Questions
Questions campground owners ask before buying.
If the answer depends on your property, I will say so.
Is PineRoster a reservation system?
PineRoster manages seasonal sites and payments, and it also has optional reservation requests that you approve yourself. Public requests start off and need setup before you turn them on. An approved stay is reserved but unpaid, and the guest checks its status with a private code. It is not a nightly or transient booking service, and a reservation never asks for payment. Once email is set up and switched on, a guest who requested online gets a short email when the request arrives, when you approve it and when it closes, and you get a copy of each.
Can I take a reservation over the phone?
Yes, once you turn on phone and walk-in entry, which starts off and works separately from public requests. You enter the dates, designated site and guest details, including a valid email address, and the stay is approved and unpaid when saved. Check-in has its own switch, also off at first, for moving an eligible approved arrival onto that site.
Can plans change after a request?
You can turn on date changes for eligible approved stays before check-in; that option starts off, keeps the same site and checks the new dates against availability. Guest withdrawal starts off separately, and only works for a still-pending request while public requests and withdrawal are enabled. An administrator can replace a lost code for an unexpired request or an approved stay that has not checked in, even when new requests are off.
Can a guest pick a particular spot?
Guests choose a block by default; exact-spot choice starts off and is available if you turn it on. The available map and list show their choices, and the server checks the chosen spot again before accepting the request.
What does the $60 a month cover?
Three things on one bill: your public campground website, the hosting both it and your management software run on, and the software itself. There is no second hosting bill and no separate account for you to open. Inside that: server and security upkeep, the regular updates the machine underneath needs. The email your website and software send, payment reminders included, kept working. Software upgrades: when a new version of the engine is ready, I install it for you, so improvements arrive without an upgrade fee or a conversation about which version you are on. And small website updates along the way, under a rule I actually run on: if a change takes me less time than writing the invoice would, it is not a billable task. What it is not is a licence: you are not paying for permission to keep using PineRoster, and there is no per-site charge, no charge per person in the office, and no percentage of your revenue. The number does not move as sites fill or staff are added. Outside services stay in your name and are billed by whoever provides them, so domain registration, email delivery and card processing are named separately with real numbers in the quote. Bigger pieces of work, a multi-page site rebuild included, get quoted when you want them.
Does PineRoster include a campground website?
Yes, in most cases I build you a new mobile-friendly campground website along with the private management area; it can cover amenities, policies, directions, photos, and contact information. If you already have a website you want to keep, that works too: PineRoster goes on a subdomain of your domain, your site stays where it is, and the project is priced accordingly.
I keep everything in a spreadsheet, or a binder. Can you get it in?
Usually, yes. Send the spreadsheet, or photos of the binder pages, and I will tell you what comes across cleanly and what needs a decision first. Messy is normal: inconsistent site numbers, two spellings of the same family, rates living in a notes column. You do not have to tidy it up before we start. Sorting that out is part of setup, and the effort is named in the quote instead of promised blindly. What you should not do is retype three years of history by hand.
How long does setup take? Can it be ready before the season opens?
It depends on how many sites you have, how clean the current records are, and how quickly we can get the property map right, so you get a date range with the quote rather than a generic promise. Tell me your season opener in the first conversation. If a launch before that date is not realistic, I will say so before you pay anything, not after.
Who owns the campground data?
You do. Your records are ordinary files you can copy and open, not rows in a database only I can read, and CSV exports are built in: your guest roster, and payments for any date range at tax time, if you want them in a spreadsheet. Guests, rigs, current sites and site history also export to a CSV you can edit and import again, and the whole file is checked before anything is saved. The import takes only a CSV that PineRoster exported. Your records sit on the hosting included in your monthly package, and you can have a full copy of the folder any time you ask for one. I use your records only to run and support your installation. Leaving does not mean starting over. Keep a full backup as well as CSV exports; the CSV files do not contain the whole installation. Private-data protections and server access rules must stay in place when the installation moves.
