Not sure what a specific word means? This glossary provides definitions of terms that you might encounter while using the FareHarbor product, or in our help documentation.

A

Activity: The record of a change made in the Dashboard, including a timestamp and the name of the user who made the change.

Affiliate: Any company or individual that sells or refers people to your business. Affiliates can be set up to book through your FareHarbor Dashboard, and given specific permissions based on what you want them to access.

Affiliate rules: A feature that allows you to define time periods when affiliates can access availabilities and make bookings, thus limiting affiliate bookings during busy seasons. It proves particularly valuable for online travel agencies (OTAs) such as GetYourGuide, Viator, and others.

Afterpay: A Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payment method offered in Australia and New Zealand, allowing customers the option to pay for the bookings in installments.

Agent: An employee of an affiliate company, usually the one who entered or informed you about a new booking.

Analytics & tracking: Analytics & tracking can be used to interpret the traffic received on a website, allowing you to make decisions that may impact SEO and conversion rates.

API: An Application Programming Interface (API) is the method that will allow real-time bookings made by third parties to be updated into your FareHarbor Dashboard.

ASN: An affiliate shortname (ASN) is a tag used to track FareHarbor links or book buttons, such as a blog or hotel “Other Activities” page, so the affiliate can resell your activities online to their own customers.

Auto close: Defined by the Online Bookability settings, the cutoff time is when a booking will no longer be bookable online.

Availability: A specific date and time when an item can be booked.

Availability overview: The availability overview contains everything you need to know about a specific date and time on your calendar.

Availability updater: The availability updater allows you to make changes to multiple availabilities at once, across different items in your Dashboard.

B

Bancontact: The most popular online payment method in Belgium. Customers use a Bancontact card or mobile app linked to a Belgian bank account to make online payments that are secure, guaranteed, and confirmed immediately.

Bank debit: Money taken out of your bank account for invoices, refunds, or disputes. (Note: for US banks only.)

Block: A specified number of seats reserved on a given availability to be booked by an affiliate. If you use Seating Assignment, this term can also be used in reference to blocking seats on a seat map. When a seat is blocked, it cannot be booked.

Boca tickets: Theater-style tickets that customers can use for admittance to your events. They can be customized to use a QR code for scanning. (Note: A Boca printer is required to print these tickets.)

Bookability: Bookability settings determine the visibility and which method can be used for booking availabilities on a particular item.

Book form: The customizable interface used to collect customer information and create a booking. Book forms can be used by both online customers and logged-in Dashboard users.

Booking: A completed reservation made for a specific date, time, and activity. Bookings can be made online or directly into the FareHarbor Dashboard. See also: Booking overview.

Booking actions: Booking actions are located in the booking overview and allow a Dashboard user to perform various actions on a booking.

Booking comments: Comments are located in the activity log at the bottom of the booking overview. If your note doesn’t need to be visible at the top of a booking or in your manifest, you can add a comment instead of a booking note.

Booking flows: Organize items into categories or groups to help customers navigate through the online booking process. Booking flows can be embedded on websites as links, calendars, or buttons.

Booking ID: The ID number assigned to a booking when it’s created. This can help to identify a specific booking when looking at a report, or during a direct search for a particular customer booking.

Booking notes: Booking notes are located on the booking overview, directly under the payment summary, and are a good place to make note of important information or reminders. These notes are not sent to or viewable by customers.

Booking overview: The booking overview contains a complete summary of the entire booking, including customer contact information, payment details, check-in status, and any additional information from the book form, as well as booking actions.

Booking restrictions: Booking restrictions determine when and how customers can book your items online, and can be managed at the item or availability level.

Bookings section: The Dashboard section used to make direct bookings. From here, you can also view your availabilities and find existing bookings.

C

Calendar subscription: Subscribe to availabilities using a calendar program on iOS or Android devices, Google Calendar, or any app that supports the ICS format.

Campaign: Campaigns allow you to offer discounts to your customers, such as a seasonal coupon code or a Groupon deal. Campaigns are created with a set of promotional codes and added to a custom field, which is then priced and assigned to an item.

Cancellation notes: A written summary of your cancellation policy, included during booking and in all emails sent to your customers (except for follow-up emails). Customized cancellation notes can also be written for individual items.

Cancellation policy: A set of rules that allow you to control how bookings can be canceled by and refunded to certain customers. In addition to a default cancellation policy, you can also create separate policies for different items or affiliates.

