:

- **Applies to** — one rental item, or leave it empty for **All items**.
- **Price** and **Unit**: **Per booking**, **Per day** or **Per piece**. Only **Per day** is multiplied by the length of the booking; the other two count with the chosen quantity.
- **Maximum per booking** — empty means no maximum.
- **Stock** — for your eyes only, so you know how many helmets are in the shed. Empty means unlimited.

The renter picks the extras in the booking widget; they appear as separate lines on the receipt. If an extra has been sold at least once and you want it gone, MijnEvent sets it to **Inactive** instead of deleting it — otherwise old bookings would stop adding up.

# Publishing

Until you do anything, the item sits at **Draft**. Click **Publish** and the badge flips to **Published**: from that moment the item is visible and bookable at **/verhuur** on your own subdomain. Want it out of the shop window for a while? **Unpublish** does the opposite.

# The occupancy calendar

The **Calendar** tab shows in one monthly view what is rented out per day. Multi-day bookings appear on every day they touch, so you can see at a glance where it gets tight. If not all bookings fit in a day cell it says **+3 more**; blocked days are marked as **Blocked**.

Click a day and the day detail opens. At the top sit **Bookings this day** with renter, item and unit, below that **Blocks this day**. From there you do two things: **Block date** and **Book manually**.

Blocking works more broadly here than on the item. Pick an **Item** and you can zoom in further on a single **Unit**. Leave the item empty and the block applies to **All items** — handy for a day you are simply closed. Fill in **From** and **Until**, give a reason, and the period is no longer bookable. You undo it with **Lift block**; the days are free again straight away.

## Booking manually: the phone reservation

Not everybody books online. If someone calls to put the sloop down for Sunday, you click **Book manually** in the day detail.

You pick the **Item** and optionally a **Unit** — leave that empty and the system picks a free unit itself. For hourly rentals you also fill in a **Start time** and **End time**. Then: the **Renter's name**, optionally an **Email address**, optionally a different **Rental sum** (leave it empty to charge the normal rate), the **Already paid** tick box and a **Note**. Click **Record booking** and the unit is taken. No payment request goes out. Without an email address the booking is only recorded internally, so the renter gets no confirmation email either.

One rule stays hard: double booking is impossible. The chosen unit has to be genuinely free according to the same availability calculation as the shop, even if somebody is booking online at that exact moment. The rest is looser than on the public side. An item still sitting at **Draft** can be handed out fine, and your opening hours and minimum hire length do not apply here — on the phone you make the exception, not the system. In the booking list you recognise these reservations by the **Manual** label.

# Handling the booking

As soon as somebody books and pays, the booking appears under the **Bookings** tab with the status **Confirmed** and the confirmation email goes out. Per row you see the period, the assigned unit, the customer's name, the amount and the deposit status. The **Filter by status** filter picks out the right group quickly: **Reserved**, **Confirmed**, **Picked up**, **Returned**, **Cancelled** or **No-show**.

When the renter comes to collect the canoe, you click **Picked up**. When they bring it back, you click **Returned**.

That last one is the moment of truth for the deposit: if a deposit is still held, the **Handle deposit** screen opens by itself. It shows how much is held and gives you one choice. Leave the **Amount to withhold** field empty and the whole deposit goes back. Enter an amount and a **Reason for withholding** is mandatory — so it is on the record later why € 15.00 was kept. Whatever you do not withhold is refunded to the renter.

# Cancelling and refunding

If the renter calls it off, you click **Cancel** on the booking. The **Cancel booking** screen works your cancellation scale out straight away: it states what percentage of the rental sum the renter gets back at *this* moment, and fills that percentage in for you under **Back from the rental sum (%)**. If the item has no scale, you set the percentage yourself.

That proposal is not a straitjacket. You can override the percentage case by case — leniency because somebody fell ill, or a stricter line because this is the third time. Below it sits a separate **Back from the deposit (%)** field, because a deposit is not a rental sum and does not follow the scale: by default it goes back in full. A **Reason (optional)** is recorded with the refund.

Click **Cancel and refund** and the unit is freed up for other renters immediately, while MijnEvent starts the refund through Mollie on the original payment. A few things worth knowing: any service fees do not go back, and on free, phone or simulated bookings no money ever moved, so nothing comes back either. If less than the full rental sum went back, the order stays marked as paid — exactly as with a partial ticket refund. It cannot be undone.

That closes the circle: created, priced, published, booked, picked up, returned and settled — without a spreadsheet on the side.

   Frequently asked questions

## Frequently asked questions

## What is the difference between a rental item and a unit?

 The rental item is what the visitor sees and books ('2-person canoe'). The units are the physical pieces you have of it: Canoe #1, Canoe #2, Canoe #3. Each unit has its own status, so a canoe under maintenance drops out of availability without the whole item going offline.

## How do I block a few days for maintenance?

 Open the 'Block dates' button on the item. Fill in a date From and Until, add a reason if you want, and choose whether the block covers the whole item or a single unit. Click 'Block period' and those days are no longer bookable.

## Does the renter get the deposit back automatically?

 With 'pay online' the deposit is held on the original payment. As soon as you set the booking to 'Returned', the deposit screen opens and you choose: everything back, or withhold an amount with a reason. The rest is refunded through Mollie.

## Where do visitors book the item?

 On /verhuur on your own subdomain, as soon as the item is set to Published. Until then it stays a Draft and nobody sees it.

  [    Back to blog ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog) 

  MijnEvent

## Read more

 [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/automatic-membership-renewal-dutch-law.webp) memberships 

 Jasper Koers · 27 July 2026 · 6 min read

## Automatic membership renewal: collecting fees within Dutch renewal law

Automatic renewal saves your club a pile of chasing work, but the law has rules about cancelling. Here is how renewal works in MijnEvent, and how to keep it clean.

 ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/automatic-membership-renewal-dutch-law) [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/ontruimingsverslag-evenement-bewijsstuk.webp) safety 

 MijnEvent · 27 July 2026 · 5 min read

## The evacuation record: why the day after your event matters for the next permit

An evacuation — real or drilled — is only finished once it is on paper. What belongs in an evacuation record, why the municipality asks for it, and how to make the record write itself instead of reconstructing it afterwards?

 ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/evacuation-record-event-evidence) [ ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/knmi-weeralerts-veiligheidsplan.webp) safety 

 MijnEvent · 27 July 2026 · 3 min read

## Weather monitoring in your safety plan: how KNMI warnings land in your alerts and logbook automatically

Almost every safety-plan format has a 'weather monitoring' section — and almost nobody fills it in concretely. The Safety & Permit module pulls the KNMI warning code for your event location every hour and turns it into a demonstrable process.

 ](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog/knmi-weather-alerts-event-safety-plan) 

   MijnEvent

## Ready to get started?

Create a free account and sell your first tickets today.

 [Start free](https://mijnevent.nl/registreer) [Pricing](https://mijnevent.nl/en/pricing)