Event booking software for UK venues: function rooms, Christmas parties and one diary

What a venue booking system has to do for a UK function room

Most function rooms in the UK still take bookings the same way: a phone call or a web form, a look at a paper diary, a pencilled name and a promise to send details. That works until two members of staff pencil the same Saturday, or until the details email goes out three days later and the customer has already booked the pub down the road.

A booking system earns its place when it does four things in order. It records the enquiry with the date, numbers and budget. It shows at once whether the room, and any room that shares a bar or an entrance, is free. It lets you hold the date provisionally with an expiry, so the diary does not fill with dead pencils. And it turns that hold into a confirmed booking the moment the deposit lands, with the quote, the menu choice and the timings attached.

Speed matters more than polish. People planning a leaving do or a fortieth usually send the same enquiry to several venues in one evening, and the venue that replies first with a real price and an available date tends to win it. If your system cannot produce a quote from a phone at the bar, the fastest reply will still come from somebody else.

What to test in a demo before choosing event booking software in the United Kingdom

Multi-room and multi-venue diaries: one date, several spaces

A hotel with a ballroom that splits in two, a pub with an upstairs room and a garden, or a group with three sites all have the same problem: the date is not one thing. Selling the whole ballroom blocks both halves; selling one half leaves the other free; selling the garden for a barbecue may close the side door the upstairs room relies on.

Multi venue booking software should let you describe those relationships once and then enforce them, rather than relying on staff to remember them on a busy Friday.

• Rooms that combine: booking the whole blocks the parts, and booking a part blocks the whole.
• Shared resources: one bar, one dance floor or one PA system can only serve one event at a time.
• Turnaround time: a lunch and an evening party in the same room need a gap for resetting.
• Several sites in one view: a group should see every room at every site for a date before quoting.
• Provisional holds per room, each with its own expiry, so one slow customer does not block the whole building.

Sample booking quote: Christmas party in a Manchester function room

Friday Christmas party for 80 guests from one company, exclusive use of the first floor function room, three-course festive menu and a DJ. Prices are illustrative.

• The room is supplied with food, drink and entertainment, so the whole package is standard rated rather than exempt room hire.
• Menu pre-orders due 14 days before the party; final numbers 7 days before, charged on the guaranteed count after that.
• A refundable damage deposit, if you take one, belongs on a separate line outside the party price.
• Illustrative prices only; replace them with your own packages.

Christmas party season: group bookings, set menus and pre-orders

For many UK venues, the Christmas party run from late November to just before Christmas is the busiest stretch of the year, and it is where a weak booking process costs the most. Two kinds of booking arrive at once. Exclusive parties take a whole room for one company. Shared party nights sell tables of eight or twelve into a room that several groups fill together.

Both need a per-head deposit to secure the date, a deadline for menu pre-orders, and a cut-off for final numbers after which the venue charges for the guaranteed count. Shared nights also need the system to count covers across every group, so the room is not oversold. If those deadlines live only in an email thread, the kitchen finds out about the twelve vegetarian mains on the day.

Room hire VAT: when the booking is exempt and when it carries 20%

HMRC treats hiring out a hall or room for meetings or parties as an exempt licence to occupy land, as long as you supply only the space, with incidental use of things like lighting, furniture and the kitchen. VAT Notice 742 gives this as an example of an exempt supply, unless you have opted to tax the property, in which case the hire becomes standard rated.

The exemption falls away once you do more than supply the room. The same notice says wedding facilities are not a licence to occupy land, and that party facilities are excluded where the supplier does more than provide accommodation, for example by arranging the catering or the entertainment. A Christmas party with food, drink and a DJ is therefore a standard rated package at 20%, not exempt room hire with extras on top.

Deposits follow the booking. VAT Notice 700 says VAT is due on deposits that are part payment for a supply, so a booking deposit for a standard rated party carries VAT when you receive it. A refundable damage deposit that only secures the safe return of the room is a different thing and should sit on its own line. Your accountant should confirm how your venue is set up, especially if you have opted to tax.

How to choose venue booking software in the UK

Searches for venue booking software return four different kinds of product. Decide which kind of booking you take most often, then compare tools within that kind.

Pubs and restaurants that mainly take table bookings and sometimes hire out a room often start with their table system. Venues that sell the room itself, for parties, weddings, wakes and meetings, usually outgrow it, because table tools are built around covers and time slots, not around holds, deposits and event sheets.

Where Venura fits for a UK pub, hotel or function room

Venura is venue and catering software that keeps the booking diary, quotes, invoices and payments in one place, on the web, Android and iOS. It shows provisional and confirmed bookings by room with double-booking warnings, builds quotes and invoices with your own VAT lines so exempt room hire and standard rated catering can sit apart, records deposits and balances against each booking, and shares documents by email or WhatsApp.

It is honest to say what it does not do. Venura does not take card payments itself, does not connect to payment gateways or accounting software, and does not run public table booking or ticket sales. Venues that rely on online table booking usually keep that tool for the restaurant and use Venura for function hire. There is a free 30-day trial, and pricing for UK venues is quoted on request.

Event booking software questions from the United Kingdom