Canned message: A canned message is a generic message that can be saved in your Dashboard’s settings and used later when emailing or texting customers. Canned messages are also used to set the text included in some automatic email and text notifications.

Capacity: Refers to the maximum number of people or tickets that can be booked on a specific availability. It can be adjusted for different customer types or set using resources.

Cart: See Online cart.

Check-in options: These options can be used to document and/or verify if your customers arrive for the tour or activity. The standard FareHarbor check-in options can also be customized according to your needs.

Code generator: A custom field that generates unique code(s) to be redeemed for a future booking. Codes are most commonly used for gift certificates, memberships, and passes.

Commission: The financial incentive that your company offers to an affiliate for bookings they make on your company’s behalf.

Company card: A credit card added to your Dashboard to manage affiliate and partner payments.

Conditional custom fields: The visibility of a custom field can be made conditional, meaning the field will only be shown when certain conditions are met.

Confirmation email: An email sent to a customer after a booking has been created for them. The confirmation email will always include important booking information, such as the date and time of the availability, the price of the tickets, and more. You can also choose to include additional information by updating the Confirmation notes at the bottom of the confirmation email.

Confirmation notes: Customizable text included in all confirmation emails, reminder messages, and rebooked emails sent to your customers. Confirmation notes can also be created for individual items.

Credit card authorization holds: A credit card authorization hold is the temporary blocking of funds on a customer’s credit card before a payment is processed.

Crew: A crew member is a Dashboard user assigned to one or more availabilities with an optional role, such as tour guide or boat captain. Assigning crew to availabilities allows you to keep track of schedules and send crew reminder notifications.

Custom calendar: A customized view of your Bookings section (using specific display options and filters) that can be saved for easy access later.

Customer types: Customer types define the types of people or options that can be booked for your activities, and determine pricing and capacity when selected during the booking process. They can be customized to fit specific activities and preferences.

Custom field: Customized questions or text fields that can be added to your book form. Custom fields can be private if needed, thereby only viewable by logged-in Dashboard users.

Custom field group: A specific set of custom fields most often created in an item’s settings, then applied to an entire availability.

Custom field logic: Conditional display logic that prevents a custom field from appearing until certain conditions are met.

Custom manifest: A customized view of your manifest using specific display options and filters, which can be saved for easy access later. Custom manifests can be assigned to users as their default manifest which will then be displayed when they view the manifest.

D

Dark mode: A display setting that applies a dark theme to the FareHarbor Lightframe.

Dashboard: The backend of FareHarbor, which requires a FareHarbor account and login to access. The Dashboard is an all-in-one system for your company to manage bookings, calendars, customer communication, settings, reports, permissions, and more.

Date range type: The date range type lets you filter report results by date. Options will vary based on type of advanced report. More information can also be found here.

Desks: If an affiliate operates in multiple locations, the location of an affiliate’s business can be tagged to a booking in FareHarbor to specify where the booking was made.

Deposits: A payment method customers can use to pay a specific portion of their total booking cost during checkout, and then pay the remaining balance at a later date.

Digital wallet: Digital wallets allow customers to link their credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts to an app or device, which can then be used to make purchases online. FareHarbor supports Apple Pay & Google Pay digital wallets.

Direct booking: A booking made through your Dashboard by logged-in users with a FareHarbor account. (For example, when a customer calls your office to make a reservation for an activity.)

Dispute: A dispute occurs when a credit cardholder registers a formal complaint against a merchant regarding a specific transaction. See our Dispute FAQs page for more information.

Drag to reorder: Drag the reorder icon to rearrange the organization of elements such as items, custom fields, and resources.

Duplicate: Save time by duplicating items and other elements instead of creating each one individually from scratch.

Dynamic pricing rules: Dynamic pricing rules allow you to set price schedule rules based on real-time factors, such as the number of customers booked, the amount of space left on an availability, or the time your customer is making their booking relative to an availability’s start time.

E

Embed generator: A tool within the Dashboard that generates a code that can be copied and pasted into your website, enabling you to embed FareHarbor calendars, items, and buttons on your website.

EMV chip card reader: A hardware device that allows you to process credit and debit card payments using Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (or EMV) cards. EMV cards (also known as chip cards) are inserted into a reader during a transaction, allowing data to be securely transferred using the small computer chip on the card.

External integration API: FareHarbor’s External API can be used by select tour and activity resellers to integrate your live availability on their websites and create bookings in real-time.

