Tempo docs

One page, the whole thing — getting started, common questions by topic, and switching from another tool.

If something here is out of date, the app is right and the page is behind. Tell us so we can fix it: hello@usetempo.net.

• Getting started
• Inventory
• Staff and instructors
• Schedules and capacity
• Payments
• Customers and guests
• Common questions
• Switching from another tool

Getting started

A working Tempo setup in 30 minutes. This section walks you from signup through your first real booking, in the order most hostels do it. Every step is skippable — come back to anything later from Settings.

You don't need a credit card. You don't need to import anything. You don't need to read this whole page before starting — but it helps to know where you're going.

What you'll have at the end

• A workspace with your business name, location, and the activities you actually run.
• Your equipment list (or your first 3–5 items, enough to demo the flow).
• At least one instructor or guide on the roster.
• Your waiver text reviewed.
• One real booking in the system.
• A public booking page live at usetempo.net/your-slug, ready to share.

That's enough to use Tempo for real. Everything else (multi-user team, public-page customisation, notification templates, billing setup, online payments) layers on top.

Before you start

You'll move faster if you have these to hand:

• A list of your equipment (boards, bikes, snorkels, whatever you rent) — name, category, daily rate.
• Your instructor / guide list — names, contact, what they cover.
• Your current waiver text — paste-ready in a doc or email.
• Your hostel logo as a PNG or JPG (optional — the page works without it).

If you don't have all of this, that's fine. The signup is short and you can fill the rest in as you go.

Step 1 — Sign up (~1 minute)

Go to usetempo.net. The signup form is one screen, five fields:

• Business name
• Your full name
• Email + password
• Country (full alphabetical dropdown)

Currency defaults from your country. Default interface language defaults from your browser. Both are editable from Settings → Workspace post-signup. City and phone aren't asked at signup; they're optional fields you can fill in later.

Every customer is automatically on the single $23/month flat plan — no operating-size question. You're not paying yet either: the trial is 14 days, no credit card.

Submit. The workspace creates, you're signed in, and you land directly on the Dashboard with a 14-day trial countdown in the sidebar. The dashboard is empty — no sample data, no demo content. Your booking-page URL usetempo.net/{your-slug} is auto-generated from your business name; rename it later from Settings → Workspace if you want.

Step 2 — Add your equipment (~10 minutes)

From the sidebar: Operations → Equipment → Add equipment.

For each item:

• Name / label — what your team will call it ("Yellow 7'2 fish," "Bike #4," "Snorkel set 12").
• Category — Surfboards, Bikes, SUP, Snorkel sets, etc. The full Tempo category list is available; pick whichever fits.
• Activity — what it's used for.
• Specs — category-specific. Boards get type + length. Bikes get frame size. Snorkels get fin size. Skip the fields that don't apply.
• Starting condition — Excellent / Good / Fair / Poor.
• Daily rate — and optionally hourly / half-day / multi-day / weekly tier rates (or set hostel-wide defaults later).

Add rental add-ons (wetsuits, leashes, helmets, locks, fins, roof racks) as a separate inventory class — Operations → Equipment → Add-ons. Add-ons attach to any rental during the New Booking flow.

Tip for the demo run: add 3–5 of your most-rented items first. You don't need the whole inventory before you can take a real booking. Backfill the rest later.

If you don't rent equipment (e.g. you only run guided hikes or yoga), skip this step entirely. Activities don't require an equipment list.

Step 3 — Add your instructors and guides (~5 minutes)

From the sidebar: Operations → Instructors → Add instructor.

For each person:

• Name and at least one contact (phone or email).
• Role tag — instructor (skill-teaching) or guide (experience-leading). Both is fine.
• Preferred student levels — beginner / intermediate / advanced (used for lessons; ignored for activities).
• Activities or equipment categories they cover.
• Languages spoken (optional).
• Schedule — recurring weekly hours, or flag them as on-demand. If they're seasonal or freelance, on-demand is the right call.
• Track certification toggle — off by default. Turn it on only if you want to capture cert body + number + expiry. Most informal arrangements skip this.

If you want them to access their own Tempo portal (see their schedule, edit availability, flag a sick day), tick Invite to portal when saving — they get an email invite to set their own password.

Step 4 — Review the waiver template (~3 minutes)

From the sidebar: Settings → Waivers.

Tempo ships a generic template. Replace it with your own — paste your existing waiver text, hit save. The template carries through to every booking. Customers sign once per template version; if you edit the template, they re-sign once at their next booking.

For minors, the template auto-flips to a parental-consent variant when the customer's age is under 18. One adult signature can cover multiple minors on the same booking — useful for families and school trips.

If you don't have a waiver yet, the default is a starting point — but get a real one written and reviewed (locally) before you take real bookings.

Step 5 — (Optional) invite your team (~2 minutes)

From the sidebar: Settings → Team → Invite teammate.

