A marina is a seasonal business with a fixed number of slips and a short window to earn. When slips, contracts, and billing live in spreadsheets and paper, the office spends the season chasing information instead of serving boaters. We build the system that holds the whole operation together.
Slip map, reservations, contracts, and billing in one system, built around how a marina actually runs
Transient and annual bookings kept as separate workflows sharing one slip inventory, so they never collide
Boatyard work and fuel dock sales connected to the same boat and customer records
Payment, accounting, and gate hardware integrations scoped first, because they drive most of the risk
3+ years Retention·Week 1 First milestone·Fixed price Pricing
The problem
Sound familiar?
Slips, contracts, and billing spread across spreadsheets, paper, and a booking tool, so no two people see the same occupancy?
Transient guests, annual berth holders, and boatyard jobs each living in a different system, so the office re-keys everything twice?
Short answer
RaftLabs builds custom marina management software for marinas, boatyards, and leisure boating businesses: a live slip map, transient and annual bookings, seasonal billing, waitlists, boatyard work orders, and fuel dock sales in one system. Your team stops re-keying between spreadsheets, and every slip, contract, and invoice lives in one place.
Who this is for
Marina and boatyard teams we work with
Marina owners and operators
Slip occupancy, contracts, and billing in one daily view.
Boatyards
Work orders, haul-outs, winterization, and storage billing tied to the boat, not the paperwork.
Multi-location marina groups
One system across locations, with each site keeping its own slips, rates, and season.
Transient-focused docks
Online bookings and deposits from visiting boaters, without phone tag at the dock office.
Key takeaways
One slip inventory serves everyone. Annual berth holders, transient guests, and the boatyard all draw on the same slips, so the system must keep their bookings apart while showing one true occupancy picture.
The slip map is the daily tool, not a report. The dock team starts the day on it: who is in each slip, who leaves today, who arrives, and which slips can take a bigger boat.
Seasonal billing is where marinas lose money quietly. Contracts, recurring charges, metered shore power, and late-payment follow-up need to run on schedule, not on memory.
Transient and annual are different businesses sharing one dock. Short stays need online booking and deposits, while annual holders need contracts and renewals. One workflow for both causes double bookings.
Boatyard work belongs in the same records as the slip. When a work order, a haul-out, and winter storage sit with the boat's history, the office stops chasing paper across the yard.
The season sets the deadline. A marina system earns its keep in the months the docks are full, so launch planning works backward from opening day, not from an arbitrary date.
01 Diagnosis
Problems we solve in marina software
01
Problem
Your marina runs on spreadsheets and paper
Solution
Occupancy lives in one spreadsheet, contracts in a drawer, billing in the accounting tool, and transient bookings arrive by phone. No two people see the same picture, so the office re-keys the same information into several places and mistakes surface at the worst moment, when a boater arrives and the slip is already taken. The season is short, and every hour spent reconciling records is an hour not spent on the docks.
02
Problem
Transient and annual bookings collide on the same slips
Solution
An annual berth holder comes back early. A transient guest was booked into that slip by phone, and nobody updated the map. Or the slip fits the boat's length but not its power plug, and the mismatch is discovered at the dock. Annual and transient bookings are different jobs: one is a season-long contract, the other is a stay of a few nights. When both run through the same calendar or the same notebook, they collide, and the collision is always found by the customer.
03
Problem
Seasonal billing leaks money between invoices
Solution
Annual contracts, seasonal rates, electricity measured at the slip, fuel, and yard work are each billed from a different place, if they are billed at all. Deposits for transient stays get missed. Late payments wait for someone in the office to remember to chase them. None of this is fraud or bad faith. It is what happens when billing is a set of manual jobs spread across the season instead of a schedule the system runs on its own.
