Bookings - Plugixa Car Rental

A booking is one car of one vehicle model, picked up at one location and returned at the same one or another, between two dates and times. Customers make bookings through the booking form on your site. Your staff can take one at the desk or over the phone.

Open the list from Bookings in the app’s sidebar. It is the first entry of the Bookings group.

The list

The newest booking is at the top. When there are none yet the list says “No bookings yet” and “Bookings made on your site and at the desk appear here.”

Column	What it shows
Reference	The booking reference, such as ADR-2026-0033.
Customer	The customer’s name, or their email when no name was given.
Vehicle	The model and, once a car is assigned, its plate: Fiat 500 · AA-21-BC.
Pickup	When the rental starts.
Return	When the rental ends.
Total	What the booking costs.
Status	The booking status, as a coloured chip.

Pickup and return in the list are shown on the site’s clock, from the timezone set in WordPress. The booking screen shows each end on its own location’s clock. See The booking screen.

Click a column heading to sort by it. Vehicle cannot be sorted. The number of rows on a page follows Records per page in the settings.

Search

The search box, “Search by reference, name, email or phone…”, matches the reference, the customer’s name, email and phone number.

Status

The Status menu at the top right narrows the list to one status. All statuses shows every booking again. A tile on the Dashboard can open the list with a status already chosen.

Filters

Filters opens a panel at the side. Add a field, choose how to compare it, and click Apply. A badge on the button counts the filters in force, and each one is shown as a chip above the list with a Clear all link.

Field	Kind
Status	One or more of the eight statuses
Pickup	A date
Return	A date
Model	One of your vehicle models
Vehicle	One of your cars
Pickup location	One of your locations
Created	A date
Modified	A date

Dates are compared on the site’s clock, so a booking picked up on the 31st is found on the 31st.

When nothing matches, the list says which part is responsible: “No records match your search.”, “No records match these filters.” or “No records match your search and these filters.”

Export CSV

Export CSV in the toolbar downloads the list as a spreadsheet file named bookings-<date>.csv. The file holds what the list shows: your search and the filters in Filters apply, and so does the Status menu at the top right, so filter first and export second. The search matches the reference, the customer’s name, email and phone number, as it does on the list. Bookings in the trash are left out. While the file is built the button reads “Exporting…”. If it fails, a message says “The export could not be produced.”

Column	What it holds
ID	The booking’s internal number.
Reference	The booking reference, such as ADR-2026-0033.
Status	The booking status, as stored: pending, confirmed, picked_up, returned, completed, cancelled, no_show or expired.
Customer, Email, Phone	The customer’s details.
Vehicle	The model’s name.
Pickup location, Return location	The location names.
Pickup (UTC), Return (UTC)	When the rental starts and ends, in UTC, not on the site’s clock.
Days	The days charged.
Currency, Total, Paid	What the booking costs and what has been received.
Payment	The payment status.
Booked (UTC)	When the booking was made, in UTC.

Good to know:

• Times are in UTC because a file has no desk to read a local time against, and two desks can be in two timezones. Lisbon is UTC in winter and one hour ahead in summer.
• A cell that starts with =, +, - or @ is written with a ' in front, so a spreadsheet shows it as text and never runs it as a formula. A customer cannot slip a formula into your file through the booking form.
• The file is UTF-8 with a byte order mark, so Excel shows names such as “Léa” correctly.
• One export holds up to 10,000 bookings. Narrow the list with a date filter to export more in parts.
• The other lists (locations, fleet, rates, extras, coupons and so on) have the same button, with the list’s own columns.
• The button needs the plugixa_car_rental_export capability, and the Export app in the App manager. Switch the app off and the button disappears from every list.

Row actions

Each row ends with Edit, which opens the booking. A booking is not edited field by field: its dates, car and price were set together when it was made, so the booking screen offers its next steps instead.

A Trash action appears only on a booking that is finished: Completed, Cancelled, No-show or Expired. See Trash.

Taking a booking at the desk

Click Create on the list. The New booking form works in three parts: where and when, then which car, then who.

Where and when

Field	Notes
Pickup location	Required.
Return location	“Leave empty to return where it was picked up.”
Pickup	Required. Date and time, “In the desk’s own local time.”
Return	Required. Must be after the pickup.
Driver’s age PRO	Shown when driver age rules are on. “Leave empty to skip the age check and surcharges.”
Delivery and collection address PRO	Shown when delivery is on.

Click Find vehicles. The form lists every published model with what the rental would cost, for example “7 days × €88,00” under a total of €642,40.

