# The rental calendar: seeing occupancy, blocking days and booking by phone — MijnEvent [Home](https://mijnevent.nl/en) / [Blog for event organizers](https://mijnevent.nl/en/blog) / The rental calendar: seeing occupancy, blocking days and booking by phone modules rentals reservations planning # The rental calendar: seeing occupancy, blocking days and booking by phone The daily work in the rentals module: one monthly view of what is taken, a day closed off for maintenance, and the customer who calls put down straight away. [Jasper Koers](https://mijnevent.nl/en/author/jasper-koers) · 27 July 2026 · 6 min read ![](https://regify-mijnevent.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/blog/covers/rental-calendar-blocking-and-phone-bookings.webp) Photo: [Estée Janssens](https://unsplash.com/@esteejanssens?utm_source=MijnEvent&utm_medium=referral) / [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=MijnEvent&utm_medium=referral) In short - The Calendar tab shows per month what is rented out; multi-day bookings appear on every day they cover, and if a day cell runs out of room it ends with '+2 more'. - Click a day and the day detail shows all bookings for that day plus the blocks — on an empty day too, because that is where you start blocking or booking manually. - A block runs from a date until and including a date, has an optional reason, and applies to one unit, one item or all your items. Lifting it makes the period bookable again immediately. - Booking manually records a phone or counter reservation: item, unit (or a free one picked automatically), period, name, an optional email address, an optional different rental sum, 'Already paid' and a note. - Double booking stays impossible — the same availability calculation as the shop — but opening hours and minimum hire length deliberately do not apply to a manual booking. - A manual booking carries no electronically recorded acceptance of your rental terms; you arrange that with the renter yourself. You set up a rental item once: price, deposit, units, terms. How that works is in [creating a rental item](/en/blog/creating-a-rental-item-price-deposit-availability). After that comes the work that returns every week: who has what, when nothing can go out, and what to do with the customer who calls. That all happens on one screen — the **Calendar** tab in the [Rentals & reservations](/en/modules/rentals) module. *Note: the dashboard shows the Dutch interface.* # Reading the monthly view The calendar shows one month as a grid, with a few lines per day about what is going on. A line is either a booking or a block. A booking shows the item and, if the item has units, the unit behind it: "Canoe · Canoe #2". A block shows the item that is closed, or **All items** if the block is a broad one. Blocks sit at the top and are marked in red, so "closed" looks different from "rented out". Multi-day bookings appear on **every day they cover**, not just on the starting day. A sloop that is out from Friday to Sunday shows up on all three days. That way you see at a glance where it gets tight, instead of working periods out yourself. A day cell fits three lines. If there are more, the cell closes with **+2 more**. That is not an error but a busy day: the full list is in the day detail. Today is recognisable by the date in the accent colour, and above the calendar sit an arrow back, **Today** and an arrow forward — so looking a few months ahead and jumping back is one click. # Opening a day Every day in the grid is a button — an empty day included. Click it and the day detail opens. At the top sits **Bookings this day**: per booking the item, the status, the period, the unit, the renter's name and the amount. If the booking was recorded by phone or at the counter, it carries a **Manual** badge. As long as a booking has not been returned or cancelled, a **Cancel** button sits next to it as well. Below that is **Blocks this day**, showing per block the item or unit, the period and the reason you filled in. At the bottom are the two actions the day detail really exists for: **Block date** and **Book manually**. That is also why an empty day opens: that is exactly where you want to record something. # Blocking a period You block for everything that is not a booking but does take up room: maintenance, cleaning, your own use, a day you are simply closed. Fill in a date **From** and **Until**, the end date included — so 12 to 14 May closes three days. The **Reason (optional)** is for you and your colleagues; the field suggests "e.g. maintenance", and the reason appears with the block in the day detail. Above that you decide how wide the block goes. Pick an **Item** and you can zoom in further on a single **Unit** — only Canoe #2 out of rotation, the rest stays bookable. Leave the item empty and the block applies to **All items**. That is the version for a public holiday or a storm. Click **Block period** and those days are no longer bookable, not even for somebody who is on your site at that moment. You undo it in the day detail with **Lift block**; the period is free again straight away. A block is not the same as a unit status: a status holds until you change it back, a block has a beginning and an end. If you know when the canoe can go back in the water, use a block. # Booking manually: the customer who calls Not everybody books online. Somebody calls to put the sloop down for Sunday, or stands at the counter with cash in hand. That is what **Book manually** is for. You pick the **Item** and optionally a **Unit**. Leave that empty and the system assigns a free unit itself — usually exactly what you want, because on the phone it makes no difference which canoe it becomes. Then the period: a start and end date, and for hourly rentals a **Start time** and **End time** as well. The rest is short. **Renter's name** is required; on the phone you often have no more than that, and that should never be a reason not to put the boat down. The **Email address** is optional: leave it out and the booking is recorded internally only, with no confirmation going out. Under **Rental sum** you enter a different amount; leave the field empty and MijnEvent charges the normal rate for that item over that period. The **Already paid** tick box is on by default — change it if you only get the money at pickup. In the **Note** you put whatever you want to read back later: "picking up at 8", "regular customer". Click **Record booking** and the unit is taken. No payment request goes to the renter; you settle that however you agreed. The booking then simply sits with the others under the **Bookings** tab, carrying the **Manual** badge. # What the system does and does not guard 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. If nothing is free, the screen refuses the booking rather than quietly laying it over an existing one. The rest is deliberately looser than the public side. An item still sitting at **Draft** can be handed out fine. Your opening hours and minimum hire length do not apply here: if you want to let one canoe go out on a Monday you are closed, you can. On the phone you make the exception, not the system. One thing comes with that, and it is yours to arrange. When somebody books online, they explicitly accept your rental terms in the checkout, and MijnEvent records when and on which version. A manual booking has no such electronic acceptance. You are then responsible yourself for providing your rental terms and the legally required information beforehand — the terms of the rentals module say as much. In practice: send the terms afterwards, or have them signed at pickup. # After that it runs like any other booking A manual booking is no odd one out from there. It comes in as **Confirmed**, you set it to **Picked up** when the customer arrives and to **Returned** when the gear is back. If there is a deposit on it, that works as described in [deposits on rentals](/en/blog/rental-deposit-online-and-automatically-back) — with the difference that a deposit paid online needs a checkout, which a phone booking does not have, so there you collect it at pickup. What your customers do online in the meantime runs through the shop on your own subdomain, described on the [Rentals & reservations](/en/modules/rentals) module page. The calendar shows both streams together: last night's half-past-eleven booking and this morning's phone call sit in the same cell. Frequently asked questions ## Frequently asked questions ## What does '+2 more' in a day cell mean? A day cell shows at most three lines. If there are more bookings and blocks that day, it says '+2 more'. Click the day and the day detail shows all of them. ## What is the difference between blocking a day and setting a unit to Under maintenance? A block is a period: from this date until that date there is nothing to book. A unit status is a state without an end date: a unit set to Under maintenance, Broken or Written off no longer counts until you change it back. If you know when it will be usable again, use a block. ## Does a manual booking send a confirmation email? Only if you fill in an email address. Leave that field empty and the booking is recorded internally only, with nothing going out. No payment request is sent to the renter either way. ## Can I hire out an item that is still a Draft manually? Yes. The publishing requirement is for the shop, not for you. What does still apply is availability: the unit has to be genuinely free. 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