What happens to my campground if you stop doing this?
It moves. PineRoster runs on compatible PHP hosting. Moving it needs the software, full records, configuration, and host and payment setup; CSV exports alone are not a complete installation. Ask me for a copy of the folder now, while everything is normal, and keep it somewhere of your own. That is the whole point of asking early: a copy you already hold does not depend on my being reachable later. The software does not need a licence check with me to keep running. Hosting and any connected payment or email services still need to stay configured.
Who owns the domain name?
You do, and I would rather you insisted on it. Normally you register it yourself, in your own name, and you keep the login. If that sort of errand is not your thing I will set it up for you, but it goes in your name and the account stays yours. This is a rule across my whole web-design practice, not something specific to campgrounds: your domain is your business name, and handing it to your web developer means one person can take your address away from you. I could turn out to be a bad guy. I could also get hit by a bus. Neither should be able to cost you the name your guests already know.
Where is PineRoster hosted?
On my server, alongside the other sites I look after, and that hosting is part of the $60 a month rather than a separate account you open. The reason it works that way is speed: when a bug turns up or an improvement is ready I can push it to your park the same day instead of coordinating access through somebody else’s hosting account. It is still just ordinary PHP on ordinary web hosting, not a locked vendor cloud. A complete copy can move to compatible PHP hosting. That includes the software, full records, configuration, and the host and payment setup, not just CSV exports.
Will it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. The public website and management screens are designed for modern phones, tablets, and desktop browsers. A larger screen is still more comfortable for detailed map setup and bulk record work.
Can my spouse or my manager use it too, or is it just me?
Yes, and that is most of the point. A system only the owner can open does not fix a campground that lives in one person’s head. Everyone who works the office can have their own username and password in one of two roles. A Manager does the day-to-day work, payments and deletes included. An Administrator does all of that plus settings, rates, reservations, staff, software upgrades, CSV imports and recovery restores. A single shared password still works if that suits your office better. Be clear on what the roles are not, though: both see the same dashboard and the same guest records, so this is a fence around the administrative and destructive actions, not a privacy wall between your staff and your campers. Money actions are deliberately left open to managers, because taking a cheque at the desk is the Saturday job, and a gate people have to route around just teaches everyone to share the owner’s password.
Can my campers see what they owe without calling me?
Yes. You can generate a private link for any renter and text or email it to them. They open it and see their own account: which site they are on, what they are paid through, how many months that site is behind and what those months come to, an installment schedule if they have one, and a dated history of the charges and payments on the account. After you switch online payments on and connect Stripe, the page can also show a button that carries them to your payment form with the amount already filled in, paid by card, or by bank transfer if that is switched on in your Stripe account. There is no account to create, no app to download, and no password for them to forget, because the link itself is the key. That was a deliberate choice. Keep the link private: anyone holding it can read the statement. Three practical notes. The link does not go stale: it still opens months later, and handing the same camper a second one leaves the first still working, so a link you texted in May is not dead in September. When you do want them gone, one action cancels every link that account has; editing a guest’s name, address, email, or phone cancels them too, on purpose, so a record that changes hands does not leave an old link open behind it. And a link is stored only as a fingerprint, never in a form anyone can read back, so it cannot be shown to you a second time: copy it when you create it, or just generate a fresh one. The page itself shows a first name, the site, and money. No full name, phone number, address, or notes. It cannot reserve anything; when card payments are enabled, paying happens on a separate secure page.
A camper is three months behind. What does PineRoster actually do about it?
