Neighbourhood house booking software.
Room hire and program sign-ups in one system — with bonds, certificates of currency, GST invoicing and your own website. Built for neighbourhood houses, neighbourhood centres and community houses running a full timetable on a small team.
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ProgramSupported playgroupTue 9.30am · Activity Room
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ProgramEnglish conversationTue 1pm · 11 of 14 places
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ProgramCommunity lunchWed 12pm · Main Hall
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Room hireYoga · private hireWed 6pm · Activity Room
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WaitlistComputer skillsThu 10am · Full · 2 waiting
A house runs two businesses at once.
Most neighbourhood houses (community houses) hire rooms out and run their own programs. Those usually live in two different places — a room diary and a paper enrolment list. LemonBooking runs both off one calendar.
Room hire
The activity room on Wednesday evenings, the main hall for a birthday, the meeting room for a support group. Publish what is free, take the booking online, hold a bond and collect the certificate of currency before you approve it.
- Different rates for community groups and private hirers
- Refundable bonds, returned automatically
- Certificate of currency required before approval
- Regular hirers invoiced monthly in one run
Programs & classes
Your own timetable — playgroup, English conversation, computer skills, craft group, community lunch. Participants browse and sign up online, pay by card or be invoiced, and the places count themselves.
- A capacity limit per class, with automatic waiting lists
- Sign up for a whole term or a single session
- Free and subsidised places alongside paid ones
- Participant lists you can print or export
Stop chasing certificates of currency.
Ask for the certificate on the booking form itself and make it required — the booking cannot be submitted without one. It is stored against the booking, so you can find it again when your own insurer or your committee asks.
- Required file upload for public liability cover.
- Ask a casual hirer for more than a regular group — each booking form has its own questions.
- Conditional questions, so catering or a jumping castle triggers its own follow-ups.
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Certificate of currency*public-liability-2026.pdf Attached
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Refundable bond$200
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I have read and accept the conditions of hire
Program sign-ups that count themselves.
Publish the term timetable and let participants sign up online. Each class carries its own capacity, so it closes when it fills and the next person joins the waiting list — instead of the coordinator holding the numbers in her head.
- Capacity limits and automatic waiting lists.
- Term-long or single-session sign-ups, paid or free.
- Ask what you need at sign-up — access needs, emergency contact, interpreter.
| Program | Places | Term fee |
|---|---|---|
Supported playgroup Tuesdays · 9.30am |
8 / 12 | Free |
English conversation Tuesdays · 1pm |
11 / 14 | $40 |
Computer skills Thursdays · 10am |
Full · 2 waiting | $60 |
Craft group Fridays · 10am |
6 / 10 | $25 |
Tax invoices, with or without GST.
If you are GST-registered, invoices come out as valid tax invoices with GST shown on the lines where it applies. If you are not registered, GST never appears — there is nothing to switch off and nothing to explain to a hirer.
- Your ABN and ACNC registration on every invoice.
- Invoice every regular hirer for the month in a single run.
- Push straight into Xero — a certified integration — or QuickBooks.
Activity Room 4 × Wednesday evening |
$160 |
Main Hall 1 × Saturday afternoon |
$100 |
Numbers for the acquittal, not the shoebox.
Funding bodies want participant counts, room usage and income. Pull them for any date range and export to CSV, rather than reconstructing a year from a paper diary the week before the report is due.
- Participants and sessions per program.
- Room occupancy and income per space.
- CSV export for the committee or the funder.
Built for a small team and a lot of volunteers.
Most houses run on a coordinator, a part-time administrator and a roster of volunteers. Give each of them exactly the access they need — and nothing they do not.
Full access — bookings, programs, invoices, payments and the website.
Takes bookings and raises invoices, without reaching system settings.
View-only — can check what is on today without seeing payment or participant records.
It runs in a browser, so there is nothing to install on the office machine and nothing for a volunteer to set up at home. Everyone signs in to the same calendar.
Customer review from Trustpilot
“Lemon booking is really useful software that has revolutionised the way we manage our facilities. We have increased our bookings and hence our revenue covering the cost of using Lemon Bookings.”
Frequently asked questions
Anything we haven't covered, drop us a line.
Can one system handle both room hire and program sign-ups?
Yes. Room hire and programs run off the same calendar, the same customer list and the same set of accounts. A yoga teacher hiring the activity room on Tuesdays and a participant signing up for a term of English conversation classes are both bookings, so there is one place to look when you need to know who is in the building.
Can participants enrol in a term of classes and pay online?
Yes. Publish your program timetable and participants sign up online for the classes they want, paying by card at sign-up or being invoiced. Each class has its own capacity limit, so it closes once it is full and the next person joins a waiting list automatically.
Can we make hirers upload a certificate of currency?
Yes. Add a custom question to the booking form that asks the hirer to upload their certificate of currency for public liability, and make it required so the booking cannot be submitted without one. The file is stored against the booking, so the coordinator can check it at approval and find it again later.
Can we take a bond and refund it after the hire?
Yes. Set a refundable bond per space, take it with the hire fee, and return it automatically once the booking is over. Nothing sits on a spreadsheet waiting for someone to remember it.
Do invoices show GST correctly if we are not registered?
Yes. If you are GST-registered, invoices are valid tax invoices with GST shown on the lines where it applies. If you are not registered, GST simply never appears — there is nothing to switch off. Invoices can carry your ABN and ACNC registration.
Can we report usage figures back to our funder?
Yes. Reports cover bookings, participants, room occupancy and income across any date range, and export to CSV — so the numbers a funding acquittal asks for come out of the system rather than being reconstructed from a diary at the end of the year.
Is it manageable for a small team with volunteers?
Yes. Give volunteers a view-only or limited role so they can check the calendar and take a booking without reaching payments or participant records, and keep full access for the coordinator. It runs in a browser, so there is nothing to install on the office machine.
Put the room diary and the enrolment list in one place.
30 days free. No card required. We help you set up your rooms, your rates and your first term of programs, so you are not starting from a blank page.
Related pages
The wider community venue picture — regular hirers, invoicing and your own website.
If your house sits on council land or your council runs several sites.
Calendar, booking forms, invoices and payments — in one place.