Office Space: Desks, Requests and Rent
Your building is usually your biggest asset and your most argued-about resource. This covers listing your spaces, handling requests from startups, allocating desks, and - if you charge rent - actually collecting the money.
What you will learn
- How to list a space with photos, amenities and pricing
- The difference between a request, an allocation and a booking
- How to approve a startup's request for space
- What you must set up before you can take any payment
- How rent flows from a startup to your bank account
What this module covers#
Office Management handles the long-term occupancy of your building: who has which desk or cabin, for how long, and on what terms. Short bookings of shared rooms sit in Facility Management, which is a separate module.
| Tab | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Offices | Your directory of spaces - every desk, cabin and room you can allocate. |
| Requests | Startups asking for space. This is your inbox. |
| Allocations | Who currently occupies what, and until when. |
| Bookings | Shorter-term reservations against a space. |
| Subscriptions | Recurring rental arrangements that renew. |
| Settlements | Money collected, being reconciled. |
| Payout Requests | Moving collected money to your own bank account. |
| Payout Account | Your bank or UPI details. Nothing can be collected until this exists. |
Listing your spaces#
The Offices tab is your directory. Each row shows the space, where it is, its size and capacity, its type and whether it is currently occupied. Filter by status or type when you are hunting for something free.
- Office types: Desk, Cubicle, Private, Meeting Room.
- Statuses: Available, Occupied, Maintenance, Inactive.
- Put a space into Maintenance rather than deleting it when it is temporarily unusable - it stays in your records and out of the available pool.
Adding a space#
Add Office opens a form with a live preview down the right-hand side that tells you what you have filled in and what is still missing.
- 1
Describe the space
Name it the way your team refers to it out loud - 'Office A-101', 'Block B Hot Desk 4'. Add the location, the size in square feet, the type and how many people it holds.
- 2
Add photos
Up to five images, PNG, JPG or WEBP, each under 5 MB. Worth doing - a startup choosing between two desks will pick the one they can see.
- 3
Set who can see it
Visibility has three settings and they matter.
- Public - visible to anyone browsing, including startups outside your centre.
- Tenant Only - visible to startups already associated with your centre.
- Private - visible only to your own team, for spaces you allocate directly rather than advertise.
- 4
Add pricing and amenities
Pricing Options are added separately with Add Pricing - you can have more than one, so the same space can be offered monthly or annually. Amenities are a checklist (WiFi, AC, Whiteboard, Projector, Conference Table, Phone Line, Printer Access, Kitchen Access, Parking) plus a box to add your own.
Tip: Leave pricing off entirely for spaces you provide free as part of a program. Not every desk needs a price.
Requests, allocations and bookings#
Three words that sound similar and mean different things. Getting them straight saves a lot of confusion in handover notes.
A request
A startup asking for space. It has a preferred date, a duration and an estimated amount, and it sits Pending until you approve or reject it.
An allocation
Space actually assigned to a startup for a period. This is what makes a space show as Occupied. You can create one directly with Allocate Office without waiting for a request.
A booking
A shorter reservation against a space - useful for temporary or part-time arrangements that are not a full allocation.
Handling requests#
The Requests tab is where startups' asks land. Each row shows who is asking, which space, the estimated amount, their preferred start date and how long they want it for.
- Pending requests are also counted on the summary card at the top of the page, so you can see at a glance whether anything is waiting.
- The Request Summary panel on the overview breaks them into Pending, Approved and Rejected.
- Approving a request creates the allocation - you do not need to do both.
- Use View rather than Approve when the duration or amount needs checking first.
Tip
Deal with requests weekly rather than letting them accumulate. A startup waiting on a desk decision cannot plan their hiring, and the Pending count is the first thing a visiting director notices.
Before you can charge anyone#
If you rent space out, there is a setup step that catches everyone: no payment can be collected until your payout account exists. The tab shows a plain warning until you complete it.
- You provide your legal business name and a contact email, then bank or UPI details.
- This is your centre's own account - the destination for rent your startups pay.
- Once set up, collected money appears under Settlements and can be moved to your bank via Payout Requests.
Important
Set this up before you advertise any priced space. A startup who tries to pay and cannot will not try twice, and you will have spent the goodwill for nothing.
Bank details are yours to enter
Nobody should ever ask you to share bank or UPI details over email or chat so they can 'set it up for you'. Enter them yourself, in this form, signed into your own portal.
How the money flows#
Four of the eight tabs exist only to handle rent. If you provide space free of charge you can ignore all of them.
| Stage | Where it appears | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Agreement | Allocations or Subscriptions | A startup has space on agreed terms. A subscription is one that recurs. |
| 2. Payment | Settlements | The startup pays. Offline payments can be recorded manually if someone pays by cheque or transfer. |
| 3. Withdrawal | Payout Requests | You move collected money into your own bank account. |
| 4. Destination | Payout Account | The bank or UPI details the money goes to. |
Good to know
Someone paid by bank transfer outside the portal? Record it as an offline payment against their allocation rather than leaving it unrecorded. Otherwise your occupancy looks paid-up and your settlements do not match.
Common questions#
Office Management is long-term occupancy - who has which desk or cabin and for how long. Facility Management is short bookings of shared resources like meeting rooms and labs. They are separate modules and may be on different subscription plans.
Check its Visibility. Private is visible only to your team, Tenant Only to startups already with your centre, and Public to anyone. A space set to Private will never appear to a startup.
No. Leave pricing off your spaces and ignore Settlements, Payout Requests and Payout Account entirely. Allocations alone will track who is sitting where.
Record it as an offline payment against their allocation. If you do not, your settlement records will not match what is actually in your account.
Set its status to Maintenance. It stays in your records but drops out of the available pool. Do not delete it - you would lose the history of who used it.
Yes. Allocate Office at the top of the page creates an allocation directly. Requests only exist for when a startup asks first.
Occupied spaces as a proportion of your total. It is the number most directors and funders ask for, so it is worth keeping your statuses accurate.