F

FareHarbor Compass: A destination for SEO tips, digital marketing resources, industry insights, and more to help your business thrive.

FareHarbor Connect: FareHarbor Connect allows you to instantly connect with local and industry-leading online travel agencies (OTAs) through a single contract. FHC partners are given access through the FareHarbor API to distribute your tours and activities via their platform.

FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN): The FareHarbor Distribution Network (or FDHN) is where you can partner with other FareHarbor businesses to resell each other’s tours and activities.

FareHarbor profile: A profile created for your company on fareharbor.com, which includes custom images, activity descriptions, social media links, and a full booking process for all of your items.

Flow page: A page that can be added to Booking Flows to further segment items.

G

Gift card: A digital gift card can be sent to the recipient via email. The email will contain a unique code associated with the card, which the recipient can then use to purchase any activity on the Dashboard it was purchased from. In contrast to gift certificates, gift cards do not expire.

Gift card design: A customizable way to make your gift cards more visually appealing and appropriate for your customers. For example, holiday, travel, or birthday themes can be added.

Gift certificate: A gift certificate contains a unique code, similar to a gift card, that a customer can apply to their purchase at the time of checkout. In contrast to gift cards, gift certificates can include an expiration date.

Google Analytics 4: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the next generation of user journey analytics across digital platforms. It provides insights into user behavior across multiple devices and platforms, including websites, and mobile apps.

Google Place ID: Google Place ID is used to uniquely identify your business in Google Places and Google Maps, and to show your Google ratings during the online booking process.

Google rating: An integration with Google allows Google Ratings to be displayed on the book form. It can help drive up conversion rates and allows customers to hear from others about their experiences with you.

Google things to do: Google things to do (TTD) is an integration that allows activities to be booked online through Google Search. By utilizing FareHarbor’s integration with TTD, companies can have the ability to display FareHarbor booking links directly on their Google Business Profile.

Groups: Groups are used to organize or join certain seats together. (For example: all the seats at a table or within a row.)

H

Headline: A note displayed next to the name of an availability on your calendar. A headline can be public, which is visible to anyone viewing your availability calendar (including online customers), or private, which is only visible to logged-in users on your Dashboard.

Health & safety policies: Your health & safety policies serve as an assurance to customers you’re taking careful measures to keep them safe, particularly during times when there are risks to the health of the general worldwide population. The policies you set up in the Dashboard will be shown to customers throughout the booking process.

I

iDEAL: An e-commerce payment system available for companies whose Dashboard processor country is the Netherlands and processing currency is the Euro. iDEAL allows customers to buy on the internet using direct online transfers from their bank account.

Invoice: An itemized bill of goods sold or services provided paid between you and an affiliate.

Item: The bookable tours, activities, or experiences your company offers.

Item Number: A unique identifier for an item. This number appears in the list of items (in Table Mode).

L

Ledgers: A ledger is an association between an item or availability and a specific bank account. Ledgers can make reporting, bookkeeping, and year-end taxes preparation both easier and quicker.

Lightframe: An intuitive and secure way for online customers to complete your entire booking process. When a specific button, item, or calendar is clicked, the Lightframe appears as an overlay on your website, so customers can browse and complete their reservation without leaving your site.

Line item: Expenses and discounts that can be used to adjust the booking total on a completed booking can be referred to as line items.

Locations: Adding locations makes it easy to include helpful information in customer emails, such as map links, directions, where to park, and where to check-in. Locations can be customized per item, ensuring customers always get the correct information for the activity they’ve booked.

Lodging: Refers to the hotel or other accommodation where a customer will be staying prior to attending your activity, allowing you to schedule a pick-up or have local contact information if the customer should be notified of a last-minute change.

Logo: A symbol or design used to identify a company or organization, as well as its products and services.

M

Manifest: A detailed list of your items, availabilities, and bookings for a specific day. Customize the information shown in a Manifest using filters, such as check-in status, the number of customers, etc.

Markdown: A simple way to add text formatting, images, or file attachments to messages and headlines.

Membership: The membership feature allows you to offer loyalty benefit packages, which can encourage customers to book more activities.

Mobile app: The FareHarbor mobile app is developed specifically for use on mobile devices, and is available for Android and iOS systems.

O

Online booking status: The setting that determines whether a customer can book an availability online.

Online cart: A shopping cart-type feature which allows customers to add multiple items and activities or tours to their order, and then checkout in a single transaction. See also Order.

