A pass is a prepaid bundle of day visits to your space. A member or visitor buys a pass once and it carries a fixed number of uses. Each time they come in, they spend one use by checking in. Passes are well suited to drop-in day rates, punch cards, or limited trial access for people who are not on a recurring membership. This article explains how pass types are configured, how pricing and expiration work, how uses are spent, how passes can unlock doors, and the different ways they can be purchased.
Pass types vs. pass purchases
There are two distinct concepts. A pass type is the template you define once: its name, how many uses it grants, its prices, its expiration rule, and whether it opens doors. A pass purchase is an individual instance that belongs to one person after they buy that pass type. The purchase tracks how many uses remain, when it expires, its payment status, and its approval status.
When someone buys a pass, Deskie copies the pass type's settings (total uses, prices, expiration) onto their purchase at the moment of sale. Changing a pass type later does not retroactively change passes that have already been bought.
Creating and configuring a pass type
Creating or editing a pass type requires the resource management permission. Each pass type belongs to a specific location within your workspace. See Workspaces and locations for how location scoping works, and Roles and permissions for who can manage passes.
A pass type has the following key fields:
- Name and description. Shown to buyers when they view or purchase the pass.
- Image. An optional photo for the pass.
- Total uses. How many check-ins the pass grants. Must be at least 1. A single-use pass has a total of 1.
- Member price and non-member price. Both are optional. Either can be left blank, and a price of 0 makes the pass free for that audience.
- Expiration days. Optional. If set, the pass expires that many days after purchase. If left blank, the pass never expires.
- Allow member purchase / allow non-member purchase. Independent toggles that control which audiences can buy the pass.
- Active. Whether the pass type is available at all. Disabling it leaves existing purchases intact but stops new sales.
- Require approval. If on, every new purchase lands in an awaiting-approval state and cannot be used until an admin approves it.
- Require date. Forces the buyer to choose the date they intend to use the pass at the time of purchase. This can only be enabled for single-use passes (total uses of 1). Deskie rejects the combination of require date with more than one use.
- Hide from website. Keeps an otherwise public pass off your marketing site.
- Door access. Optional Kisi door unlocking, covered below.
- Custom email. Optional custom content added to the purchase receipt email.
Pass types can also be shared across locations. When you share a pass type with additional locations, you can optionally set a billing location that determines which location revenue is attributed to. If no other locations are shared, the billing location override is ignored.
Disabling or deleting a pass type is a soft action: it sets the pass type inactive rather than removing it, so historical purchases and their records are preserved.
Member vs. non-member pricing
Each pass type can carry two separate prices: a member price and a non-member price. Deskie always resolves the correct price on the server based on who is buying, so the price a buyer is charged is never taken from the browser.
- Members (anyone with a member role in the workspace) are charged the member price, provided the pass allows member purchase.
- Non-members and guests are charged the non-member price, provided the pass allows non-member purchase.
The two purchase toggles are enforced at checkout. If a guest tries to buy a pass that does not allow non-member purchase, the purchase is refused, and the same applies to a member buying a pass that does not allow member purchase.
On the public website, pricing is member-aware. A signed-in member who is eligible for the member rate sees and is charged the member price; everyone else sees the non-member price. Paused members are an exception: they cannot complete a purchase, and the venue is shown standard (non-member) pricing for them. For how paused accounts are handled, see Pausing and disabling members.
A pass priced at 0 for the buyer's audience is treated as free. Free passes skip card processing entirely: Deskie records the purchase, generates a paid 0 invoice, and sends the confirmation email without charging a card.
Expiration
Expiration is optional and is set per pass type as a number of days. When a pass type has expiration days configured, each purchase gets an expiration date calculated from the purchase date. A pass type with no expiration days produces passes that never expire and remain usable until their uses run out.
An expired pass cannot be checked in or scheduled, even if it still has uses remaining. When a member schedules a future use, Deskie also blocks scheduling for any date that falls after the pass would expire.
