Selling access permits: what JollyBee covers

An access permit gives a person the right to be on a community's land for a period: a season, a year or a single day. A trail network, reserve, conservancy or estate can sell all three on JollyBee, hand out numbered boards against the longer ones, issue gate codes to day visitors and have renewals and money handled in one place. This guide is the map. Each section says where a feature lives and links to the detailed guide where there is one.

Season and annual permits

A long permit is an offering with the access type Membership, created under Operations → Membership & Access Hub → Memberships & access → New offering. The Period model sets how long it lasts. Rolling runs a number of days from the day each person joins, Calendar year and Season use fixed dates, and One-off never expires.

The Billing label decides how the permit renews, so choose it with care.

• Monthly, Quarterly or Annual makes it a renewing membership. Each term runs from the day that member paid, automatic renewal is offered at checkout and renewal reminders are sent.
• Once-off makes it a fixed-date permit. It ends on the Year end or Season ends (last day) date, never renews automatically and gets no renewal reminders.

A Calendar year permit with an Annual billing label therefore runs for one year from each member's payment date, not to the Year end date. To end every permit on the same day, use Season, or Calendar year with Once-off. A Season permit closes its own sales after the last day and reopens them when the dates are moved to the next season. Permits already sold keep their end date.

Grace period (days) keeps access going for a set number of days after the end date. Create memberships and access offerings covers the rest of the form.

Numbered boards

A permit can come with a physical numbered board that the holder collects from a shop. In the offering's Collected boards section, set What the buyer receives to A numbered board, collected from a shop. These are the boards a rider carries. They are not the SnapScan payment boards at a trailhead, which belong to day visitors and are covered further down.

Stock lives under Operations → Boards. Collection points are the counters where boards are handed over, each with its own address and opening hours. A batch is one print run for one permit at one collection point, created from a first and last number or by pasting a list. Ticking These boards are already with members brings in boards that are already out in the world, so they are never sold again. A board on the shelf can be taken out of circulation with a reason and put back later, shelf stock can go to another shop under Move stock, and Warn when this many are left marks a batch that is running low. That warning is a badge in the console, not a message.

When the number is assigned has two settings. At sale holds a board for the buyer for 35 minutes while they pay, and they leave checkout knowing their number. At collection picks nothing online: staff assign whichever board they hand over, so the number on record is always the number on the board. Fee to choose your own number lets a buyer pick a free number for an extra charge. Leave it blank and nobody can choose. When a member renews sets whether a returning member is issued a new board or keeps the number they have, which works when that number is in stock at the shop they choose.

Staff hand boards over from Open the counter on the Boards page, which works on a phone. They find the person by name, board number, phone or email and press Handed over. Permits whose number is assigned at collection appear in a second list of people waiting for a board, with Give the next board or a number typed from the board in hand. Not in the drawer swaps a missing board for another in one step without touching the membership. Where someone paid to choose a number and nothing suits them, staff can ask for that fee to go back, and a different team member decides the request under Fee refunds. A board that is lost or damaged after collection is replaced from the batch list with Void & reissue.

The member is emailed their board number and where to collect it, or just where to collect when the number is assigned at the counter. The wording of these emails is fixed, and each one appears in the Message log under Communications.

Where a permit can be bought

Every permit is sold on the community's join page at /c/your-slug/join and in the community's web cart. A partner community can also carry a tile for it, described under partner networks below.

A permit that comes with a numbered board is sold only on those two web pages, because the buyer has to choose a collection point. The embeddable website widgets and the mobile app do not ask for one and refuse the sale, and the console's Sell a permit page is for day permits. A shop selling a board permit at the counter opens the join page with the buyer.

Day visitors and gate codes

A day permit needs no account. The visitor chooses a date, pays and receives a link to the permit. Gate codes belong to day permits: the visitor asks for the code from the permit page when ready to travel, and it is valid for the visit date. A holder of a season or annual permit is not sent gate codes by JollyBee.

Gates are set per venue under Operations → Locations & gate access: no gate, a code the community sets and changes itself, or codes issued through At the Gate. Day permits can also come from payments visitors already make, such as SnapScan at the trailhead, the community's own PayStack storefront, a counter sale recorded with Sell a permit under Operations → Day permits, or another booking system through the Partner sales API. Invite day visitors back after their visit sends one email a few days after a visit with the visitor's details already filled in.

The detailed guides are How day permits work, Set up day permits for your club, Gate codes with At the Gate, Checking permits at the gate and Permits sold on your storefront, SnapScan or at the counter.

Checking a permit on the ground

For a season or annual permit the numbered board is the proof a marshal sees. To find who holds a number, open its batch under Operations → Boards, where every board is listed with its state and its holder. The member's own digital pass, opened with Show digital card, states the permit, its status, the date it runs until, the board number and the networks that honour it. A day permit carries a QR code on its stub that opens a verification page on any phone.

Partner networks

Under Operations → Membership & Access Hub → Cross-listing, Honoured at lists the networks where a permit is accepted. A name is enough, since most partner networks will never have a JollyBee account. The names appear as "Valid at" on the permit's tile on the join page and in the board email, and on the member's digital pass.

Sold elsewhere asks another JollyBee community to show the permit on its own join page. The partner sees what will appear and has to agree, and either side can stop it. The tile links into the issuing community's own join page, so the sale, the money and the board all stay with the issuer.

Renewals and reminders

Automatic renewal is offered on every Monthly, Quarterly or Annual membership and is the member's choice. The offering form states this under Auto-renew starts on, and there is no switch for it in the console. A member who keeps it on pays by card, is emailed before each charge and keeps the same board and number.

The reminder schedule is set per offering with Send renewal reminders and Days before expiry, and with Send expired-notice messages and Days after expiry. Notices after the end date only reach members who are still inside the grace period, so set Grace period (days) at least as long as the last of those days. Fixed-date permits get no reminders at all, so announce the next season with a campaign once its dates are set.

Members cannot pay for the next term before the current one ends unless an early-renewal special is running. See Run membership specials and early-renewal campaigns. The member's side of renewal is in Renewing your permit or membership, which is written to be sent to members.

Money

Online payments run through JollyBee's PayStack account, and the community's share settles to the bank account connected under Admin → Settings → Integrations. Day permits sold through the community's own channels settle to the community directly. Whether a JollyBee fee applies to those sales is shown under Admin → Settings → Costs as Off-platform permit sales. Refunds for payments taken through JollyBee are issued from the Payments tab of the Membership & Access Hub, and a full refund returns an uncollected board to the shelf. In Reports, season and annual permit income is counted under Memberships and day permits under Day permits & passes.

Bringing an existing membership across

Members who already hold permits and boards can be imported from a spreadsheet with Import CSV under Operations → Membership & Access Hub → Members. The sheet can carry each person's permit, its expiry date, the board number they hold, the collection point and whether it was collected. The import page lists the exact column names. Add the board numbers to a batch first with These boards are already with members ticked, then import the people. Importing the same file twice is safe.

Team access

Teammates are added under Admin → Settings → Team as Admin or Owner. An admin can use every part of the console, including the counter, and can decide a fee refund that someone else raised.

Before opening sales

Make one test purchase and check four things. The date on the digital pass is the end date intended, which confirms the period model and billing label. Every collection point has opening hours and a batch with stock. The counter page opens on the phone the shop will use. And the payment confirmation page shows the right board number, or the right shop where the number is assigned at collection.