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Everyday running
- Residents
- Rent and payments
- Dues and reminders
- Deposits and advances
- Expenses and profit
- Mess and meals
- Reports and dashboard
- Laundry and food for residents
- Importing residents safely
- Room changes, checkout and resident requests
- Payment approvals
- Billing periods, installments and rent reviews
- Room electricity and resident charges
- Utility connections and bills
- Inventory and room assets
- Bank accounts and wallets
Filling your beds
Your team and residents
Mess and meals
If you serve food, publish the week's menu once and your residents stop asking. You also choose whether mess is part of the rent or billed on top.
Step by step
Where to go: More → Mess Menu
Who can use it: The hostel owner, or staff with access to Mess Menu. Setting the mess charge also needs permission to edit rooms, because it can change room prices.
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Set the weekly menu
Open Mess Menu and choose the day and meal. Add the meal details and save.
Set the weekly menu · Example with dummy data. Select the image to enlarge. -
Set your mess charge
If food is charged separately, choose Change (or Set) beside Mess charge. Enter what one seat pays a month, then choose which rooms get it: all rooms, rooms without one, new rooms only, or rooms you pick from a list.
Set your mess charge · Example with dummy data. Select the image to enlarge. -
Verify charges and availability
Check whether meals are included in rent or billed separately on the resident’s booking. Tell residents about menu changes through an appropriate notice.
Before you finish, and when something goes wrong
- A published menu does not itself record a meal payment. Keep advertised meals accurate.
- Changing the mess charge or a room's price does not change bookings that already exist; new bookings take the room's price.
- Mess charge is hidden when food is included in rent or no meals are served. If Change is missing, ask the owner for permission to edit rooms.
If a save times out, check the record before repeating it. If access is denied, ask the owner to review your hostel assignment and permissions. Never share your login to work around an access restriction.
Related help
Food is the thing residents ask about most after price, and the thing they complain about most once they have moved in. Two decisions, what you serve and how you charge for it, handle nearly all of it.
Do you serve food at all?
On your hostel profile you say whether you provide meals once, twice, three times a day, or not at all. It shows on your listing and is one of the filters people search by, so a hostel with a good mess should say so clearly, and a hostel without one should say that too, rather than field the question on every call.
Included in rent, or charged on top
This is the decision worth thinking about once.
| Compared on | Included in rent | Charged separately |
|---|---|---|
| How it reads to a visitor | “Rs 15,000 with food”: one number, easy to compare | “Rs 12,000 plus Rs 3,000 mess”: looks cheaper at a glance, more to explain |
| Best when | Everybody eats in and the mess is part of the offer | Some residents eat out, or you take non-resident mess members |
| Your monthly work | Nothing extra, because it is inside the rent | A mess charge on each resident's bill |
You set a default for the hostel, but the booking decides for each resident. So you can run a hostel where mess is included in rent and still bill it separately to the two people who joined on the old arrangement.
Move the mess amount into your room rents at the same time, or you have quietly given every resident free food. The change applies to new bookings going forward; existing residents keep the arrangement they agreed to until you change theirs.
Your mess charge
If you charge for food separately, set one figure for it on Mess Menu → Mess charge: what one seat pays a month for all the meals you serve. You set it once there instead of typing it into every room.
- Which rooms get it. When saving would leave some rooms on a different price, you are asked: all rooms, only the rooms without a mess charge yet, new rooms only, or rooms you pick from a list. A room you leave out keeps its own price.
- New rooms start with it when you add them. You can still change it on any room.
- Bookings take the mess price from the room. A resident on fewer meals than you serve is charged a share of it. If the room has no mess price, the booking form offers your mess charge, or a link to set one.
- Current residents keep what they pay. Changing the mess charge, or a room's price, does not change a booking that already exists.
You, and staff allowed to edit rooms, because it can change every room's price. It is not shown when food is included in rent, since there is no separate price to set.
Publishing the weekly menu
My Hostel → Mess Menu. Set what you serve for each meal on each day of the week. You do this once and edit it when the menu changes, not every week.
Publishing it once puts it in two places:
- In your residents' accounts, so they stop asking what is for dinner.
- On your public listing, where it is a genuinely strong selling point. A visitor who can see that Thursday is biryani is being told something specific about the hostel.
Writing a menu people trust
- Write what you actually serve. A published menu you do not follow creates more complaints than no menu at all.
- Name the dishes plainly. “Chicken karahi” and “daal chawal”, not “lunch”.
- Include breakfast. It is the meal people most often assume is not provided.
- Update it when the cook changes or prices force a change, rather than leaving last year's menu up.
Practical notes
- Mess groceries and the cook's salary belong in expenses. Recording them is how you find out whether the mess pays for itself, which surprises a fair number of owners.
- Mess management is available from the Standard plan upwards.
- If a resident is away for a month, adjust their charge on their booking rather than deleting anything.
In short
- Say clearly on your listing whether you serve food, and how many times a day.
- Included in rent is simpler and shows one comparable price; separate suits hostels where not everybody eats in.
- The setting is per resident, so you can run both at once.
- Charging separately? Set your mess charge once on Mess Menu and choose which rooms take it.
- Publish the weekly menu once. It reaches your residents and your public listing together.
- Put mess groceries and the cook's pay in expenses, or you will never know if the mess makes money.
Common questions
Should mess be included in rent or charged separately?
Either works. Included is simpler for residents and makes your advertised rate look complete; separate is better if some residents eat in and some do not. The setting is per resident, so you can run both.
Where do residents see the menu?
In their own account, and on your public listing. Publishing it once covers both.
Still stuck?
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