Using a pass: check-in and scheduling
A pass is spent one use at a time. There are two ways a use is consumed:
- Check in for today. The member checks in with the pass, which records a usage for the current day and decrements remaining uses by one. A member can only check in once per day with the same pass.
- Schedule for a future date. The member reserves a specific upcoming day. Scheduling immediately reserves (decrements) a use for that date. Only one scheduled or checked-in usage can exist per pass per date, and the date cannot be in the past.
Check-in and scheduling are protected by database transactions that re-check remaining uses, so a pass cannot be over-spent through rapid or concurrent attempts. A pass that is awaiting approval or has been rejected cannot be used at all until that changes.
A scheduled usage can be cancelled, which restores the reserved use back to the pass. Admins can also mark a scheduled usage as checked in when the person arrives. Dates are evaluated in your workspace timezone, so "today" always means today at your location.
Approval
When a pass type has require approval turned on, every purchase starts in an awaiting-approval state and cannot be used until an admin approves it. Admins with the resource management permission can approve a pending purchase, and the buyer receives an approval notification email. Deskie surfaces a count of passes awaiting approval so admins can act on the queue. Pass types without approval enabled grant immediately usable passes.
Door access
A pass type can optionally unlock doors through your Kisi integration. When door access is enabled on a pass type, you choose which Kisi locks the pass should open. Those settings live on the pass type and apply to every purchase of it.
Door access from a pass is tied to a use on a given day, not to merely owning the pass. A pass holder is granted the configured locks on:
- a day they have checked in with the pass,
- a day they have a scheduled usage, or
- the scheduled date of a single-use date pass.
On a qualifying day, access runs from midnight to midnight for that date. If a pass holder has no usage for today, the pass does not unlock any doors today. For a broader overview of access integrations, see Door access overview.
Purchasing a pass
Deskie supports several purchase paths, and the price charged is always resolved on the server based on the buyer's role.
- Pay now with a card. An invoice is created and the card is charged immediately. On success, the pass purchase is recorded, an invoice and payment record are written, and a receipt email is sent. Card payments require Stripe to be connected; see Connecting Stripe.
- Add to invoice (members only). A member can have the pass added to their invoice instead of paying on the spot. This path is member-only: guests have no billing relationship and must pay at the time of purchase. A free pass added this way is recorded as paid with a 0 invoice.
- Public website purchase. Visitors can buy any pass that allows non-member purchase and is active directly from your public site. If the buyer is not already a member, Deskie creates a guest account for them at the pass's location and sends login details with the receipt. A new guest purchase also creates a lead in your CRM. See Public sign-up and checkout and Guests.
For paid public purchases, workspace tax and card-fee surcharges are applied on top of the pass price when those options are enabled, and the exact amounts charged are snapshotted onto the receipt and invoice. See Tax and card fees. Coupons can be applied at public checkout and are validated and redeemed server-side; a coupon that reduces the price to 0 turns the purchase into a free pass. See Coupons.
Team-billed members are also supported on the staff-side purchase paths: when a member belongs to a team whose billing is routed to the team, the pass charge and invoice are directed to the team's billing target. Public self-serve checkout always bills the purchasing person directly. See Teams.
Receipts and notifications
Every successful purchase sends a receipt email to the buyer. If a pass type has custom email content enabled, that content is included in the receipt. New guest buyers also receive login credentials so they can sign in and manage their pass. Admins are notified of new purchases by email, and where configured by SMS and push, with the purchase amount, expiration, and whether the pass needs approval.
Tracking purchases and usage
Admins can review every pass purchase for the current location, including the buyer, remaining uses, payment status, approval status, purchase date, expiration, and any scheduled date. There is also a per-pass-type view of purchases and a financial view of the invoices and payments tied to a pass type, which reports lifetime revenue and any outstanding balance. Members can see their own purchased passes, which are flagged as active, expired, or active today, along with the usage history for each pass. For how pass charges appear in a member's broader billing picture, see Member activity and billing and Invoices.