Description
Lend out boats, books, tools, cameras or laptops and always know who has what and when it’s due back.
Borrowdesk is a companion plugin for WP Inventory Manager. Your items stay in WP Inventory; Borrowdesk adds check-out, returns and due dates. The free WP Inventory Manager is all you need.
Built for sailing and sports clubs, libraries of things, schools, churches, makerspaces, IT departments and tool rooms.
What you can do for free
- Check out one or many items to a borrower, with a due date. Borrowers do not need a WordPress login.
- Return everything in one click, or part of a loan, and record the condition.
- Track individual units (asset tag, serial number) or lend by quantity.
- See what is on loan, due today and overdue; see everything one person has.
- Email an overdue reminder automatically.
- Show “Available 3 of 5” or “On loan, due back 3 Nov” on your public item pages. Borrower names are never shown.
- Export loans to CSV; import borrowers from CSV.
Lending never changes your WP Inventory stock quantities: what you own stays what you own.
Premium
The free plugin is a complete lending desk. Premium adds self-service and booking ahead:
- Bookings for future dates, with clashes blocked automatically; “Collect” turns a booking into a loan.
- An availability calendar.
- Member self-service: logged-in members request items for dates and see their own loans and bookings.
- Approval queue or auto-approval by role, plus limits (items at once, longest loan, how far ahead).
- Emails for requests, approvals, “due soon” and repeat overdue reminders.
External services
This plugin uses the Freemius SDK for licensing and optional usage data.
- Usage data (opt-in only). On activation you can choose to share basic site and plugin data (site URL, WordPress and PHP versions, plugin version, admin email) with Freemius to receive updates and security notices. Nothing is sent if you skip.
- Licensing (Premium only). When you activate a Premium licence, the licence key and site URL are sent to Freemius to validate it, and the plugin checks for Premium updates.
Freemius terms and privacy policy.
Screenshots
Installation
- Install and activate WP Inventory Manager (free or Pro).
- Install and activate Borrowdesk.
- Go to WP Inventory Lending Settings and choose which items can be lent (per item, per category, or all).
- Check out your first item from WP Inventory Check Out.
FAQ
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Do I need WP Inventory Pro?
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No. Lending works with the free WP Inventory Manager or with Pro.
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Does lending change my stock quantities?
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No. Lending never writes to WP Inventory’s quantities. Availability is worked out from what you own minus what is on loan.
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Do borrowers need a WordPress account?
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Not in the free plugin: staff record loans for anyone. Member self-service (Premium) uses ordinary WordPress logins on your own site.
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Are borrower names shown on my public pages?
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Never. Public pages show only availability, such as “Available 3 of 5” or “On loan, due back 3 Nov”.
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Is Lending part of WP Inventory Pro or All Access?
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No. Borrowdesk is a separate plugin with its own free version and its own Premium upgrade. It works the same with WP Inventory Manager free or Pro.
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Can members request or book items themselves?
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Yes, with Premium. Members log in on your own website, pick dates and send a request. You approve it, or let trusted roles be approved automatically.
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Can I lend items by quantity, like 20 life jackets?
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Yes. Lend by quantity, or track each unit by its own tag or serial number.
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Can I charge for rentals?
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No. Lending is built for organisations that lend for free, so it does not take payments.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Borrowdesk – Equipment Lending, Check-Out & Due Dates” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Borrowdesk – Equipment Lending, Check-Out & Due Dates” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
0.4.2
- Member request and My loans pages show a short notice instead of the shortcode text when Premium is not active.
- 30-day Premium trial, no card needed.
0.4.1
- Freemius configuration for the Borrowdesk product name (no functional change).
0.4.0
- New name: Borrowdesk (previously Equipment Lending). Same plugin, same data; the text domain is now borrowdesk.
0.3.7
- Plugin header: Author URI only (WordPress.org requires the plugin and author URIs to differ).
0.3.6
- Readme: clearer description, tags, FAQ and screenshots.
0.3.5
- WordPress.org readiness: text domain is now equipment-lending, the plugin name no longer includes a trademarked term, and all SQL passes Plugin Check.
- Readme: installation steps, FAQ and an External services section (Freemius).
0.3.4
- Security: a member whose email matches an existing borrower now gets their own record instead of taking over that borrower’s loans.
- Security: reminder and member emails are sent as plain text, so names can no longer inject HTML.
- Security: Lending Settings is limited to administrators; lending staff keep everyday lending pages.
- Security: member pages are not cached, members cannot see or request items in a hidden status, and member requests and “more time” emails are rate limited.
- Privacy: erasing a borrower also clears their group, notes and logged email; the export includes bookings.
- Fix: a booking cancelled while staff are collecting it can no longer leave a loan and a cancelled booking out of step.
0.3.3
- Fix: activating the premium version while the free version is active no longer fails with a fatal error.
0.3.2
- First build deployed with the Premium plan (no code changes from 0.3.1).
0.3.1
- Uninstall cleanup now runs through Freemius (after_uninstall) instead of uninstall.php.
0.3.0
- Freemius licensing: premium features switch on with a licence; free and premium builds can be installed side by side safely.
0.2.0
- Premium (development build): bookings for future dates with a clash check, Bookings screen (requests, ready to collect, upcoming), collect a booking into a loan, Lending Calendar, member request form [wpim_lending_request] and My loans page [wpim_lending_my], request rules, booking and due-soon emails, repeating overdue reminders, busy-days calendar on item pages.
- Walk-in check-outs now respect future bookings.
0.1.0
- First development build (M1: free custody features).