The booking diary for a Scout or Guide campsite. Every field and building holds one group at a time — and the database refuses to break that, not at half past nine on a Friday night, not ever.
Refused. 1st Ashdown asked for Top Field on Sunday the 17th. Hazelwood Guides already have it, so the booking never saved — campsite_no_double_booking stopped it in the database, not in a warning somebody can click past.
One group leaves Sunday morning, the next arrives Sunday afternoon, and both fit. A stay that runs over a weekend stays in one piece instead of being chopped in half at midnight.
Nights are counted the way you count them: a Friday-to-Sunday stay is two nights, and the day somebody leaves is free for the next group from the morning.
Put next season’s prices in this January and next season’s bookings use them. This season’s don’t — what a group agreed to was written down when they agreed it.
An invoice you’ve sent stays what you sent, even if you rename the campsite or correct a rate afterwards. If one is wrong, you credit it; both documents stand, and the numbers still add up.
Every figure here is one somebody agreed to. Nothing is recalculated behind you.
Your best bookings next spring are the groups who camped with you this spring. Campsite Manager knows who they are, which of them have already rebooked, and which have agreed to hear from you — so one email reaches exactly the ones worth asking.
Write it with pictures and a Book now button, greet everybody by name, put your logo on it, send yourself a test, then send it now or on the date you choose. Anybody can unsubscribe in one click, and they’re off straight away.
Who it went to
Local Scout or Guide group and Visiting Scout or Guide group customers who came between 1 Mar and 31 May 2026 and have nothing booked ahead.
Only people who said yes. Twenty-three groups matched and had agreed to marketing emails; the ones who hadn’t were never on the list.
A mailing-list service
Campsite Manager
Doesn't know who has camped with you, or when.
Picks out the groups who came this time last year and haven't rebooked — in one click.
A second list to keep in step: export, upload, repeat.
The list builds itself. People opt in on your enquiry form, your courses page or your own sign-up form.
Consent lives somewhere else from the booking it came with.
Every customer's consent is on their record: when, how, and the exact words they agreed to.
An old spreadsheet can quietly put back somebody who left.
Anybody who unsubscribed, or marked an email as spam, stays off — whatever gets imported.
Another subscription, priced by how many contacts you have.
Part of what you already pay. No per-contact price, and nothing to sign up to.
Record your staff and their qualifications and the schedule checks them — against the date of the session, not today. Short of instructors, outside the age range, ticket expired on the day it matters: flagged where you'll see it, not buried three screens down. Issue your own permits too, and say what they rest on: when somebody's first aid lapses, their archery sign-off stops covering a session, and the flag names the ticket that did it.
An enquiry is recorded but holds nothing, so two groups can ask about the same weekend. A provisional hold blocks the dates exactly as firmly as a confirmed booking, because that is what the word means.
Age range, how many at a time, instructor ratios, session length — and a floor a ratio can't express: never fewer than two instructors, however small the group. Nothing can run twice at once, and no instructor can be in two places.
A sixty-strong school splits into four groups of fifteen and rotates through four activities. Name the groups, pick the activities in order, say when it starts — and it builds the lot. Everybody takes a turn at everything, nobody's in two places, nothing runs twice at once, and anything clashing with what's already on is reported rather than forced.
Bonfire night, an open day, a family weekend: put it on an events page of its own with tickets you name and price yourself — Adult, Child, Family, under-5s free — and a family ticket counting as four places. People book and pay online, the last places can't be sold twice, the fields it uses are held, and every order lands on Owed with a link to pay. On the night, a volunteer ticks families in on their phone, sees who still has to pay, and the fire register counts them. When the car park moves, one message reaches everybody with tickets.
Run a course on any set of dates — one day, or three weekends — with a price per person for each kind of customer, a number of places and a minimum it needs to run. Each place is a booking, so deposits and online payments are the same as for a camp. Its sessions, instructors, fields and buildings are held and checked like everything else, day by day. List it on a public courses page of its own, separate from your availability, and people ask for places there; when it's full they go on a waiting list, and it tells you who is next when a place frees up. Email everybody booked in one go. Take the register each day on a phone, or on paper, and print a numbered certificate for everyone who completes. Medical details for the people on it are seen only by owners and leaders and deleted 30 days after it ends.
