Blocking Dates

Blocking Dates

Sometimes a trailer needs to come off the market: a brake service, an owner's weekend camping trip, a Fourth of July closure. TrailerBase uses date blocks to mark a trailer unavailable without creating a fake reservation.

Creating a block

From the calendar toolbar, click the Block button. A drawer opens with the following fields:

1. Trailer(s) - Multi-select. Pick one trailer or block your whole fleet for a closure day.
2. Start date and time
3. End date and time
4. Reason - Pick from Maintenance, Owner Use, Holiday, Weather, or Other.
5. Internal note - Optional text explaining why (shows to staff only).

Click Save. The blocked range appears on the calendar as a gray bar across the selected trailers' rows.

Blocking a whole day fast

On any trailer row in week view, click once on an empty day to open New Reservation. Look at the top of the drawer - there is a small Switch to Block toggle. Flipping it turns the same range into a block with no renter required.

Recurring blocks

If you close every Sunday or want to recur a monthly owner-use weekend, turn on Repeat in the block drawer:

• Weekly on [Mon/Tue/.../Sun] - For shop days like "closed every Wednesday"
• Monthly on the [1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th / Last] [weekday] - For owner use like "the third weekend of every month"
• Monthly on the [date] - For fixed-date recurrences
• Yearly on [date] - For annual holidays

Pick an end condition:

• Never
• After N occurrences
• On a specific date

Recurring blocks show a small loop icon on the calendar bar.

Editing and deleting blocks

Click a block on the calendar to open its detail drawer. You can:

• Edit dates and notes
• Change the reason
• Extend or shorten the recurrence
• Delete just this occurrence
• Delete this and all future occurrences
• Delete the entire series

Blocks vs reservations

A common question: when should you use a block and when should you create a fake reservation?

• Use a block for anything not rented to a paying customer: maintenance, owner use, photo shoots, staff training, yard reorganization.
• Use a reservation when someone is getting the trailer - even free of charge - and you want to track check-in/out and damage. Create a renter profile for "Personal Use" or similar.

How blocks interact with your public site

Blocked dates are unavailable for public booking. Your public rental site's booking calendar will skip right over the blocked range.

Public-site renters see "Not available" - they do not see your internal reason. Keep sensitive notes like "Brake job - $1,200 quote from Dan" in the internal note field without hesitation.

Staff permissions

• Admin and Manager roles can create, edit, and delete blocks.
• Yard roles can view blocks but cannot modify them.
• Read-only sees blocks in reports but cannot touch the calendar.

Blocking a whole fleet for a holiday

Reporting on blocks

Blocks show up in Reports > Utilization as "Unavailable - blocked" time. That lets you separate real idle time (no bookings, available) from intentional hold time (blocked). Utilization percentages use available time as the denominator, so long blocks do not artificially suppress your numbers.