04
Problem
The boatyard and fuel dock live outside the system
Solution
Yard jobs run on paper work orders, parts are untracked, and winterization checklists live on clipboards. Fuel sales sit in a separate till, disconnected from the boat's account. So a customer has one history at the dock office, another in the yard, and a third at the fuel pump. Nobody can answer a simple question: what has this boat cost us, and what does this customer owe us? The business looks smaller in each system than it really is.
02 What the system covers
What the system covers
01
Slip map and reservations
The live map is the center of the operation. It shows every slip, its status, who is in it, and what arrives and leaves each day. A slip is only offered when it fits the boat: overall length, width, and shore power plug size, commonly 30A, 50A, or 100A. Holds, arrivals, and departures all show on the same view, so the dock team and the office finally read the same map.
02
Annual contracts and seasonal billing
Each annual berth holder gets a contract tied to a slip, with seasonal rate cards setting the price by slip size and location. Billing runs on the season's schedule: installments, renewals, and metered electricity as its own invoice line. Late-payment follow-up runs automatically, with reminders and a clear record of what was sent and when.
03
Transient guest bookings
Visiting boaters book online, pay a deposit, and share arrival details before they reach the dock. Short-stay rates, minimum stays, and cancellation terms sit in the same booking flow, and the booking lands on the slip map the moment it is made. The dock team knows who is arriving, in what boat, and when, without a round of phone calls.
04
Waitlist management
The waitlist keeps position, requested slip size, and power needs for every boater waiting for a slip. When one opens, the next eligible boater is notified and given a set time to accept, so the slip does not sit empty while the office waits. If the offer lapses, it passes to the next person, and interest is refreshed each season.
05
Boatyard work orders
A work order is raised against the boat, so its history survives a change of owner. Haul-outs, winterization checklists, parts used, and labor all sit on the job. When the yard finds extra work, the owner approves it with photos before it goes ahead. Storage billing follows from the same record, so yard, storage, and slip charges land on one invoice.
06
Fuel dock and store sales
Fuel sales post against the boat's account or go through as card or cash, and tank levels feed reorder tracking so the dock never runs dry on a busy weekend. Store items sell through the same till, and the day reconciles in one place: fuel, store, slips, and yard work, instead of four separate counts at closing time.
How the marina year runs on one system
A marina does not have a steady year. It has a rush to open, a full season, and a long close. Software that ignores that rhythm gets in the way. Software built around it quietly carries the business through each phase.
Before the season starts
Preseason is renewals and offers. Annual contracts go out, rate cards are set for the coming season, and the waitlist is reviewed for every slip that turned over. Open slips are offered to the next eligible boaters, in order, with a deadline to accept. Meanwhile the yard plans launches: which boats go in first, which need work before launch, and which winter jobs are still open. Fuel tanks are checked and the store is stocked. The question preseason answers is simple: when opening day comes, is every slip either filled, offered, or honestly vacant?
During the season
The season runs on the slip map. Each morning the dock team sees who leaves, who arrives, and which slips can take a bigger boat if a transient stay extends. Transient bookings arrive online and land on the map without a phone call. The fuel dock serves boats and posts sales to their accounts. The yard fits jobs between launches and haul-outs, and owners approve extra work with photos from their phones. Billing runs on schedule: installments, metered electricity, fuel, and yard charges, each on the right invoice. Late payments get followed up by the system, not by memory. And when a boater messages about arrival times or a delayed departure, the office answers from the same record the dock team sees.
When the season ends
The close is haul-outs and winter work. Boats come out on a schedule, winterization checklists are completed boat by boat, and storage contracts and billing follow from the same records. Boats stored on racks ashore, boats stored in the water, and boats stored under cover each bill differently, and the system keeps those straight. Winter work, repairs, and refits fill the quiet months, and every job adds to the boat's history. Before the year turns, the waitlist is cleaned, interest is refreshed, and next season's renewals are prepared. Winter storage and yard work carry many marinas through the off-season, which is why the close deserves as much system support as the opening.