Line under a model	Meaning
“1 free”, “3 free”	How many cars of that model are free for those dates. Click the model to choose it.
“None free for these dates”	Every car of that model is booked, held, or blocked for maintenance.
“No rate for this rental length”	No rate covers this number of days at this location.
Another message	A rule refused this model, for example a minimum driver age PRO.

A model that cannot be booked is greyed out and cannot be chosen.

Who

Once a model is chosen, the rest of the form appears.

Field	Notes
Customer	The customer’s name. Optional.
Email	Optional, but it must be an email address if given. The confirmation email goes here.
Phone	Optional.
Notes	Internal notes.
Extras	One quantity box per published extra, with its price and “Per day” or “Per rental”. Shown when the Extras app is on and an extra is published. See Extras.
Coupon code	Shown when the Coupons app is on. “A code that does not apply is ignored; check the charges after saving.” See Coupons.
Confirm now (otherwise it stays pending and keeps its car)	Ticked by default.

Click Save. The booking opens on its own screen.

What happens on save

A desk booking goes through the same path as one made on your site:

1. The locations, opening hours and dates are checked.
2. Under a lock held for that model, the free cars are counted again and one is assigned. Two people booking the last car at the same moment cannot both get it: the second is told “Sorry, there is no car of this model free for those dates.”
3. The rental is priced on the server, from the rates, extras, coupon and, with Pro, pricing rules and tax PRO. The price shown in the list of models is never reused; it is worked out again under the lock.
4. The booking gets its reference and is saved as Pending.
5. With Confirm now ticked it is confirmed at once, and the confirmation email is sent. See Emails.

A car is assigned automatically: the free car of that model with the lowest odometer reading, so the fleet’s mileage evens out by itself.

Desk bookings follow the booking rules with two exceptions: Minimum notice and Booking horizon do not apply. Staff can book a car for an hour from now, or two years ahead. Opening hours, the shortest and longest rental, and the turnaround time between rentals do apply.

A desk booking left pending has no hold time. It keeps its car until somebody confirms or cancels it.

If a check fails, the reason is shown under the field it concerns, for example “The return must be after the pickup.” or “City Centre is not open at that pickup time.”

The booking screen

The reference is the title, and the status chip sits under it. The buttons at the top right are the booking’s next steps (see Statuses), followed by the invoice button.

Details

Field	Notes
Customer
Contact	Email and phone.
Vehicle	The model and the plate of the car assigned.
Rental days	The days charged, after the grace period.
Pickup, Return	Each on its location’s own clock, with the timezone, and the location: 2026-10-20 15:00 WEST · City Centre.
Held until	Only while a customer’s pending booking is held. See Held cars.
Payment	The payment status: Not paid, Partly paid, Paid or Refunded.
Deposit at pickup	The model’s refundable deposit, when it has one.
Notes	The notes, when there are any.
Your own questions	The customer’s answers to your custom fields, each under the label the customer saw.
Cancelled by the customer	When the customer cancelled from the customer portal: when, and the Fee charged.

Created and Modified are shown at the side.

Charges

The price lines the booking was made with: Item, Qty, Price and Total, then the booking’s Total. A line is written for the rental itself (“Tesla Model 3, 10 days”), each extra, an after-hours fee, a one-way fee, a coupon, and with Pro each pricing rule and tax PRO.

The charges never change after the booking is confirmed. A customer’s coupon can change the price only while the booking is still pending.

Payments

The Payments panel shows what has been Paid and what is Still owed, and every payment and refund recorded, with When, How, What and Amount. Record a payment records money taken at the desk, and Refund gives money back. The payment status on the booking is worked out from this record and is never typed in. See Payments.

Invoice

Issue invoice is offered on a booking that is Confirmed, Picked up, Returned or Completed. It issues the next invoice number and opens the invoice to print. Once issued, the button reads Invoice followed by its number, for example “Invoice INV-2026-00012”, and opens it. A booking that reaches Completed is invoiced automatically. With Pro, a PDF of the invoice PRO can be downloaded beside it. See Invoices.

Inspections PRO

With Pro, an Inspections panel holds the Pickup inspection and the Return inspection, each with Start. See Inspections.

Statuses

A booking moves through a fixed lifecycle. Only the next steps of its current status are offered.