Two staff roles:

• Admin — full access. Settings, billing, team, audit log, all ops.
• Staff — day-to-day ops. Bookings, equipment, instructors, customers, waivers, dashboard. No settings, billing, team write, or audit log.

Enter their email and pick the role. They get a tokenised invite, set their own password, and land in the workspace. You can change roles or remove people any time.

Instructors and guides are invited separately, into their own slim portal — that's not a workspace role. See Step 3.

You can skip this and run solo — many hostels do for the first month.

Step 6 — (Optional) connect Stripe Connect Express (~5 minutes)

From the sidebar: Settings → Payments → Connect Stripe.

If you want guests to pay online when they book on your public page, this is where you set it up. Stripe walks you through identity verification (KYC, ~5 minutes, all on Stripe's side). Once connected, every guest payment lands directly in your own Stripe account — Tempo never holds it and takes no cut.

You can skip this entirely. The public booking page still works — guests submit their booking and you collect payment on arrival. Connect Stripe later, any time.

Step 7 — Take your first real booking (~3 minutes)

Click New Booking from the sidebar or the Dashboard quick action. Walk through:

1. Who — search for an existing customer (or create one inline). Required: first name, surname, and at least one contact (email or phone). Everything else is optional.
2. What — Rental, Lesson, Activity, or any combination.
3. When + format — date, time, duration tier (rental) or private/shared (lesson) or activity slot.
4. Equipment + add-ons (rental + lesson) — pick from the smart-ordered list. Items that match the customer's profile rise to the top with a "recommended" badge.
5. Instructor / guide (lesson + activity) — only people available at that time appear. On-demand instructors carry a "needs confirmation" marker.
6. Waiver — the customer signs on your device. Drawing or typed name both work.
7. Check-out signature (rentals) — the customer acknowledges the equipment and condition with a signature on your device. Optionally snap a check-out photo.
8. Payment method — for staff-initiated bookings: Send Payment Link by email / Mark as paid (cash) / Mark as paid (other) / Already paid externally.
9. Confirm — review the summary, confirm. The booking goes to Confirmed (or Pending approval if you turned that toggle on).

A printable confirmation appears so the customer leaves with something tangible. A confirmation email lands in their inbox within 30 seconds if they gave you an email.

That's it. You've just hit the activation moment — the one Tempo measures itself against.

What to do next (in your own time)

Now that the basics work, layer these on as you need them:

• Customise the public booking page — Settings → Public page. Edit the description, hero image, and confirm what's bookable from outside. Share the URL.
• Edit the email notification templates — Settings → Notifications. The defaults are in our voice; edit them to sound like you.
• Set hostel-wide defaults — Settings → Workspace. Group-size caps for lessons, blackout dates, the approval-mode toggle.
• Connect Stripe if you skipped Step 6 — Settings → Payments.
• Pick a refund policy — Settings → Refund policy. Three templates (Flexible / Moderate / Strict); customise tiers if needed.
• Add the rest of your equipment and instructors.
• Add your card (Settings → Billing) before day 15 — or let it slide and decide at the day-12 prompt.

If you want a 5-minute tour of the Dashboard, lead with Today at the top (live tiles + alerts + quick actions) and scroll down to This month for the trends.

Stuck?

A few things that come up:

• Can't see an instructor in the New Booking flow? Check their schedule — they may not be marked as available for that time block. Or they're on-demand (which surfaces them with a different marker).
• Equipment looks "out" but you have it in front of you? The previous rental hasn't been checked back in. Dashboard → Check in equipment.
• Public booking page returning a 404? The slug isn't set yet — Settings → Workspace → set a slug. Or your workspace is in read-only mode — see Settings → Billing.
• Lost an item by accident? Restore from Operations → Equipment → Graveyard.

Email hello@usetempo.net or use the in-app message bubble. Plain language, usually a working-day reply. The first 50 hostels get the founder directly — that's Robin, and yes, that's a real WhatsApp number.

30 minutes is the target. If it took 45, that's still fine. If it took 90, please tell us where it dragged — onboarding speed is one of the things we measure ourselves on, and your feedback fixes it for the next person.

Inventory

How equipment works in Tempo

Every rentable item is a row: name, category, activity, specs, condition, daily rate, status. Status is operational — In service / Needs repair / Retired. Condition is a four-stage scale (Excellent / Good / Fair / Poor) you update over time. Every rental writes a ledger line so you can see the whole life of an item — who used it, when it was returned, what condition it came back in.

Rental add-ons

Wetsuits, leashes, helmets, locks, fins, roof racks live as their own inventory class — separate from the main item but attachable to any rental. Add-ons have their own daily rate and don't take up an "equipment slot" in the booking flow. Useful when one piece of gear is rented with optional extras.

Multi-day, weekly, hourly rentals

Each item supports tier rates: hourly, half-day, daily, multi-day, weekly. Set per-item or as a hostel-wide default. The booking flow picks the right tier based on the duration the customer chooses. Monthly rentals aren't supported in V1 (V1 caps at weekly).