A note on scope. This page is about leisure marinas, boatyards, and boating businesses. Commercial shipping, freight forwarding, containers, and customs are a different practice, covered on our maritime page. And the cost breakdown and the build-or-buy comparison for marina software live in our guide, Marina Management Software: Build Custom vs. Buy. This page is about the operation itself: the slips, the season, and the money.
Integrations
Connected across the marina
Payments, accounting, and dock hardware connect into one workflow, because the connections drive most of the scope.
Money
Payment processing · Accounting
On the dock
Gate and access hardware · Fuel inventory and point of sale
A discovery phase scopes the integrations first; they drive most of the cost variance.
03 How we work
How we work with marina operators
01
Map the operation
We start by mapping how your operation actually runs: the slips and their sizes, the season and its rate cards, the contracts, the billing schedule, the yard workflow, and the fuel dock. That includes every system the software has to talk to: payment processing, accounting, and gate hardware. This step surfaces the integration requirements that cause rework when they are discovered mid-build.
02
Design around slips, boats, and contracts
We design the data model around the objects your operation actually works in: slip inventory, vessels, contracts, and work orders. The highest-risk integration, usually payments or gate hardware, is prototyped in the first sprint because it is the most common cause of a timeline slip.
03
Working software in slices
You review working software every two weeks, not wireframes. Each slice is usable on its own: the slip map, then reservations, then billing, then yard and fuel. Scope is fixed and priced before the build, so the number does not move unless you change what you are building.
04
Launch before the season
We test every integration against real payment and hardware data, not just a sandbox, because payment and gate feeds fail in ways a sandbox never shows. Launch is planned backward from opening day. You get a documented, tested system, your data in your control, and a handover so your team or ours can run it.
04 Questions
Common questions
Both, in one system when the business runs both. A marina-only operation gets the slip map, reservations, billing, and waitlists without the yard modules. A yard-only operation gets work orders, storage, and billing without the slip map. The records are shared, so a boat that winters in your yard and summers in your slips has one history, not two files.
Every slip and its status: who is in it, when they leave, who arrives today, and which slips are open. It also shows fit, because a slip must suit the boat's overall length, its width, and the size of its shore power plug. The dock team starts the day on the map instead of checking a spreadsheet, a whiteboard, and the phone log.
Each annual berth holder gets a contract tied to a slip, billed on the season's schedule. Seasonal rate cards set the price by slip size and location. Electricity used at the slip, measured by a meter, appears as its own line on the invoice. Renewals go out on schedule, and late payments get followed up automatically instead of waiting for someone in the office to remember.
Yes. Visiting boaters book a slip online, pay a deposit, and share arrival details before they reach the dock. The office sees the booking on the slip map the moment it is made, and the dock team knows who is arriving, in what boat, and when. Short-stay rates, minimum stays, and your cancellation terms all sit in the same booking flow.
The waitlist tracks position, requested slip size, and shore power needs. When a slip opens, the next eligible boater is notified and given a set time to accept, so the slip does not sit empty while the office waits for an answer. If the offer lapses, it passes to the next person. Interest is refreshed each season, so the list reflects boaters who still want a slip.
Yes. A work order is raised against the boat, not just the owner, so the boat's history survives a change of owner. Haul-outs, winterization checklists, parts used, and labor all sit on the job, and the owner approves extra work with photos before it goes ahead. Storage billing follows from the same record, so yard, storage, and slip charges land on one invoice.
The full cost breakdown and the build-or-buy comparison live in our marina software guide, linked above. The short version: stay on an off-the-shelf tool when your operation fits it cleanly. Build custom when your mix of annual slips, transient stays, boatyard work, and fuel sales cannot be handled cleanly by one off-the-shelf tool.
You do. Your data lives in systems you control, and we hand over documentation so your team or ours can maintain it. There is no per-seat lock-in on the software itself.
Talk to us about your marina software.
Tell us how many slips you run, how your season works, which systems you use today, and where the operation leaks time or money. We will tell you how we would approach it.
Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
