An asset in Deskie is a physical space that a member occupies on an ongoing basis: a private office, a dedicated desk, a parking spot, a mailbox, and so on. Unlike a resource, which members reserve by the hour or day, an asset is held by a member through an assignment that recurs on a billing cadence until it ends. This guide explains the asset types, how rates and billing intervals work, how members can claim an asset directly from your public website, the waitlist and approval options, and where assets and resources differ.
What an asset is
Each asset belongs to one workspace and one primary location. An asset carries a name, an optional size label, one or more photos, internal notes, and a public-facing description for your website. When a member takes an asset, Deskie records an assignment that links the member to the asset, stamps a start date, and sets the billing cadence. As long as the assignment is active, the asset is considered occupied.
Assets are managed from the admin area. You can create, edit, enable, and disable them. Disabling an asset is a soft action: it sets the asset inactive rather than deleting it, so its history is preserved. Assets are never hard-deleted through the normal flow.
Asset types
Every asset has a type, and the type controls how many members can hold it at once:
- Private office (private): a single enclosed space held by one member or company at a time.
- Dedicated desk (dedicated): a reserved desk held by one member at a time.
- Flex (flex): a shared, non-exclusive asset. Flex assets can have an unlimited number of members assigned at once, so they are always treated as available.
- Mailbox (mailbox), Parking (parking), and Other: additional single-occupant asset types for spaces that are not offices or desks.
For every type except flex, Deskie checks for an existing active assignment before letting another member take the asset. If one exists, the asset is shown as unavailable. Flex assets skip that check entirely.
Rates and billing cadence
An asset has a base rate and a billing interval. The interval can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, and it defaults to monthly. The rate is the price charged per interval, so a yearly asset's rate is the full annual price, not a monthly figure.
Each asset also has a cycle anchor that controls when each billing cycle begins:
- Calendar: cycles align to fixed calendar anchors. Monthly cycles align to your workspace billing anchor day, quarterly cycles align to the start of each calendar quarter, and yearly cycles align to the start of the year. A member who starts partway through a cycle is prorated for the remainder.
- Rolling: the cycle starts on the assignment date and recurs on the anniversary (for example, every 12 months for a yearly asset).
Daily and weekly intervals always start at the assignment date, so Deskie stores them as calendar anchored regardless of what you select. For more on how cycles drive recurring charges, see billing cycles and auto-charge.
When an assignment is created from a signup, Deskie copies the asset's interval and cycle anchor onto the assignment and seeds the next billing date so recurring charges fire on the correct cadence.
Public signup from your website
Assets can be offered for self-service signup on your public website. Each asset has its own controls for this:
- Allow public signup exposes the asset on the public site so a prospective member can claim it directly.
- Public signup rate is an optional price shown to public visitors. When set, it takes the place of the base rate for public signups. When left blank, the base rate is used.
- Require approval determines whether the signup completes immediately or waits for an admin to review it.
- Hide from website keeps an asset off the public marketing site even when other settings would otherwise show it. It can still be reachable by a direct link.
Only assets that allow public signup, are active, and (for non-flex types) have no active assignment appear as available on the public site.
When a visitor signs up, Deskie creates their user account and member profile, collects a signature against your signup agreement, attaches their payment method in Stripe, and computes a prorated first charge. The proration is interval-aware: it charges for the portion of the current cycle that remains, so a yearly asset claimed late in the year is prorated across the days left in that cycle rather than treated as a single month. A coupon can be applied at signup to discount that first charge.
Immediate signup versus approval
The require-approval setting changes what happens at the moment of signup:
- No approval required: Deskie charges the prorated amount immediately. On success it activates the member, records a paid invoice and payment, creates the active assignment, and sends a welcome email. The member can log in right away.
- Approval required: Deskie captures the signup and the member's payment method but does not charge yet. The member profile stays inactive, and the request lands in your asset signups queue as awaiting approval. The prospective member receives a confirmation that their request is pending, and your admins are notified by email, SMS, and push.
From the asset signups queue an admin can approve or reject a pending request. Approving re-checks availability (for non-flex assets), charges the stored payment method for the prorated amount, records the invoice and payment, creates the active assignment, activates the member, and sends an approval email. Rejecting marks the request rejected and emails the member; no charge is made. A rejected request can be reverted back to pending if needed. Applicable workspace tax and card-fee surcharges are added on top of the prorated amount at the time of charge, and ACH bank payments skip the card fee.
Waitlist
An asset can also have a waitlist instead of, or alongside, public signup. Each asset has a waitlist toggle and an optional waitlist rate that is shown to interested visitors. When the waitlist is enabled, the asset can collect interest from people who want it when it becomes available. This is the natural pairing for an occupied private office or a desk that is currently scheduled to free up. For the full waitlist flow and how entries are managed, see the waitlist guide.
Sharing an asset across locations
An asset lives at one primary location, but it can be made visible at additional locations in the same workspace. When you share an asset with other locations, it appears in those locations' asset lists and pickers in addition to its home location. This supports setups where one physical space should surface under more than one location.
When sharing is active, you can optionally set a billing location so that invoices generated from this asset's assignments are attributed to that location regardless of the member's primary location. When sharing is off, this override is ignored and revenue follows the member, which is the default behavior.
Assignments, scheduled end, and coming soon
An active assignment can be given a future scheduled end date. The asset stays occupied until that date passes, at which point it is freed up automatically. On the public website this surfaces the asset as coming soon, with the date it is expected to become available, which pairs well with the waitlist so interested people can register their interest ahead of time. For the broader picture of how members start, pause, and end their relationship with your space, see assignments.
How assets differ from resources
Assets and resources are both spaces, but they serve different needs:
- Duration: an asset is held continuously through a recurring assignment, while a resource is reserved for a discrete time window through a booking.
- Billing: an asset bills on a recurring interval (daily through yearly) for as long as the assignment is active. A resource is charged per booking, typically by the hour or day.
- Occupancy: most asset types are held by one member at a time, with flex as the unlimited exception. Resources are reserved per time slot and free up again when the booking ends.
- Pricing model: assets carry one rate per interval, with an optional separate public signup rate and waitlist rate. Resources use hourly pricing that can differ for members and non-members.
In short, reach for an asset when a member needs a space dedicated to them over time, and reach for a resource when members share a space and reserve it as needed.