Proof photos and check-out signatures

Optional check-out and check-in photos attach to ledger lines and surface side-by-side as before/after evidence. Useful for damage disputes and for insurance documentation.

The check-out signature is mandatory on every rental — the customer acknowledges the equipment and condition with a signature on the staff device before the gear leaves.

Retired items (graveyard)

Items move to a "graveyard" archive when retired — broken, lost, stolen, end-of-life. The graveyard captures retirement date, reason, and a link to the triggering ledger line if retirement was caused by an incident. Lifespan analytics roll up by category.

Staff and instructors

Two staff roles — Admin and Staff

V1 ships a multi-user workspace with two staff roles:

• Admin — full access. Settings, billing, team, audit log, all operations.
• Staff — day-to-day operations. Bookings, equipment, instructors, customers, waivers, dashboard. No settings, billing, team write, or audit log.

Invite teammates from Settings → Team. Last-Admin guard prevents the workspace from ending up Admin-less. Audit log records every settings change, role change, and team action.

Instructor / guide slim portal

Instructors and guides are not workspace roles — they live in their own slim portal at usetempo.net/portal. They log in with their own account, see their schedule (read-only), edit their own availability (recurring hours, time off, sick days), and update their profile. They have no visibility into other instructors, hostel-wide settings, or billing.

The portal exists to take the back-and-forth out of "what time am I working tomorrow?" — they check their portal, the hostel sees their changes.

Working at multiple hostels

In V1, each instructor account is scoped to one hostel. If an instructor works at three hostels using Tempo, they'll have three separate logins. Cross-hostel accounts (one login, multiple hostels) are on the V2 roadmap — the database is already set up for it; the login flow isn't.

Schedules and capacity

Recurring weekly + per-day overrides + on-demand

Availability is captured in three layers, applied in priority order:

1. Recurring weekly schedule with fixed hours per weekday (or an "available on demand" flag).
2. Per-day override for a specific date.
3. Time-off windows that override everything within a date range.

On-demand instructors and guides surface in the booking flow with a needs confirmation marker rather than a hard schedule.

Capacity rules — lessons vs activities

Lessons enforce a three-cap level-mix model:

• Beginner-only group → beginner cap applies.
• Beginner + intermediate → beginner cap applies (lowest level sets the cap).
• Intermediate + advanced → intermediate cap applies.
• Beginner + advanced — not allowed in the same group.

Activities apply a single flat group-size cap.

Caps default at the hostel level (Settings → Workspace) and can be overridden per instructor.

Concurrent-booking safety

If two staff (or a staff member and the public booking page) try to claim the same instructor slot or rental item at the same moment, the second attempt sees "no longer available — pick another". No double-bookings.

If an external-channel booking (FareHarbor, Bookeo, etc.) lands on a slot Tempo already has booked, both surface on the Dashboard with a potential conflict alert and you decide which wins.

Blackout dates

Hostel-wide blackout dates (public holidays, local events, etc.) override every instructor's schedule on the listed dates. Set them from Settings → Workspace.

Payments

Connecting Stripe Connect Express

If you want guests to pay online on your public booking page, connect Stripe from Settings → Payments. Stripe walks you through identity verification (about five minutes, all on Stripe's side, you keep your own Stripe account). Once connected, every guest payment lands directly in your own Stripe account — Tempo never holds it and never takes a cut.

Connect Stripe at signup or any time later. Skipping is fine — the public page still works without it.

Online vs on-arrival modes

Each hostel picks a per-hostel payment policy in Settings → Payments:

• Online only — every booking on your public page is paid via Stripe Connect Express direct charges. Apple Pay / Google Pay above the fold via Stripe's Express Checkout Element.
• On arrival only — your public page tells guests "Payment collected at the hostel on arrival"; they submit the booking and pay you directly when they show up.

V1 ships these two modes. Guest chooses (let the guest pick at booking time) is V2.

No commission, ever

We don't take a cut of what you sell. Period. The $23/month subscription is Tempo's only revenue from you. Stripe's standard processing fee comes out of your payout, not Tempo's books.

This is enforced architecturally — Stripe Connect Express direct charges send money straight from the guest's card to your Stripe account, with no Application Fee on Tempo's side. Tempo never enters PCI scope.

Refund policies (Flexible / Moderate / Strict)

Three templates, picked per hostel from Settings → Refund policy:

• Flexible — full refund up to 24 hours before the booking; no refund after.
• Moderate — full refund up to 7 days before; 50% within 24 hours; no refund after.
• Strict — 50% up to 7 days before; no refund after.

Each template supports inline tier edits ({ hours_before, refund_percent }). Two flags: weather_full_refund (editable, default off) and operator_fault_full_refund (locked on — if you cancel or reschedule, the customer always gets a full refund).

The refund policy is snapshotted on every booking at creation time — editing your hostel policy never retroactively changes existing bookings.

V1 has one policy per hostel. Per-activity overrides are V2.

