Guide

Getting started: your first 30 minutes

A short, ordered path from an empty account to your first bookable vehicle. Do these in order and you will not hit the dead ends that come from setting things up out of sequence.

4 min read

This guide answers

  • How do I set up Glovebox for the first time?
  • What do I do first on a new account?
  • How do I get from a trial to taking my first booking?

There is an order that avoids dead ends. A few things depend on others existing first (you cannot add a vehicle without a group, and cannot take a deposit without a payment gateway), so work top to bottom.

Your dashboard also has a Getting started checklist that tracks the big ones and links straight to each screen. This guide is the same path with a little more explanation.

Before you start

Nothing. This is the very beginning. Everything here is included in your trial.

The order to do it in

  1. Tell Glovebox what you rent. Open Settings › What you rent and pick cars, campervans, bikes, boats or other. This sets the wording used across the whole panel, so it is worth doing first.

  2. Create a vehicle group. A group is what customers actually book, and you cannot save a vehicle without one. See Add your first vehicle group.

  3. Add a location. You need somewhere for vehicles to be picked up from. See Set up pickup and return locations.

  4. Add a vehicle. Put it in the group and at the location you just made. See Add your first vehicle.

  5. Connect a payment gateway. Until you connect Stripe or Windcave, your booking page cannot take a deposit. See Connect a way to take payment.

  6. Set your deposit and terms. Decide how much customers pay up front, and add your rental terms so the agreement they sign is yours. See Set your deposit and balance rules and Set up your rental agreement terms.

What you should see when it worked

Open your booking page (/book), choose the location and some dates, and your group appears with a price and an availability count, and offers a card payment. That is a bookable vehicle.

If a vehicle still will not book

Something is usually one switch off. Work through Make a vehicle bookable, which lists every control in order.

  • Add your first vehicle group A vehicle group is the thing customers actually book and the thing your pricing is attached to. You have to create at least one before Glovebox will let you save a vehicle, so this is usually the very first thing you set up.
  • Add your first vehicle Adding a vehicle takes a minute once you have a vehicle group and a location to put it in. This walks through the required fields and the two that trip people up: the group (which you must create first) and the home location.
  • Set up pickup and return locations Locations are the branches customers choose when they book. This covers adding one, the two switches that decide whether it shows as a pickup or return point, and where to add delivery or one-way fees.
  • Connect a way to take payment Until you connect a payment gateway your booking page cannot take a deposit, so this is one of the first things to do. It covers connecting Stripe, using Windcave, and the one difference that matters: only Stripe can auto-charge for damage, fuel and over-mileage after a hire.
  • Make a vehicle bookable (why customers can't book it) Whether a vehicle can be booked depends on several switches in different places, so a car that looks fine can still be unbookable. This is the one checklist that names every control, in the order worth checking them.

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