Status	What it means	Buttons on the booking
Pending	Made, not yet confirmed. The car is kept for it.	Confirm, Cancel booking, Release hold
Confirmed	The car is the customer’s for those dates.	Hand over car, Cancel booking, Mark no-show
Picked up	The customer has the car.	Car returned
Returned	The car is back and free for the next customer.	Close rental
Completed	Fuel, damage and the final bill are settled. The rental is closed.	None
Cancelled	The rental is not happening.	None
No-show	The customer did not come for the car.	None
Expired	A pending booking that nobody confirmed in time.	None

Cancel booking, Mark no-show and Release hold are drawn in red, because they end the booking. They act at once.

• Once a car is picked up, the booking can no longer be cancelled. It is returned.
• Returned and Completed are two steps on purpose. The car is free from the moment it is returned; the rental is closed once the bill is settled.
• Cancelled, No-show, Expired and Completed are final. There is no way back. To take the same rental again, make a new booking.

What holds a car

A car counts as taken by a booking that is Confirmed or Picked up, and by a Pending one whose hold has not run out. Every other status leaves the car free. A blocked period on the vehicle, such as maintenance, takes it out too. See Fleet.

Around every rental the car also needs the Turnaround time from the booking rules, 60 minutes by default, before the next one can start.

Confirming

Confirm checks, under the same lock as a new booking, that the booking still has a car. If its hold ran out and its car was taken meanwhile, another free car of the same model is assigned. If none is free, the confirmation is refused: “The hold on this car ran out and it has been booked by someone else. Choose another car or other dates.”

Emails

The customer is emailed when a booking becomes Confirmed and when it becomes Cancelled, if it has an email address. No email is sent for the other steps. See Emails.

Cancelling does not refund anything. Record a refund in the Payments panel.

Held cars

When a customer chooses a car on your site, a Pending booking is made at once and the car is held for them while they enter their details. The hold lasts the Hold time in the booking rules, 15 minutes by default, and the form shows the countdown.

• Choosing Pay at pickup or Bank transfer confirms the booking.
• Choosing an online payment PRO keeps it pending and stretches the hold to 35 minutes, so the car cannot be lost while the customer is on the payment page. The booking is confirmed when the payment is recorded.
• A hold that runs out frees the car at that moment, for every search.
• An hourly task then moves the lapsed booking to Expired.
• A customer who clicks Choose another car on the details step gives the car back at once: the pending booking moves to Expired straight away and the car is free for every search.

A customer who finishes a minute after their hold ran out still gets the booking if the car, or another of the same model, is free.

Release hold on a pending booking expires it at once and frees its car.

The booking reference

Each booking gets its reference when it is saved: the Reference prefix, the site’s year, a dash and a four-digit number. With the default prefix CR- the first booking of 2026 is CR-2026-0001. The demo business uses ADR-, so its bookings read ADR-2026-0001 and on.

• The number comes from the booking itself, so references only grow and are never reused.
• The year is the site’s year, from the timezone set in WordPress.
• Changing the prefix affects new bookings only.
• The prefix takes letters, digits and dashes, up to 10 characters, and is written in capitals.

Set the prefix in Booking rules.

Trash

A booking can be moved to the trash once nothing more can happen to it: Completed, Cancelled, No-show or Expired. A pending, confirmed, picked-up or returned booking cannot: “Only a completed, cancelled, expired or no-show booking can be deleted. Cancel this one first.”

The Active and Trash switch at the right of the toolbar changes between live bookings and trashed ones. In the trash each row has:

• Restore, which brings the booking back. A trashed booking is always a finished one and holds no car, so nothing is checked.
• Delete permanently, which removes the booking and its price lines for good. A booking with a payment recorded against it is kept as a financial record: “This booking has payments recorded against it, so it is kept as a financial record. It can stay in the trash.” An issued invoice is never deleted.

Who can do what

Access is by WordPress capability. Activation gives all of them to the Administrator role and to no other. To let other staff in, grant the capabilities with a role editor plugin.

Capability	What it allows on bookings
plugixa_car_rental_view	See the list and the booking screen, and search for free cars.
plugixa_car_rental_create	Create a desk booking.
plugixa_car_rental_edit	The status buttons on a booking.
plugixa_car_rental_delete	Trash, Restore and Delete permanently.
plugixa_car_rental_export	Export CSV on the list.
plugixa_car_rental_manage_settings	The Settings screen, including the booking rules.

A user who holds any one of these can open the app. Buttons a user may not use are hidden, and the server refuses the action regardless.

What to do next

• Tune the hold time, turnaround and reference prefix in Booking rules.
• Record desk payments and refunds: see Payments.
• See what the customer goes through in the booking form.