Issuing refunds

From the booking detail, one click — operator-approved only in V1. The refund flows from your Stripe balance, not Tempo's. The customer gets a refund-confirmation email automatically; the booking timeline records the action.

Staff-initiated payment options

When you create a booking from the front desk, the payment-method step offers four options:

• Send Payment Link via email — Stripe Payment Link scoped to your Connect account. Guest taps, pays via Apple Pay / Google Pay / card on their own device.
• Mark as paid (cash) — internal status flag, no Stripe charge.
• Mark as paid (other) — bank transfer, hostel POS, anything else outside Tempo.
• Already paid externally — for bookings that came in through a channel (FareHarbor, Bookeo, etc.) where the channel already collected payment.

Tap-to-Pay is V1.1. Stripe Terminal / MOTO / saved-card-on-file are V2.

Tempo's own subscription billing

Tempo costs $23/month flat for every customer. 14-day no-CC trial; if you don't add a card by day 15, your workspace moves to read-only and your data is preserved for 30 days. Annual billing is available at $230/year (about a 17% discount).

Stripe Tax handles VAT / sales tax / GST automatically based on your country, including reverse-charge VAT for EU B2B. Stripe Adaptive Pricing shows the buyer-local equivalent at checkout (EUR / GBP / etc.) — list price stays anchored to USD.

If your card gets declined, we retry across ~14 days (Stripe Smart Retries), email you in plain language, then move to read-only at day 7 of failure and cancel at day 30.

Customers and guests

Customer records — what to capture

Required fields are minimal — first name, surname, and at least one contact (email or phone). Everything else is optional and only asked when it matters: height, weight, proficiency for sized equipment; swim ability for surf and SUP; date of birth (auto-flips to parental-consent waiver if under 18); language preference for confirmation emails.

Returning customers surface their last equipment, last instructor, and last waiver as one-click repeats.

The same customer record is created whether the booking comes from the front desk, customer self-service (the public booking page), or external-channel ingest — one identity across all paths.

Digital waivers and parental consent

The waiver is part of every booking. Your customer reads it (in their preferred language if you've configured one) and signs by drawing on the screen or typing their name. Signature, timestamp, IP, user agent, and waiver-template version are stored against the customer record and the booking.

Once a customer has signed your current template, they don't sign again on future bookings — until you edit the template, in which case they re-sign once at their next booking.

For minors, the waiver flips to a parental-consent variant. One adult signature can cover multiple minors on the same booking — useful for families and school trips.

Public booking page

Your hostel gets a public Tempo-hosted booking page at usetempo.net/{your-slug}. Mobile-first, indexable, in EN / PT / ES / FR. Guests browse your bookable inventory (equipment + activities + instructors), pick what they want, fill in their details, sign the waiver, and (if you have Stripe Connect set up) pay via Apple Pay / Google Pay / card.

The page renders your branding (logo, name) — customise from Settings → Public page. Custom domains are not in V1 or V2; this is V3-ish if there's enough demand.

Will it show up on Google? The page is built to be indexable — clean URLs, proper page titles and descriptions, structured data for activities, an Open Graph image based on your logo. So in principle, yes. Ranking depends on the usual things outside Tempo's control — backlinks, page age, content depth, local competition.

Notifications — email-only V1

Three transactional emails to your customer:

• Booking confirmation within 30 seconds of confirm. Carries booking reference, what / when / where, instructor or guide, hostel contact, cancellation policy.
• Day-before reminder the day before, in your hostel's local time.
• Change or cancellation when a booking is modified or cancelled. Reason code surfaced in plain language.

If a guest paid online and you issue a refund, a refund-confirmation email also goes out automatically.

All emails carry your hostel's branding. Templates editable per-hostel from Settings → Notifications.

SMS, day-of go/no-go alerts, pre-arrival checklists, post-session review requests, and WhatsApp notifications are all V2.

Languages

The workspace app (what your team uses) is in English at launch. Portuguese, Spanish, and French roll in progressively as hostels in those markets come online — pick your default during signup or change it from Settings → Workspace.

The public booking page is in EN / PT / ES / FR from day one.

For your subscription, the price is listed in USD ($23/month flat) but Stripe shows the buyer-local equivalent at checkout (EUR / GBP / etc.) and handles the conversion automatically.

For your guests — what currency they see on your public page — you pick at the hostel level: EUR, USD, GBP, AUD, BRL, MAD, IDR, LKR.

Bookings from FareHarbor, Bookeo, GetYourGuide, your own website

Two options, both V1:

• Link-out (Flavor A) — customer books on the external channel. When they arrive (or when you process the booking later), you reference the external booking when creating it in Tempo. The booking shows up with a channel: FareHarbor (or whichever) badge.
• One-way ingest (Flavor B) — the external channel pushes the booking to Tempo via webhook or iCal pull. It lands automatically, flagged with the channel name.

If an ingested booking lands on a slot you've already booked, both surface on the Dashboard with a potential conflict alert and you decide which wins.

