A wedding books your conservatory for a Saturday evening. The contract covers the room, but the client also wants forty extra chairs, a projector, a dance floor, and two hours of custodial time. The room fee goes in easily. The extras are where things get messy: they end up on a spreadsheet, a paper invoice, or a note in the record, and finance can’t see them next to the rental revenue.
Altru can schedule rooms and the equipment that goes in them, but scheduling something and charging for it are separate jobs. This guide covers how to tell what your setup can do, the workable ways to put resource charges on the books, and how to choose between them.
Scheduling a resource is not the same as billing for it
In Altru, a resource attached to an event or rental is mainly an inventory and conflict-checking tool. It tells you the projector is already booked for the board meeting and keeps two groups from claiming the same tables. Whether a resource can also carry a price that flows onto the client’s bill depends on how your organization has set up events, rentals, and pricing, and it isn’t something you should assume.
Before you design a process, confirm what your database actually does:
- Book a test rental in a sandbox or training environment with one room and one resource, then look at what lands in revenue. If the resource appears as its own revenue line with an amount, you have native resource pricing and the rest of this article is about tidying it up.
- If only the room fee shows up, the resource is being tracked for logistics only, and you need one of the workarounds below.
- If you don’t have a sandbox, ask Blackbaud support directly whether resource charges are supported for your configuration. Describe the exact scenario (a rental with billable equipment) rather than asking a general question.
Three ways to put the charges on the books
1. Separate price lines for each billable resource
Set up each chargeable item, such as chair rental, AV package, or extra cleaning hours, as its own priced item that staff add to the rental order. Depending on your setup, that might be a fee, a price type on the rental event, or a merchandise-style item. Each line can then carry its own revenue designation or GL mapping.
Good fit when: you rent the same handful of extras over and over and want reports that show how much AV or furniture revenue you bring in. Watch out for: staff adding the resource for scheduling and forgetting the matching price line. A short checklist on the booking form helps.
2. Bundled packages
Instead of itemizing, build tiered packages: “Garden Pavilion, basic” and “Garden Pavilion with AV and seating.” The resources are still scheduled individually so conflicts are caught, but the client pays one package price.
Good fit when: most rentals follow a few predictable patterns and your sales staff already quote packages. Watch out for: you lose visibility into which extras earn money, and one-off add-ons still need a home.
3. A single adjustable line or invoice for extras
Some teams keep one general “rental extras” item, enter the total for all add-ons, and list the details in the order notes or the signed contract. This is the fastest to set up and the weakest for reporting.
Good fit when: extras are rare or wildly varied. Watch out for: auditors and finance asking what that number covers. Keep the itemized quote attached to the constituent or rental record.
Decisions to make before you build anything
- Revenue coding. Ask finance whether equipment and labor charges should post to the same account as the room fee. That answer usually decides between itemizing and bundling.
- Tax. Equipment rental, labor, and space rental can be taxed differently depending on your state. Check with your accountant before you set up price lines, since changing tax treatment after the fact is painful.
- Deposits and balances. Decide whether the deposit covers only the room or a percentage of the full quote, including extras. Make sure staff know how to record a later payment against the same order so the balance stays accurate.
- Who adds charges after the contract is signed. Clients often add items the week before the event. Pick one person or role responsible for updating the order so late additions actually get billed.
- Nonprofit and member discounts. If members or partner organizations get reduced rental rates, decide whether the discount applies to resources too, and set it up the same way every time.
Checking that nothing slips through
Whichever method you choose, set up a simple monthly check. Build a query of rentals in the date range that have resources assigned, and compare it with the revenue tied to those rentals. Any rental with a projector scheduled but no AV charge is either a deliberate comp (note it) or money you forgot to collect. A few months of this comparison will show you whether the process is holding up or whether staff need a tighter booking checklist.
Also look at the reports your events or rentals team already runs. If the people setting up rooms work from a resource list, they’re the ones most likely to notice extras that were delivered but never billed. Give them an easy way to flag it.
Quick answers
Can I just raise the room price to cover equipment?
You can, but clients who don’t need the equipment end up subsidizing those who do, and you lose any way to report on equipment revenue. It works best when nearly every rental uses the same setup.
Should staff time, like security or custodial hours, be a resource?
Scheduling staff as resources helps prevent double-booking. Billing for their time follows the same options above: an hourly price line is usually the clearest for clients and finance.
