Every bookable product in Sharper carries a Virtual setting on its Booking Setup tab. It is a small toggle, but it changes something fundamental: whether a reservation draws down a physical unit from your inventory, or not. This article explains what the toggle does, and walks through when to use it for each booking type / period.

When Virtual is off (the default), a product is tied to a finite pool of physical units — specific boats, kayaks, rooms, cabins, or slips assigned on the Units tab. Each reservation occupies one of those units for the booked period and blocks it from being booked again. Availability is capped by how many units you have. When Virtual is on, the product still has a unit assigned, but a reservation does not consume that unit’s availability. Because bookings never draw the unit down, it is not blocked or sold out from being booked — the same unit can carry unlimited, overlapping reservations. This is the setting for offerings not tied to one countable asset, such as open-water activities, lessons, and add-on services. How many bookings you can take is instead governed by the time and capacity rules on the Booking Setup tab — available days and times, minimum and maximum duration, people limits, and (for Hourly products) booking interval, buffer, and time slots.

The Virtual setting cannot be changed after the product is saved — the same is true of the Time Period. Decide correctly at creation. To change it later you must create a new product with the correct setting and retire the old one.

Virtual does not skip the Units tab. You must still create at least one unit and assign it to the product — with none assigned, it cannot be booked on the online customer portal. Units are created in Booking → Settings → Units and assigned on the product’s Units tab. The difference is only that a Virtual booking does not consume that unit’s availability, so a single assigned unit can carry unlimited overlapping reservations.

To build a Virtual product from scratch, have these in place first:

● A Booking Type with the right Time Period (Hourly, Daily, or Nightly) enabled — Booking → Settings → Booking Types. See Bookings — Booking Type Setup.

● At least one Unit, created and associated with that Booking Type — Booking → Settings → Units. Only units tied to the selected Booking Type appear on the product’s Units tab, and a product with no unit cannot be booked on the online customer portal.

● Accounting basics — a Tax Code and an Income Account to assign (both required on the product form).

Once the prerequisites are in place:

1. Go to Booking → Products → Add New.

2. Choose the Time Period (Hourly, Daily, or Nightly). This is locked after saving — choose carefully.

3. On the General tab, enter the Name, select the Booking Type, and set the Tax Code, Income Account, and Price.

4. Open the Booking Setup tab and turn Virtual on. This is also locked after saving.

5. On the Units tab, assign at least one unit — required for the product to be bookable.

6. Set availability and booking rules — days and times, minimum/maximum duration, people limits, and (for Hourly) booking interval, buffer, and time slots.

7. Save, then test a booking to confirm it behaves as expected.

For full field-by-field detail, see Booking — Product Setup.

● Go to Booking → Products and open the product (or select Add New and choose a Time Period).

● Open the Booking Setup tab.

● The Virtual toggle is the first of the three toggles at the top of the tab, followed by Hide in search results and Inactive. On an existing product the toggle appears greyed out. That is expected — it is locked once the product has been saved, which is why it must be set at creation.

One question settles it: is the guest reserving a specific, countable physical item that you could doublebook?

● Yes — keep Virtual off. A boat, kayak, jet ski, hotel room, cabin, or slip is a finite asset. You need availability to draw down so the same item is never booked twice for the same period.

● No — turn Virtual on. A class, a guided activity in open water, or a service performed on the guest’s own boat is not a countable unit. Capacity is set by how many people or time slots you allow, not by an inventory count.

The toggle behaves identically everywhere — what changes is whether you would use it. The table below maps the recommended setting to the booking types in a typical Sharper workspace, with an example for each.

The pattern is consistent: asset rentals stay standard; activities, classes, and add-on services go Virtual. The same logic extends to the Marina and Campground modules — a slip or a campsite is a countable unit and stays standard, while a service or activity offered alongside it is a good Virtual candidate.

Most Virtual products are Hourly, because activities and services are usually time-slot based. A few details matter more once unit availability is out of the picture:

● Booking Interval, Buffer, and Time Slots (Hourly) — with no unit pool to cap bookings, these fields become your main capacity controls. Use fixed Time Slots (for example, an 8:00 AM and a 1:00 PM departure) when you want structured windows rather than open selection.

● Minimum / Maximum People — for classes and group activities, this is how you cap a session. Set it deliberately, since the unit count is no longer doing that job.

● Daily and Nightly Virtual products are less common but valid — for example a multi-day guided experience that isn’t tied to a specific vessel. Availability still comes from the day/time and duration rules, not a unit pool.

● Booking — Product Setup

● Bookings — Booking Type Setup

● How-To Enable Online Booking for a Product

● Marina — Product Setup

● Campground — Product Setup