Two-way sync (Tempo pushing your inventory back out to FareHarbor / Bookeo / etc.) is V2.

Common questions

The cross-cutting questions that don't sit cleanly with one topic. Pick the section that fits.

About Tempo

Who's behind Tempo?

Tempo is built by Robin Mazure, a Canadian who's been working in software and consulting for years and noticed that hostels were running their activities on whiteboards and WhatsApp while their guests booked everything else on consumer-grade apps. Tempo is the answer to that gap.

For now, it's a one-person operation. That's deliberate, not a stage of growth we're embarrassed about — small team means we move fast, ship clean, and don't need to skim a percentage off your bookings to feed a sales department.

Why are you doing this?

Because the choice in this space has been: pay $300+ a month for an enterprise platform built for retreat centres or large tour operators, hand 6–8% commission to a tour-booking platform, or run your activities on paper. None of those fit a small surf hostel, a 5-instructor surf school, or a bike rental shop running rentals + lessons + activities side by side. Tempo is built specifically for that gap — sub-$30 a month, no commission, calmly designed for small operators.

How is Tempo funded?

Self-funded. Tempo has no outside investors and no plans to raise. The business model is straightforward: customers pay subscriptions, Tempo's costs are low, the math works at modest scale. No VC clock, no growth-at-all-costs pressure.

How many hostels use Tempo today?

We're in early access. The first cohort of hostels are onboarding now, mostly in Portugal and Morocco where the founder is hands-on. Numbers will be public on the website once we cross the first meaningful milestone. If you want a real number today, email us — we'll tell you straight.

What happens to my data if Tempo shuts down?

Two things. First, you can export your data — customers, bookings, signed waivers, equipment ledger — at any time, in a machine-readable format. Your data is yours. Second, if Tempo were ever wound down, you'd get advance notice with time to export and migrate. We won't disappear overnight.

Can I talk to a customer reference?

Once we have customers who are happy to vouch publicly, they'll be listed on the website. While we're still in early access, email hello@usetempo.net and we'll connect you directly with a hostel who's using Tempo and willing to chat.

Billing, trial, and account

How do I sign up? Do I need a credit card?

Go to usetempo.net, enter business name, your name, email + password, country. About 30 seconds. Every customer is automatically on the single $23/month flat plan. No credit card required for the 14-day trial.

If you don't add a card by day 15, your workspace moves to read-only and your data is preserved for 30 days. Reactivation is one click.

What happens during the 14-day trial?

• Day 0: signup, sidebar shows the trial countdown. Workspace is empty — your first move is to add some equipment, customers, and instructors.
• Day 7: a short check-in email — most hostels have their first real booking in by now.
• Day 12: an in-app prompt asks if you want to continue. One button, no upsell theatre.
• Day 14: if you've added a card, your subscription starts the next day. If not, day 15 moves you to read-only.

No phone calls, no retention gauntlet, no surprise charges.

Can I pause my subscription for the off-season?

Not as a built-in feature in V1. The pattern that works today: cancel before your off-season, your data stays preserved for 90 days, and reactivation is one click when you reopen.

A proper seasonal-pause toggle is on the V2 list — it's one of the most-asked V1 buyer questions, especially from Portuguese and Moroccan hostels that close December through February.

How do I cancel my Tempo subscription?

One click in the Stripe Customer Portal (Settings → Billing → Manage subscription). No retention call, no "are you sure?" gauntlet, no exit survey unless you choose to leave one (it's optional and 30 seconds).

You keep full access until the end of the period you've paid for. After that, your workspace moves to read-only and your data is preserved for 90 days. Reactivation is one click within that window.

Do you give refunds on the Tempo subscription?

No partial refunds on the subscription. If you cancel mid-month, you keep access until the end of the period you paid for — we don't pro-rate. No cancellation fees, no contracts, no hidden cancel button.

This is separate from refunds you give your guests on activity bookings — those are on your hostel's policy and use Tempo's refund engine (see Payments → Refund policies).

For larger or chain operators

You're employed by a hostel chain or a larger independent. You have an approval process. You need invoices, contracts, compliance answers. Tempo is sub-$30 a month, so the friction here is mostly procedural — but the questions are real.

Can I run multiple properties on one account?

Not in V1. V1 is one workspace per hostel, one subscription per hostel. Multi-property accounts are on the V2 roadmap, with flat $23/month per active property as the locked price (no bulk discount, no per-account upcharge — keeps the math frictionless).

For now, if you run three properties, you have three workspaces and three subscriptions. Honest answer.

Can I get an invoice with VAT for my company?

Yes. Stripe handles billing, and Stripe automatically issues invoices with your company name and tax ID once you add them in the Customer Portal. Stripe Tax also handles VAT charging correctly for EU buyers, including reverse-charge for B2B.

You can download every invoice as a PDF from the Customer Portal, send them to your accountant or import them into your accounting software.

