Announcing: Boater Contract Management with Dockwa

Dockwa launched in 2015 as a transient reservation platform, which marinas have used to streamline their operational efficiency, improve their guest experience and expand their marketing. Since launching, we have learned that many marinas don’t think about dockage in terms of transient vs. long term. They simply think in terms of filling their docks. So, as we’ve grown, we’ve shifted our focus to build support for marinas’ needs to fill all dockage, not just transient dockage.

Today, we expand this support by releasing Dockwa Contracts - which allows all partner marinas to manage dockage contracts with custom rates right from their Dockwa Dashboard. 

With Dockwa Contracts, you'll see the real-time status of all your contracts in one place (so you can ditch the stack of papers!).

Contracts marries electronic signing with Dockwa's core reservation management and billing features -  marinas now can reap the Dockwa benefits of flexibility, security, and time-saved in all dockage operations, not just their transient business. 

Why Contracts?

We've spent years researching how marinas manage long term dockage. The most familiar soundbites we've heard are:

• "We send contracts in the mail and physically collect each signature."
• "We spend countless hours creating and sending contracts, and then chasing down customers when we don't receive them back."
• “We don’t have a centralized place to manage our contract process.”

Most marina operators spend hours creating, issuing and tracking down the status of paper dockage contracts.

So we thought: "It's time for a better way."

The marina industry is long overdue for a tool that efficiently manages the intricacies of dockage contract creation and tracking. Dockwa Contracts does just that, making the Dockwa experience accessible to all, not just those that accept transient reservations.

A new way to manage contracts: less desk time, more dock time.

With Dockwa's new contract management tool, marinas can easily:

• Create personalized contracts with custom rates
• Send contracts to to customers and monitor contract completion
• Allow boaters to sign and pay electronically 

Marinas can then process contract payments within Dockwa, just as they do with their transient reservations. Once a marina creates digital contracts, those contracts live in one online dashboard, allowing operators to:

• View contracts’ statuses in real-time
• Manage contract/payment follow-up
• Remind and re-send contracts to customers who have not signed and paid
• Automate payments and invoicing

By eliminating paper work and uncertainty, Dockwa Contracts alleviates the headaches associated with managing long term dockage contracts. That means less time marina operators can spend less time at their desks and more time focused on the aspects of their job they care about most.

No added costs means marinas can get started with Contracts today.

If you are a Dockwa marina partner,  dive right into our Contracts tool at any time.

Dockwa Contracts is available to all partner marinas at our standard credit card processing fee. So, marina partners, let's go! Head on over to your Dockwa Dashboard and click the "Contracts" item on the left-hand menu to set up your first contract.

Once you're comfortable with the tool, try timing yourself, from when you create a contract to when you send the contract to a boater. Then, let us know how much time you did (or didn't!) save by using Dockwa Contracts, either with a message in the comment section below or on Facebook!