I have a request for setting up ERPNext for managing a co-working space and am wondering how this could be done best.
Was wondering whether the Education Module (customers=students) or Non-Profit (customer = members) be a good way to approach this. Has anybody every done something in such a field?
Why would you want to go with education module for this?
Why can’t you create sales invoices for subscription of their “Desk” or “Dedicated office space” which they lease from the coworking?
In Sales Invoice, we have an option (I think post V10) to have subscription system with start to end dates and a periodic recurring invoice could be generated.
So (Customer = Members) and (Sales Invoice = Subscription) should do the task. Also creating a portal for the members to avail self-help services (like Booking conference room, punching number of prints, Ordering Meals from the cafe, Viewing and downloading their subscription and their bills, etc) can be done.
I hope I was able to read your question well and help resolve the doubt.
I have thinking before for this sector. I think most of the function can make use of existing module like billing, HR, room booking from education etc…Just need an extra module for setting or configuring the coworking package and environment.
Yes. But I believe 80% of things would be solved if we try to fit processes with default features and modules of the system. Pass it on to business users and 20% gap will naturally be filled tweaking bits.
About coworking package and environment item configuration and portal setup should help I believe. What do you think ?
dunno really where that thought came from. Seems One should play with the vanilla ERPNext with that sort of business in my to see where potential gaps may be based on that.
Yes Vanilla has become my Favorite Flavor 
Is the co-working space being operated as a business or is it a educational/non-profit type thing? Do you just need to manage time and allocation of resources or also charge for the space(s) and services on some sort of per unit basis?
definitely a business, but with a more social component to it the i.e. WeWork
both I guess. To be honest … my analysis of requirements is still in a very basic stage.
There is a fixed component, the overspace with shared resources like heating cooling , wc, electricity - overhead as we call it. Think WeWork membership fee.
There is also resources that are consumed in variable units - square units of space(desk, office) and or time (hour/day/week etc). In this scenario , selling blocks of those units would make the most sense. Metering would be possible, time-in/time-out for each unit - but a lot more bookeeping per customer.
If you offer fax/printing or additional services they could be POS or added as Items with per unit pricing.
I don’t think this is difficult to set up with Item groups or variants once the business model is decided.
I think it should be built on the model of hospitality domain (Hotel rooms). You have a resource that can be rented out in a block of time. It has similar attributes to a hotel room, such as capacity, type (single workstation, conference room, board room etc).
@vrms we have also a client who is working on co-working. We tried as per above block by subscription but still we facing problem like how can inventory show available after end date of subscription.
Please help on same.
So what is your conclusion?
The optimum approach would be to do a Frappe Framework App that uses ERPNext for anything that ERPNext supports already.
I think this would resemble a hospital or a hotel more than a school. I think it is very intense to do this and unless you get a serious prospect that is willing to plonk down serious money to help you develop this, you shouldn’t attempt it.
But hey, I’ve been plenty wrong in my life before, so please feel free to prove me wrong.
Thanks
Jay
I never went deeper into this. The prospect at hand faded away.