A school district books a two-day field trip: fourth graders on Tuesday, fifth graders on Wednesday, one contact, one invoice. A tour operator wants the same 40-person package on three consecutive Saturdays. In both cases the group thinks of it as a single booking. Altru group sales usually doesn’t. Each visit date tends to end up as its own scheduled event with its own times, headcounts, and pricing, and staff have to decide how to tie the days together.
Below is how to set up multi-day group visits in Altru so they stay manageable, which approach fits which kind of booking, and what to confirm in your own database before you train staff on it.
Start by testing what your database actually allows
Group sales setups vary between organizations, and we don’t want to guess at how yours behaves. Before choosing a process, open a test reservation (in a sandbox if you have one, or with a clearly labeled test constituent you’ll delete afterward) and try to schedule activities on two different dates under that one reservation.
- If it works, check what happens downstream: does the confirmation show both days clearly, does the balance due combine correctly, and do your daily group reports pick up each day on the right date?
- If it doesn’t, or the result is confusing for staff, plan on one reservation per day and link them yourself (below).
If you can’t tell whether the behavior you’re seeing is intended, ask Blackbaud support directly. It’s a quick question for them and saves you from building a process on a misunderstanding.
Option 1: One reservation per day, linked on purpose
This is the approach most admins fall back on, and it holds up well because every report, capacity check, and arrival list already thinks in single dates. The work is in making the separate reservations obviously belong together.
- Use the same group constituent and the same contact on every day’s reservation. That keeps the history and revenue on one record and makes the related bookings easy to find from the constituent.
- Adopt a naming convention. Put a shared booking reference and the day number in the reservation name, for example “Lincoln Elementary 2026-11 (Day 1 of 2).” Whatever pattern you pick, write it down and use it every time; a query can then pull all days of a booking by that reference.
- Add a note on each reservation listing the other dates. Whoever handles a change on day two shouldn’t have to discover that day one exists.
- Build the first day completely, then use it as the model for the rest. If your version offers a way to copy a reservation, test it and check which details carry over (activities, pricing, contacts, notes). If it doesn’t, keep a short checklist of every field your coordinators must fill in so the days don’t drift apart.
Option 2: One reservation covering several dates
If your testing shows a single reservation can hold more than one date cleanly, it’s the more natural fit for bookings that really are one purchase, such as an overnight program or a two-day camp. The benefits are one confirmation, one balance, and one place to make changes.
The tradeoff is reporting. Before committing, run your usual daily group schedule and arrival lists for each date in the test booking. If either day is missing, shows the wrong count, or shows the whole booking’s total on the first date, staff on the floor will get the wrong picture. In that case Option 1 is safer even if it means more data entry.
Deposits, invoices, and payment
Money is where split reservations cause the most friction. Groups expect a single invoice, and finance expects revenue to land on the correct date.
- Decide where the deposit lives. Common choices are applying it entirely to the first day’s reservation, or splitting it proportionally. Either is defensible; mixing approaches from one coordinator to the next is what creates reconciliation headaches.
- Send one combined summary to the group. Even if Altru produces separate confirmations, your coordinator can send a single cover email listing every date, time, headcount, and the total. Customers rarely complain about separate records they never see; they complain about receiving three confusing documents.
- Check with finance on whether revenue should be recognized per visit date. That answer often settles whether separate reservations are a nuisance or actually what you need.
Recurring bookings are a different problem
A group that visits every Thursday for a semester isn’t really a multi-day booking; it’s a series. Treat each visit as its own reservation using the linking steps above, but set expectations about changes up front. Recurring groups adjust headcounts often, and it’s easier to update one date at a time than to unwind a single large booking.
Keep an eye on it
Once a quarter, run a query on group reservations whose names contain your “Day X of Y” pattern and look for orphans: a Day 2 without a Day 1, mismatched contacts, or a cancelled day whose partner is still active. Cleaning these up early keeps capacity numbers and group revenue reports trustworthy.
Quick answers
Will separate reservations double count the group in reports?
Daily attendance should count each day’s visitors once on their own date. Reports that total group revenue or bookings by constituent will show several reservations, which is accurate but worth explaining to whoever reads them.
Can we charge a package price across both days?
Yes in practice: put the package price on one day and zero or reduced pricing on the others, and note that on each reservation. Confirm the approach with finance first so revenue reporting matches what they expect.
