Questions
Questions, answered.
What retreat centers ask before they switch. If yours isn't here, ask for a demo sign-in and try it.
About Retreat Keeper
What is Retreat Keeper?
Retreat Keeper is reservation and billing software for retreat centers that host groups. It keeps rooms, meals, meeting spaces, invoices and payments in one place, and runs in the browser.
Who is it for?
Retreat and conference centers that host groups on their own grounds: the office, the kitchen, housekeeping and the front desk. It is not a booking marketplace, and it is not built for retreat leaders who rent space at someone else's center.
Is anyone using it?
Yes. Our first center runs its whole operation on it every day: 67 guest rooms, 10 buildings and 300+ group events a year.
Who makes it?
Semko Software LLC, a software company in the United States. The person who built Retreat Keeper is the person who supports it.
Rooms and bookings
How does Retreat Keeper manage room inventory?
Every room belongs to a building and has its own bed count, accessibility details and status. Reservations place a group or a guest in a room for specific nights, and the calendar prevents double-bookings. A room taken out of service for maintenance is blocked for those dates.
Can it handle groups and individual guests together?
Yes. A group holds a block of rooms, and guests are placed into those rooms by name, one at a time or all at once from a guest list.
Does it book meeting spaces too?
Yes. Halls and meeting rooms are booked per event with times and setup notes, along with equipment such as projectors. Function sheets give the facilities team each day's setups.
Can groups register online?
Yes. Each event can have a public sign-up page that takes payment and places guests in the event, and guests can fill in their own details and dietary needs from a link.
Meals and kitchen
How are meal counts calculated?
From the bookings. Breakfast, lunch and dinner counts for each day come from who is staying, and the kitchen report prints them by group with dietary notes. Nobody retypes a meal sheet.
Can some meals be included and others charged?
Yes. Each event sets which meals are included in its package and which are extra.
Billing and payments
Can we bill the group or each guest?
Both, or a mix. Invoice the organization, every guest individually, or split it, and each invoice keeps its own balance.
How are deposits, refunds and credits handled?
Deposits are scheduled per event and recorded against the invoice. Refunds, credits and adjustments are added as new lines rather than by changing history, so every balance can be traced.
Can guests pay online?
Yes, if you want them to. Guests pay from a link through your own Stripe account at Stripe's standard rate, and we add nothing.
Staff and daily work
Does it work for housekeeping and the front desk?
Yes. Housekeeping gets a tablet board of today's turnovers, marked done as they go, and the front desk gets a board of today's departures.
What does the AI assistant do?
It answers questions in plain language, such as who arrives Friday or what an account owes, by looking up your records without changing them. It also points staff to the right screen and can file a bug report for them.
How do staff sign in?
With Google or a passkey. Each person has a role (admin, staff, housekeeping or front desk) that decides what they can see and change.
Switching
How do we switch from our current system?
We load your bookings, contacts, rooms and rates, then you run both systems side by side while your staff practice. When you are ready, we load a final fresh export, check every open balance with you, and you switch over that day.
Do we have to stop using our old system right away?
No. Your current system stays in charge until your switching day, and you can run both for as long as you like. After a few weeks of overlap, our first center was ready to leave its old system behind.
Is migration extra?
No. We move your data at no charge, and your subscription starts on the day you switch over, not before.
Pricing and support
How are we billed?
Monthly, by invoice or card. The service continues until you tell us to stop.
Will the price go up?
Your founding rate is protected in your agreement: it can rise by no more than 5% in a year. Once these founding seats are taken, new centers pay a higher list price.
What does migration include?
We load your rooms, rates, meal types, templates, contacts and bookings from your current system: its exports, or PDFs if that is all there is. You review the result on a shared screen before anyone relies on it.
Can we get our data out?
Yes. Ask and we send a full export in whatever format you need. Your bookings, guests and invoices are yours.
Who do we talk to when something breaks?
Nobody has to find an email address. Staff report a bug or request a feature from the screen they are on, and it comes straight to the person who builds the software.
Do we need our own hardware?
No. It runs in the browser on the computers, tablets and phones you already have. Housekeeping and front-desk boards are built for a tablet.
Are online payments extra?
No. Guests pay through your own Stripe account at Stripe's standard rate; we add nothing. Online payments are optional and can be switched off.
Click around the demo center.
The quickest answer to most questions is to try it. Ask for a sign-in and use it on your own time.