Do you have a Data Processing Agreement (DPA)?

Yes — a template DPA is available on request. Email hello@usetempo.net and we'll send the current version. It covers GDPR roles (you're the controller, Tempo is the processor), our subprocessor list, breach notification commitments, and data deletion on contract end.

Are you SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified?

Not yet. Both certifications take significant time and cost that don't pay back at our current size. We follow the practices SOC 2 codifies — encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access, audit logging, breach notification readiness — but without the formal audit.

If your compliance officer requires a certification before approval, we're not the right fit yet. If they accept a security questionnaire instead, we'll fill it out.

What's your uptime guarantee?

V1 doesn't ship with a formal SLA. Tempo runs on Supabase and Vercel, both of which have strong uptime track records, but we don't carry the kind of operational team you'd expect from a $99/month or $300/month tool.

Status and incident history will be visible on a public status page. If your operation genuinely cannot tolerate occasional downtime, we're probably the wrong choice — be honest with yourself before signing up.

Where is my data physically stored?

For EU hostels, in EU-region data centres (Frankfurt by default, on Supabase's EU infrastructure). For non-EU hostels, in the closest region available. We don't move data across regions without telling you. Server location is named in the DPA.

For surf schools, bike shops, yoga studios (no hostel)

You're not the V1 audience but you're the V2/V3 audience. Some of you have already asked.

Do I have to be a hostel to use Tempo?

Technically, no. Sign up, set up equipment and instructors, and you'll have a working booking system. Many of the same patterns apply — rentals, lessons, activities, waivers, customer records.

But Tempo is shaped around hostel operations. Some things will feel slightly off (we'll talk about your "guests" rather than "customers," etc.). Most users in this group still find it usable; some find the framing too rigid.

What's missing for me right now?

Depends on your business. The most-asked gaps from non-hostel users:

• Surf and yoga schools: multi-day camps and packages aren't a V1 feature. Recurring lessons (every Tuesday at 4pm) work as individual bookings but don't have a "series" abstraction.
• Bike shops: monthly rentals aren't supported (V1 caps at weekly). Maintenance scheduling for the fleet isn't built in.
• Dive shops: certification tracking is opt-in but isn't deeply tied to dive levels yet.

If you're V2/V3 audience, sign up for the trial and tell us where you hit a wall — that feedback shapes the roadmap.

When will you officially support my type of business?

V2 (somewhere in the second half of post-launch year 1) is when activity-only operators move from "tolerated" to "actively supported." V3 is when we expand the brand and marketing to talk to non-hostel businesses directly.

No hard date. We're building V1 for hostels properly first.

For instructors and guides

You got an email from a hostel asking you to set up a Tempo account. You're wondering what this is and whether you have to.

Why did the hostel send me an invite to Tempo?

The hostel uses Tempo to run their activity scheduling. Inviting you means you'll have your own login where you can see your schedule, edit your own availability (recurring hours, time off, sick days), and update your profile. The point is to take the back-and-forth out of "what time am I working tomorrow?" — you check your portal, the hostel sees your changes.

Do I have to use it? Does it cost me anything?

Tempo is free for you — the hostel pays the subscription. Whether you use it is a conversation between you and the hostel.

If you'd rather keep texting your availability over WhatsApp, that's between you two. The hostel can still manage your schedule manually inside Tempo without you logging in. The portal exists to make life easier, not to add work.

I work at multiple hostels — will they see each other's data?

No. In V1, each instructor account is scoped to one hostel only. Other hostels can't see your data, your availability, or your schedule with this hostel.

If you work at three hostels using Tempo, you'll have three separate logins. Cross-hostel accounts (one login, multiple hostels) are on the V2 roadmap.

For guests booking on the public page

You landed on usetempo.net/{some-hostel-slug} and you're booking a surf lesson, a hike, or a board rental. You probably won't read this section unless something feels off — but if you're here, here are the answers.

Is this booking actually with the hostel, or a middleman?

It's directly with the hostel. Tempo is the software the hostel uses to manage their bookings — the same way a restaurant might use OpenTable. Tempo doesn't take a commission and doesn't hold your money. If you pay on the booking page, the charge goes directly to the hostel's own Stripe account; Tempo is the wiring between the form and Stripe, not a middleman taking a cut.

How do I pay?

Two possibilities, depending on the hostel:

• If the hostel takes payments online: you pay on the booking page when you submit. The money goes directly to the hostel's bank — Tempo doesn't hold it, doesn't take a cut, isn't in the middle of your payment.
• If the hostel collects on arrival: you submit the booking now and pay the hostel directly when you show up. No card details captured online.

Either way, the booking page tells you which mode applies before you submit, and your confirmation email repeats the details.

Why doesn't every hostel take online payments?

It's the hostel's call. Some prefer cash on arrival, some haven't connected Stripe yet, and some just like the simplicity of "settle up when you show up." None of those choices have anything to do with Tempo — you're booking directly with the hostel either way.