A tuck shop that knows who's camping. Ring up firewood, gas, badges or kit hire against a group's booking — on their bill or paid there and then — or sell to anybody walking in. Whatever's on their bill turns up on their booking and goes out as one itemised invoice, so the Sunday-morning "how much do we owe for the logs?" is already answered. Count the stock if you want to: deliveries in, the till takes sales off, a running-low list, and what each item actually makes.
Check groups in as they arrive and it asks how many actually turned up — a booking says 24 in March and 22 walk through the gate. Nothing checks anybody out automatically, because a group that stays an extra night would vanish from a date-based register at midnight with nobody told. A register that leaves people off is worse than one listing somebody who has gone, so it errs the safe way and says so. And when the wind gets up, one message from that page reaches every group leader on site.
A few days before each group arrives, in your words — where to park, which track to take, when the water is on. Write the gate code down by the weeks it changes and the right one goes in by itself, both of them when it changes mid-stay, which is the week somebody normally gets locked out. If no code covers their dates the email doesn't mention the gate at all rather than printing a blank. The day after they leave, another asks how it went — and the best of what they say can go on your public page, if they agree.
Publish a link showing what's free, night by night, without showing who booked it — or drop the whole calendar into a page of your own website, which takes one line of HTML and the Embed block your site editor already has. Accept an enquiry in one step — and it's refused if somebody took those nights meanwhile. Add your own questions to the form too — which district, how they're travelling, whatever you always end up chasing by email — short text, a number or a fixed list, never a box to write at length in. And when the weekend somebody wanted is taken, they can join a waiting list: if it comes free, the group that waited longest hears first.
A shortest and longest stay, the notice you need, days you don't take arrivals or departures, and which buildings are for which kind of group. The enquiry form turns those away with a reason and prints the rules above the calendar, so the wrong dates don't get typed in the first place. Inside, they only warn: the booking screen says which rule this one breaks, that the website would have refused it, and then lets you take it — because the District Commissioner's brother wants one night in the middle of your two-night minimum and the answer is yes. Turn on one more switch and an enquiry that breaks none of them, with a complete price, books itself in — nobody has to be at a keyboard for the answer to be yes.
Dates of birth, home addresses and emergency contacts are visible to owners and leaders only, enforced in the database rather than hidden on screen. Everyone else sees the rota, the tickets and the under-18 marker.
A weekend warden can have the diary and the rota without your prices, your customers' phone numbers or who's in arrears. Somebody taking bookings sees the rate card, because they have to quote one, but not the ledger. Your bookkeeper can have the money and nothing else. Each person starts wherever their level puts them, so most need no decision at all.
Camping per person per night, day visitors per person per day they came, evening visits at one flat rate for the section, buildings per building, activities per session — all varying by who's booking. If a rate isn't set the quote names the missing one rather than quietly charging nothing for it. Set a minimum charge and a small booking is topped up with its own line, never a total that just jumps; let an activity charge per person as well as per session and both show separately.
A deposit to hold the dates, a balance before they arrive, and an adjustment if the booking changes. You can't ask for more than the booking is for — two live payment links adding up to more than the total is money taken twice, an apology and a refund. Every invoice and credit note exports to a spreadsheet for Xero, QuickBooks or your treasurer, or connect either one and they get sent across the moment they're issued, so nobody retypes them.
Put your account name, sort code and account number in once and they are on every invoice, in the invoice email, and on the page the group opens — with your booking reference in the same little table, because a transfer that arrives with no reference is money you can’t match to a booking. Connect your own GoCardless account, your own Stripe account, or both, and the same invoice also carries a Pay online button — by bank transfer, by card, whichever you've turned on — with the money going straight to your own account. We take no commission on either — not a percentage, not a booking fee, nothing; only GoCardless or Stripe's own published rate per payment, which is theirs, never ours. A payment charged back later takes itself off the booking again.