On direct billing it asks for all three months, and it counts them from that site’s own paid-through date rather than from today. The amount uses that site’s real monthly figure, base rate plus whatever add-ons are active on it, so a site with a second vehicle and a shed on it is quoted at what that site actually costs. If the same guest rents two sites, each one is listed with its own months and its own amount, and then totalled. That number is what shows on their private balance page and what the payment button carries over. What matters more is where the money lands: a payment retires the oldest month owed and walks the paid-through date forward from where it really stood, instead of restarting the clock at the day the payment arrived. For a camper three months behind on direct billing, an applied payment covering those three months clears that arrears. Autopay works the same way, so a camper who fell behind and then enrolled gets pulled forward one month per run rather than paying for the current month forever while the gap sits there. The self-service side reaches back two years, rather than quoting an unlimited balance. Older than that and it stops being a button on a web page and starts being a conversation you should be having anyway. It runs the same distance forward for the opposite camper: a direct-billed camper with nothing owed and online checkout configured can choose one to twenty-four months on their own page and pay that far ahead, which is how the family who likes to settle the whole season in April does it. The order is not negotiable, though: a statement with anything outstanding refuses a pay-ahead outright, so nobody buys next season while this one is still owed. Autopay is not a pay-ahead switch either; it keeps taking exactly one month per run. Cheques and cash still go in by hand, the way they always have. The payment screen also takes a card you took by hand, shows the new paid-through date before you save, and asks before a custom amount or a possible duplicate lands. That screen is on the demo now, ahead of the next numbered release.
Is there autopay?
Yes, card-on-file autopay, and it ships off. It stays off until you turn it on, after your Stripe account is connected and you have written the terms a camper agrees to. A setup check lists anything still missing before it can be turned on, and it charges no one. An eligible camper then enrolls from their balance page, accepts your terms, enters the card with Stripe, and is charged each due month or installment; a direct-billed account is charged exactly one month per run. The camper can cancel future charges from the same link. A declined card or a bank confirmation request never triggers a fresh automatic charge.
Can campers open the rental agreement from their statement?
Yes, when a link to your published current agreement is configured. It does not expose private signed uploads or add electronic signing. If the document is not posted, the statement tells the camper to ask you for a copy.
Will the statement email mention paying ahead?
Yes, for an eligible paid-up direct-billing camper when online checkout and statement email are configured. It tells them they can pay up to twenty-four months ahead. Mail starts off and must be enabled; arrears and ledger balances do not get that pay-ahead option.
Does PineRoster email my guests?
Only after email delivery is set up and switched on; it ships off. Then it can send payment reminders on a schedule, a statement email when you choose to, a notice you send from the waiting list when a site opens up, and short messages when an online stay request or site request arrives or is answered, when an online payment comes in, and when automatic payments are set up, collected, need the guest’s attention or end. You get a matching note at your notification address. A stay you enter yourself, a date change and a replaced code send nothing. The Messages panel shows each message as sent, skipped or failed; sent means the mail service accepted it, so check the mailbox for delivery. A message whose outcome is uncertain is never sent again automatically: you choose to retry it, knowing it may arrive twice. PineRoster sends email only, no text messages. The request and payment messages are on the demo now, ahead of the next numbered release.
The same families come back every spring. Do I have to re-enter them?
No. When you assign an open site, you can search your past seasonal guests by name and link the new agreement to the record you already have, so their payment history, notes, pets, and vehicles carry forward instead of starting a duplicate. On a numbered site, PineRoster also lists who has stayed there before, with a way to select an eligible former guest for a new agreement.
What happens when I need help or a change?
Contact Ben directly. Small fixes, new features, map changes, or additional website work are discussed and scoped based on the actual request. There is no anonymous support queue pretending every change is included forever.
Is the live demo using real campground data?
No. Whispering Pines Campground and every guest in the demo are fictional. Demo changes reset to fictional seed data; do not use the demo to keep records. Payment processing and email delivery are switched off, and Admin settings are locked. Click around the map, records and Rates, but do not type in real personal information.
Who is PineRoster for?
It is aimed at established campgrounds in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota that rent sites by the season or by the month and need a clearer shared system, not a nightly-booking platform. Those are the states I know and can drive to.
Still have a specific question?
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