Platform overview

Understand how Sailia works — from activities to payments — and how the key pieces fit together.

Sailia is a booking and operations platform for activity providers. This page explains the mental model behind the platform — how data flows through the system and how the main areas connect.

How Sailia works

Everything in Sailia starts with an activity — a course, hire, or event. From there, the data flows through the system:

1. You create activities with schedules, pricing, capacity, and staff assignments.
2. Customers book through your online booking page or your team processes walk-ins through the point of sale.
3. Payments are collected via Stripe (card, cash, or instalment plan) and appear in your financial dashboard.
4. Stripe sends payouts to your bank account, and if connected, Xero receives categorized invoices automatically.

Both sales channels — online and POS — share the same real-time capacity, customer records, and payment system. A booking made online immediately reduces available spots at the POS and vice versa.

Core concepts

Concept	What it represents
Activities	The things customers book — courses, hires, and events with their own schedules, pricing, and capacity
Bookings	A customer’s reservation for an activity session, tracked across all channels
Customers	People who book with you — each has a profile with booking history, memberships, waivers, and family members
Pricing tools	Memberships, activity passes, discount codes, and gift cards that adjust what customers pay
Payments	Money flowing in through Stripe (online and POS), tracked with refunds and payouts
Staff	Your team — assigned to activities, with pay rates, permissions, and auto-generated timesheets

Online vs in-person sales

Sailia gives you two ways to sell, and they stay in sync:

• Online booking page — your auto-generated public site where customers browse, book, and pay by card. See your booking page and embedding.
• Point of sale — your in-person checkout for walk-ins, card reader payments, and cash sales. See POS overview.

Inventory, customer data, and payment records are shared across both channels. A membership discount applied online works the same way at the POS.

Automating your back office

Sailia connects to external tools so you spend less time on manual admin:

• Workflows send automated emails and SMS on 30+ triggers (booking confirmed, waiver incomplete, membership renewed, staff time-off, and more).
• Xero sync pushes each Stripe payout as a categorized invoice with VAT breakdowns.
• Booking tracking fires events to Google Tag Manager or PostHog for conversion analytics.
• Adventuro lists your activities on an OTA marketplace and pulls bookings back into Sailia.

Next steps

Quick setup checklist

Walk through the essential steps to get your account ready.

Common tasks

Quick reference for everyday tasks like bookings, refunds, and staff management.