How do I cancel or change my booking?

Currently, by replying to your confirmation email or contacting the hostel directly (email or phone — both are on the confirmation). The hostel updates the booking and you'll get an automated change-or-cancellation email.

A guest self-service portal where you can do this yourself is on the V2 list.

Why are you asking about my swim ability, weight, or age?

For activities where it matters. Surf and SUP lessons need swim ability for safety. Sized equipment (boards, wetsuits, bikes) is matched to height, weight, and skill level so you get the right gear. Age can flip a waiver to a parental-consent variant if you're under 18.

Skip what doesn't apply — most fields are optional. The hostel only asks what they actually need.

Data and privacy

Where is my data stored?

Customer data is on Supabase, EU region for EU hostels. Personal data on a customer record auto-purges 24 months after their last activity, configurable.

What about GDPR data subject requests?

If a guest asks to see, export, or delete their data: open their record from the Customers page and use the Export or Delete button. Export gives you a machine-readable file you can send them. Delete either hard-deletes the record or anonymises it (if there are bookings you need to keep for tax or insurance).

V1 fulfils GDPR requests manually through Admin. A guest-facing self-service portal is on the V2 list.

Integrations

Does Tempo work with Cloudbeds?

Not yet. Cloudbeds runs your rooms beautifully — Tempo runs your activities. They're complementary, not competing. A Cloudbeds integration is on the V2 roadmap; the goal is to pass customer and stay context cleanly between the two so you don't enter the same guest twice.

For V1, you run them side by side. It works, but you'll do some manual customer entry.

Can my guests get confirmations on WhatsApp instead of email?

Not in V1. V1 ships three transactional emails (confirmation, day-before reminder, change/cancellation) and that's it. WhatsApp Business API integration is on the V2 list because we know it's where your guests actually live. For now, email plus your existing WhatsApp habits is the working setup.

Can I use my own domain for the booking page?

Not in V1 or V2. Your page lives at usetempo.net/your-slug. Custom domains are on the long-term roadmap (V3-ish) — they require infrastructure work that doesn't pay back at our current size. If this is a deal-breaker, tell us — we track requests and use them to prioritise.

Switching from another tool

If you're already running activities through another tool (or through a notebook), you don't need to flip the switch in one day. The pattern that works: set Tempo up in parallel for a week, run a few real bookings through both, and migrate when the second tool is no longer doing anything you can't do in Tempo.

This section covers the four most common starting points. Pick the one closest to where you are.

We don't have a one-click importer. Every tool's export format is different and the mapping decisions matter. The good news: the data you actually need is small enough that a manual setup gets you to a working dashboard in 30–60 minutes — see Getting started above.

From FareHarbor

What you'll keep: your booking history (export it from FareHarbor first — it's yours), your customer list, your waiver text, your activity catalogue.

What changes:

• No commission. FareHarbor takes 6% on direct bookings and 8% on OTA bookings. Tempo takes nothing — just the $23/month subscription. On a hostel doing $3,000/month in activity revenue, that's roughly $180–240/month staying in your pocket, every month.
• Mobile-first by default. FareHarbor's iOS app is a companion to a desktop product. Tempo is built for the phone first — the same screens render on mobile and desktop, no compromises.
• Onboarding measured in minutes, not weeks. You can have a working setup before lunch. The trial is no credit card required.
• Public booking page included. Your guests book directly at usetempo.net/your-slug — multi-language, mobile-first, and (if you connect Stripe) money lands in your own Stripe account directly.

What stays the same:

• Your guests still book online. The page they see is different (yours, hostel-branded) but the experience is faster.
• Your waiver still gets signed every time. Minors still need parental consent (one adult signature can cover multiple minors).
• You still control the channels — if you want bookings to keep coming in via FareHarbor while you transition, run both. Use Tempo's link-out option to reference the FareHarbor booking when the customer arrives.

Suggested move:

1. Export your FareHarbor booking history and customer list. Keep the file safe — it's your record.
2. Sign up for Tempo. Set up equipment, instructors, waiver in your trial.
3. Run new direct bookings through Tempo for a week. Keep FareHarbor live for OTA inflow.
4. When you're ready, point your Instagram bio and website link at usetempo.net/your-slug instead of FareHarbor's checkout.
5. Cancel FareHarbor when no new bookings have come through it for a full week.

The FareHarbor commission you save in a single month often pays for a year of Tempo.

From Bookeo

What you'll keep: your booking history (Bookeo exports cleanly), your customer list, your waiver text, your service catalogue.

What changes:

• Hostel-native, not generic activity-tool. Bookeo is a generalist — it works for yoga studios, dance schools, escape rooms, and tour operators. Tempo is built for hostels running rentals + lessons + activities side by side, with a customer record that knows about height, weight, proficiency, swim ability, and an equipment ledger that tracks condition and incidents.
• Multi-activity from day one. Surf, hike, yoga, bike, snorkel, SUP — Tempo treats them as first-class types with the right fields each. Bookeo can be configured for any of these but you do the configuring.
• Public booking page included. Bookeo has booking pages too; Tempo's is multi-language (EN/PT/ES/FR), Tempo-hosted at usetempo.net/your-slug, and tied to the same data your front desk uses.
• Lower price. Tempo is $23/month flat. Bookeo's lowest plan is around $40/month.

