What to do when the field is a swamp on Saturday morning

What does the control do, and what does it refuse to decide?

It is on the day, under "Move or cancel". Before you press anything it puts the two facts you need in front of you: how many bookings the day is holding and how much money is sitting on them — what has been paid, less what has already gone back, not a list price times a headcount. Pressing it takes the day off sale, so nobody buys an entry to a swamp while you are on the phone to your gate staff.

What it will not do is make the call. There is no weather provider anywhere in bindro: nothing watches a forecast, nothing closes a day on its own, and the decision at seven in the morning is still made by somebody standing at the edge of the field. The software's job starts once you have decided.

A day that already has bookings will not go until you tick to say you know that, and the whole thing is written to the audit trail with your name on it.

What happens to three hundred families' money?

One choice, applied to all of them: refund everybody to the card they paid with, give everybody a credit to spend on another visit, or keep their booking for a day you will offer them. Nothing is preselected — you have to pick — and there is a fourth option that moves no money at all, for the morning where you have closed the day but not yet decided the rest.

Moving the money is a different permission from closing the day. A manager can close it and can keep everyone's booking for a rearranged date; refunding or crediting needs an owner or your finance role. Worth knowing before October rather than at seven on the Saturday.

Visitors can also refund themselves in full from the link in their confirmation until the moment their slot starts, and on a bad forecast many will have done so before you get to your keyboard. Those bookings have nothing left to give back and the settlement passes over them.

How do I tell the people who booked for today?

Tick "email every visitor who booked" when you close the day, and each of them is written to once — one mail per person, not one per booking — after the money has actually moved, saying which of the three things happened to theirs. That is the only bulk message bindro sends: there is no general "message today" control, so anything else still goes out from your own mailing tool, off the day's export.

Post it publicly too. Most of the people who booked for a wet Saturday check Facebook before they check email, and your hosted visit page is the link to put in that post because it is the one that always tells the truth about what is on sale.

What can the settlement still not do?

It is one policy for the whole day. A goodwill gesture to the family who drove an hour anyway is still a refund of their order, on its own, from the console.

You cannot move somebody to next Saturday. There are no transfers and no date changes in this vertical, so "come next weekend instead" is either the keep-their-booking option — which holds their place for a day you then offer them — or a refund now and a booking they make themselves later.

What can I set up in advance so the next one is cheaper?

Most of the cost of a washed-out day is in decisions you have not made yet. Write the policy once, put it on your own site and in your confirmation copy, and the morning becomes execution rather than argument.

• A written weather policy that matches what bindro can do, and says which of refund, credit or a rearranged day you apply — the control makes you choose one.
• Agreement on who is allowed to press it: refunding in bulk needs an owner or finance, and that person has to be reachable on a Saturday morning.
• A saved export and a ready-to-edit email in whatever tool you already use, for everything the cancellation mail does not cover.
• A visit per weekend rather than one for the season, which keeps a bad Saturday from being tangled with six good ones.
• A decision rule for closing — pitch condition, wind, car park — so the call is made at seven, not at ten.