Online user/online customer: A customer who books a tour, activity, or experience through your website.

Order: A group of bookings purchased at the same time by one person.

Outside user: A user on another FareHarbor Dashboard who you’ve approved to have access to your own Dashboard.

P

Partner: A company that has added you as an affiliate, enabling you to make bookings for them. See also FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN).

Payment links: Payment links allow you to send a link to your customers so they can make payments for underpaid bookings. Payment links can be included in emails or a booking confirmation page.

Payment Setup Checklist: The step-by-step process for setting up your bank account(s) to receive payouts.

Payment type: A method of payment you can define in your Dashboard, such as cash, credit or debit card, or check. Once set up, your payment types will appear as payment options for logged-in users who are creating bookings.

Payout: A daily deposit from FareHarbor to your bank account, consisting of the money you’ve made from charging credit cards.

PayPal: A worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. You can link your PayPal account to your FareHarbor Dashboard, giving your customers the ability to pay for their online bookings using PayPal.

Per-booking minimum/maximum: The minimum and maximum number of a specific customer type that can be included on an individual booking. This setting can be adjusted at both the item and availability level.

Permission group: Permission groups define what FareHarbor users can see and do in the Dashboard. By default, anyone assigned as an Owner, Admin, or Director in FareHarbor can assign or change a user’s permission group.

Pickup location: If you have transportation enabled, a pickup location is a specific place (usually associated with a particular hotel or lodging) where your customers can be picked up a certain amount of time before their activity starts. See also: Route.

Price previews: Price previews give your customers an easy way to see price ranges for the items they might be booking online without having to search in the item description or checkout page. If you have price previews enabled, they can be seen in item grid views, item description pages, and in the search by date view.

Price schedule: A set of price sheets and the rules that determine when they become effective. For example, a price schedule may be used to set up rules based on the time of year, such as during high season and low season.

Price sheet: A collection of prices, visibility, and settings that can be applied to your book form. You can create as many price sheets as you want, and specify which set of options to use in different scenarios, such as when you are entering a direct booking or when a customer is booking online.

Promo code: A code or set of codes that are added to a campaign in order to offer discounts to your customers. You can set up promo codes or have them automatically generated for you by FareHarbor.

Push notifications: A message sent to a user’s mobile device from the FareHarbor app that notifies them of activity in their FareHarbor Dashboard, such as when a new booking is made, or when crew members are added or removed from an availability, changes are made to a bank account, and more.

Q

QR scanning: Check your customers in by scanning the QR codes generated from their bookings. QR scanning can be enabled via the app, allowing for an easy check-in process. Available for Android and iOS systems.

Queuing: A method by which online customers are placed in a virtual line (a queue). When you expect a high demand for an event or activity, FareHarbor helps ensure your customers will have the best possible experience during the booking process by setting a maximum number of customers who can book the same item at the same time (a “threshold”).

R

Receipts: A printable record of the customer’s transaction. It can be customized to include booking details and other customer information, along with the payment summary.

Recent activity: Recent Activity acts as an audit trail, capturing actions performed in your Dashboard (such as changes made to items or user permissions). Recent activity includes the name, date, time, and specifics of each change.

Recent bookings: A quick way of seeing bookings made recently, recent bookings can be accessed via the clock icon in the top-right corner of the Bookings section. This can be a useful feature when you need to quickly access a specific booking, but do not have the booking number readily available.

Refund reserve: Money held in a bank account to be used for refunds. Transfers to the refund reserve can be made on a one-time or recurring basis.

Reports: Create fully customizable reports on your activities and bookings using data from your Dashboard, including Sales, Bookings, Customers, Custom Field Answers, and Expenses and Discounts data.

Resource: Anything (a guide, surfboard, kayak, etc) that can be used (and reused) by a particular activity. Think of it like tracking inventory for which equipment is in use and when it’s expected to return. See also: Shared Resources

Resource override: Resource overrides can be used to change a resource’s maximum uses for a specific day or timeframe.

Retail items: Items such as t-shirts or gift cards for sale, in contrast to a booking. Online customers will see ‘Buy’ buttons instead of ‘Book’ buttons when an item is set to retail.

Route: The list of pickup times and locations for a specific availability. You can create as many different routes as needed.

S

Search bookings: Search bookings via the search bar in the upper right corner of the Bookings section.