What stays the same:

• No booking fees on either tool — both are pure subscription.
• Self-serve cancellation, no contracts.

Suggested move:

1. Export your Bookeo bookings, customers, and services.
2. In Tempo, set up your equipment categories matching your Bookeo "services."
3. Add your instructors / guides — Bookeo's "staff" maps cleanly onto Tempo's instructor roster.
4. Replicate your waiver in Settings → Waivers.
5. Run parallel for a week. When Tempo's dashboard feels like home, switch your booking page link.

If you've been using Bookeo for the booking page mostly, the public-booking-page swap is the most visible change for guests. Nothing else about how they book changes.

From Checkfront

What you'll keep: your booking history, customer list, waiver, services catalogue.

What changes:

• Pricing. Checkfront raised its entry plan to $99/month after the Rezdy merger. Tempo is $23/month flat.
• Focus. Checkfront is broad — campsites, rentals, tours, equipment hire, classes — and the configuration reflects that. Tempo is narrow on purpose: equipment, sessions, people. Three things, executed well, for hostels.
• Onboarding speed. Checkfront implementations commonly run multiple weeks. Tempo's target is under 30 minutes to first booking.
• Mobile-first. Checkfront's mobile app is functional but the product is desktop-anchored. Tempo's primary surface is the phone.
• Public booking page included. Multi-language, hostel-branded, Tempo-hosted.

What stays the same:

• Both are subscription-only with no per-booking fees.
• Both let you customise the booking flow per service.

Suggested move:

1. Time the move to a renewal date — Checkfront contracts typically run monthly so this is flexible.
2. Export everything from Checkfront before the renewal: bookings, customers, services, waiver text, settings.
3. Set up Tempo in parallel. The Checkfront → Tempo mapping is straightforward: a Checkfront "item" becomes either a Tempo equipment item (if it's a rentable thing) or an activity type (if it's a guide-led experience).
4. Run a week side by side. Watch for anything in Checkfront you depend on that Tempo doesn't do — and tell us. We'd rather hear about a gap before you switch than after.
5. Cancel Checkfront when the renewal hits.

The pricing delta alone is around $70/month — $840/year — that flows to your bottom line.

From paper, spreadsheets, or DIY

This is the most common starting point. Most surf hostels we talk to are running activities on a whiteboard, a Google Sheet, paper sign-up sheets, and WhatsApp threads. There's no migration to do — you're not switching, you're starting.

What you gain:

• One place for everything. Equipment, sessions, people, customers, waivers, bookings. No more flipping between WhatsApp and a Sheet to find out who's coming for the 2pm.
• Real waivers. Signed digitally on the customer's phone or yours, stored against the booking, retrievable for insurance later. No more "did they sign this season?"
• A public booking page. Drop the link in Instagram bio. Guests book in their language, on their phone, at midnight, when nobody's at reception.
• Automated emails. Confirmation, day-before reminder, change/cancellation. You stop typing them by hand on WhatsApp.
• Equipment tracked properly. Condition, incidents, photos at handover, a graveyard for retired items, lifespan analytics. The kind of records you've been meaning to keep.

What stays the same:

• WhatsApp is still where your guests live. Tempo doesn't try to replace WhatsApp — it sends transactional emails and lets you keep using WhatsApp for the human conversation. (SMS notifications are V2 and we're not in WhatsApp's API yet.)
• The way you run your business doesn't change. The phone calls, the chats, the "let me grab a board for you" — still all you. Tempo is the data layer underneath.

Suggested move:

1. Pick one activity to start with. Your busiest one. The one where missed bookings hurt most.
2. Sign up for Tempo. Skip the wizard if you want — you can fill it in later.
3. Add 3–5 pieces of equipment (your most-rented). Add your instructor or guide. Edit the waiver.
4. Take one real booking through Tempo today. Just one. Through the front desk, the way you'd normally do it.
5. Tomorrow, take three. By the end of the week, take all of them.
6. Around week 2, share your public booking page link and let one or two guests book themselves.
7. By the end of month 1, the Sheet is read-only and the whiteboard is for surf-conditions, not for bookings.

You don't migrate from paper. You replace it gradually, one booking at a time. The hostels that switch fastest treat it like learning a new piece of equipment — try it once, then twice, then it's just how you do it.

Coming from somewhere else?

Email hello@usetempo.net with the tool name. We'll write a guide for it if there's enough demand, or walk you through the move directly.

Didn't find your question? Email hello@usetempo.net or use the in-app message bubble. Plain language, usually a working-day reply. The first 50 hostels get the founder directly.