Donors make their declaration from a link, or you record a paper one. Every donation shows whether Gift Aid can be claimed on it and why not if it can't, and a claim comes out in the column order of HMRC's schedule, so nothing gets claimed twice. Booking systems sell to businesses; a Scout campsite is usually a charity.
Everything unpaid, sorted by when the group turns up, because money is very much harder to collect once the field is empty again. Bookings nobody has priced are listed too — not as £0 owed, which would be an invention, but as the gap they are.
Say abseiling takes a harness each and one tent goes between four, and the schedule warns when a session hasn’t got enough — counting everything else running at that hour, because six on abseiling and six on climbing are each fine alone and between them want twelve harnesses you haven’t got. Kit that is broken, retired or out on loan isn’t counted. It warns rather than refuses: the school may be bringing its own, and only you know that. Lend things out against a booking, take a stock take that saves as you go, print a QR label for the crate.
Gas, fixed wiring, fire alarm, emergency lighting, legionella, tree surveys, play equipment — tracked with their due dates and a dated record of every check. One button prints the lot for an inspector or an insurer. Each suggested interval says whether it comes from law, a standard, guidance or ordinary practice, because for several of them the law sets no interval at all.
Plan a work weekend, share a link, and helpers put their names down without an account — they get the details, a reminder the day before, and a way to say they can't make it. Afterwards tick who came and their hours fill themselves in, so the total a grant form asks for is already added up.
A week before a session and again the day before, naming the group and the numbers. Or give somebody a calendar link once and their sessions appear in their own calendar for good. Volunteers shouldn't have to log in to find out they're on Saturday. If you want, they can pick up what's short themselves — or freelancers who don't work for you at all, from a link you share that shows the work and nothing about the group. And if you don't want any of that, the rota stays yours alone, which is how it starts.
Six weeks before a qualification expires, again a week out, and on the day. Renewing an NGB ticket means finding a course and a free weekend, so a week's notice is no notice. One message however many are due, and each reminder sent once.
One fee a year, set by how much you take in bookings. You keep every penny groups pay you — we never sit in the middle of it.
Under £15,000
£120
a year
£15,000 – £39,999
£220
a year
← you’re here
£40,000 – £74,999
£380
a year
£75,000 – £149,999
£580
a year
£150,000 or more
£850
a year
Bands are on your own booking revenue, and you tell us which one you’re in. We never take a percentage and we never touch your money — groups pay you by bank transfer, or by Direct Debit through your own GoCardless account, connected inside Campsite Manager.
If you use GoCardless, their charge is 1% + 20p per payment, capped at £4 — paid by you to them, not to us. Campsite Manager takes nothing from it, and bank transfer costs neither of us anything.
| Fixed fee | Booking commission | Total a year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campsite Managerone bill a year | £220 | never | £220 |
| Online Scout Manager1.5–2% of everything you take | none | £544 | £544 |
| Checkfront£99 a month, plus 3% of the 50% taken online | £1,188 | £450 | £1,638 |
| Cinolla£360 a month per centre | £4,320 | none | £4,320 |
At £30,000 of bookings you’d pay £220 a year and keep every penny groups pay you. The next cheapest option costs £544. Between them, the others would take £994 out of your booking income in commission. We take none of it, at any size, ever.
| A year | How it’s charged | |
|---|---|---|
| Campsite Manager | £120–£850 | Flat, by your size. No commission, ever. |
| Online Scout Manager | 1.5–2% | Commission on bookings, plus card fees |
| Checkfront | £1,188 | £99 a month, plus 3% on online bookings |
| Cinolla | £4,320 | £360 a month per centre |
Other companies’ prices are their own published figures, read from their websites on 10–11 September 2026, and may have changed since — please check them. Card processing fees are excluded throughout; they apply to anyone taking payment for you and not to us, because we don’t.