Booking Buffers in Online Booking

Created by Jorrit at BRM, Modified on Tue, 5 May at 8:50 AM by support team

Booking Buffers are extra time added between two rental bookings.

For example, if a bike is booked until 1 PM and a 60-minute buffer is set, that same bike will only be available for online booking again from 2 PM onwards.

They help your team prepare the bike for the next customer after it has been returned

• Prevents last-minute rush
• Allows safety checks
• Time to clean equipment
• Charge e-bike batteries
• Prepare deliveries & returns
• Keeps rentals ready on time
• Improves customer experience

For all of these situations, Booking Buffers are a simple and effective solution — and they’re easy to enable and set up in BRM.

How to Enable Booking Buffers?

Go to Settings → Features and Customization
Toggle the switch for Booking Buffers and click Save

Setting the Online Rental Buffer

You can configure your buffer time at the Product Family (PF) level by navigating to:

Inventory → Add / Manage Items

Simply enter the number of minutes required to prepare each bike for its next rental — whether that’s time for cleaning, safety checks, charging, or delivery prep.

Examples:

Road Bikes: 1-hour buffer for cleaning and safety checks

E-bikes: 8-hour buffer to allow for a full battery charge

If you use multiple Product Families, you can also set the buffer more easily under:
Settings → Product Compatibility

The buffer always runs in real time - it keeps ticking even while your store is closed. Whether it carries into the next trading day depends on whether it fits inside the overnight closure.

If the buffer is shorter than the overnight closure, it elapses entirely during closed hours and the bike is ready as soon as you open the next day.
If the buffer is longer than the overnight closure, the remainder carries into the next day and continues to block availability until it runs out.

For example, imagine a bike comes back at 6pm with a 4-hour buffer set for cleaning and inspection. Your store closes at 7pm, so most of the buffer falls during closed hours - and by the time you open in the morning, it's long elapsed. The bike is ready for the day's first hire from the first open hour.

Now compare that with a 24-hour buffer, perhaps for a full service between rentals. If the bike comes back at 11am, the buffer runs until 11am the following day. Even though your store has been open for several hours by then, the bike won't reappear in availability until 11am because the buffer hasn't fully elapsed.