Search by date: Rather than looking for the dates of an activity’s availabilities, search by date for online bookings lets your customers choose a date from the calendar and see a preview of all activities offered for the day.

Seating assignment: Use the seating assignment feature as a customizable way to visualize and manage your bookable space.

Seat maps: Seat maps offer a customizable way to visualize and manage your bookable space. A seat map is made up of zones, groups, and seats, which can be used to represent different ticket types or pricing tiers. See also: Zones.

SEO: An acronym for search engine optimization.

Shared Resources: A feature that allows you to manage and track resources used for multiple activities in order to avoid overbooking.

Shortname: A shortened version of your company’s name that is used as a unique identifier in FareHarbor. The shortname usually comes from your company’s web address, and is also used during login and in the FareHarbor Dashboard URL.

SKU: An abbreviated, internal way of referring to items, custom fields, payment types, and other parts of your Dashboard. This comes in especially handy when viewing reports with many columns.

Smartwaiver: A digital waiver solution that can be integrated into your FareHarbor Dashboard. Using Smartwaiver allows customers to fill out a waiver or release form online, which will then be automatically added to their booking.

Sonar: Sonar allows logged-in users to see real-time updates in the Dashboard, without requiring a browser refresh or reload.

Source: Bookings can have one of three sources: online (usually booked by a customer), affiliates, or direct (made by a reservationist). You can view reports by booking source in order to see where your bookings are originating from.

Suggested items: Items organized in booking flows that are presented to the customer during checkout or in confirmation emails, based on their current purchase. The booking flows shown during checkout and those shown in the confirmation email can both be set at the Dashboard level.

T

Tap to Pay: Tap to Pay uses short-range wireless technology to make secure payments between a contactless card (or payment-enabled mobile/wearable device) and a contactless-enabled checkout terminal. Use Android or iPhone to accept Tap to Pay payments.

Tax Type: A tax rate that is labeled and given an individual name for easy identification when creating bookings. Multiple tax types can be used to support different rates and categories, such as an alcohol tax of 7% and retail tax of 4%.

Texting: Text messages (referred to as “SMS” in certain geographic areas) are a method of communicating with your customers. Send texts to customers directly from an availability. (You can also send a canned message text in order to alert all booked customers regarding the activity or booking.)

Translations: A function which allows multiple languages to be saved on a Dashboard. This can be used to translate Dashboard details without relying on automatic translations from the browser.

Transportation: An optional feature that allows you to set up detailed pickup locations and routes for customers based on where they’re staying. If using this feature, your book form will be set up to include specific questions related to lodging and transportation.

U

User: An individual with a FareHarbor account who has access to view and use a company’s Dashboard. The types of information a user can see or modify depends on their permissions, which are determined by their permission group (reservationist, manager, guide, director, etc.).

User notifications: FareHarbor users can subscribe to notifications at an item level. Notifications can be in the form of either an email or a push notification on a mobile device from the FareHarbor app.

V

Views: Multiple view options are available for availability and bookings calendar displays. For example, booking calendar views include month, grid, agenda, and timeline.

Vipps: A payment method used by customers in Norway that is connected to their bank account, credit or debit card.

Visibility: A setting that defines on which level a custom field or customer type can be viewed. This can be set for every individual price sheet.

Voucher: Affiliates can generate their own voucher to give to customers when reselling an activity, which can then be exchanged by the customer at the time of the activity. In an affiliate booking, the voucher number field will typically reflect the confirmation or reference number that the affiliate business produces for a customer’s booking.

W

Waiver: A liability release form completed by customers that is added to their booking. Smartwaiver and Wherewolf are FareHarbor’s waiver partners.

Webinar: A term used for online seminars. As a FareHarbor user, you have access to a library of free webinars and personalized training run by our team of experts. Live webinars are offered monthly and cover a wide variety of topics.

Wherewolf: A digital waiver, check-in, and guest management solution that can be used to automatically populate customers’ booking information into Wherewolf’s digital waiver and check-in app.

Whole-booking fields: In contrast with fields that are required for each individual on a booking, whole-booking fields apply to all customers in the entire booking. When multiple whole-booking fields are grouped together, it is called a custom field group.

Z

Zapier: An automation tool that enables the transfer of information from one platform to another. You can connect your FareHarbor account to your Zapier account using an API key, and based on booking actions (called “triggers”) determined by you, the booking data will automatically flow through Zapier to the third-party app.

Zones: Zones are often used to visually separate a seat map into sections using different colors. See also: Seating.