Glossary
The words, defined
49 words a dive shop, snorkel or tour operator uses through the day — defined as this product uses them, because two of them are constantly confused for each other.
The day
What a shop sells, when it leaves, and who is on the boat.
Activity
- An activity is a thing your shop runs — a two-tank dive, a snorkel trip, an Open Water course, a cave-tubing tour — described once with its price, its capacity, its deposit rule and the questions it asks a guest, and then sold on as many dates as you schedule it. It is the catalogue entry, not the date.Scheduling · Online booking
Boat
Also called Vessel
- A boat is a vessel with a capacity and a name, and in a booking system it is the thing that makes two trips at the same time possible or impossible. Each boat has its own calendar lane, its own crew assignments and its own manifest per departure, so a shop with three boats runs three parallel days.Scheduling
Capacity
- Capacity is the number of guests a trip can take, set by the boat, the crew or the site, and enforced when a booking is made rather than checked afterwards. When the last seat goes the activity stops being bookable for that departure and the next guest is offered the waitlist instead of a seat that does not exist.Online booking
Crew assignment
Also called Staff assignment
- A crew assignment is a staff member put on a specific trip — a divemaster, an instructor, a captain, a guide — rather than on the day. It is what makes a roster answerable: who is on the nine o'clock, whether anyone is on two boats at once, and whether the instructor the course needs is free that morning.Scheduling
Day view
- The day view is the one screen the office and the dock both read in the morning: every departure today, seats sold against capacity, crew assigned, the marine forecast, and who still owes a waiver or a balance. It answers the question the phone is about to ask, which is whether there is room on the eleven o'clock.Scheduling
Manifest
Also called Boat manifest, Trip manifest
- A manifest is the list the captain takes off the dock: every guest on one departure, with the detail the crew needs — certification level, BCD and wetsuit sizes, weights, who is a minor, who has not signed — and without the detail they do not: phone numbers, and what anybody paid. It is per departure, not per booking.Trip manifests
Product
- A product is a thing off the shelf: a rash guard, a tip. It is sold as a line on a booking or rung up on the till, it has no date and no seat, and it is deliberately not called an activity: confusing the two is how a booking screen offers a dive where it meant a t-shirt.Point of sale
Surface interval
- The surface interval is the time a diver spends out of the water between two dives, which is why a two-tank takes a morning. For a shop it is a scheduling fact before it is a physiological one: it sets how long the boat is out, when the crew is free, and whether an afternoon departure is realistic.No-fly calculator
Trip
Also called Departure
- A trip is one activity on one date at one time, on one boat: the nine o'clock two-tank on Wednesday. It carries its own capacity, its own crew and its own seats sold, which is why moving a trip to another boat moves every booking on it and why two departures of the same tour never share a guest list.Scheduling
Two-tank
- A two-tank is the standard morning for most dive shops: one boat trip with two dives on it, separated by a surface interval, back at the dock before lunch. It is sold as a single activity with a single price and a single seat per diver, not as two dives booked twice, and it is one line on the manifest.
Waitlist
- A waitlist is what a full trip offers instead of a refusal: the guest leaves their details, and when a seat is freed by a cancellation the shop chooses who is offered it rather than letting the fastest refresh win. It turns the two most common losses — a full boat and a late cancellation — into one filled seat.Online booking
Weather day
- A weather day is a day the sea decides, when a trip has to move to another date or another boat, or be refunded. What makes it expensive is not the decision but the re-entry: every guest, every payment and every waiver has to arrive at the new departure without being typed again. Move the trip, not the bookings.
Bookings and money
From the deposit that holds a seat to the drawer count at closing.
Balance
- The balance is what is still owed on a booking after the deposit: the rest of the trip price, plus anything added since — an extra diver, a rental, a product off the shelf. It is paid online from a link, at the desk before the boat leaves, or by card at the counter.Payments and deposits
Booking
- A booking is one guest or group on one activity for one date: the seats, the price, the questions they answered and what they have paid. A visit that includes a dive on Tuesday and a snorkel trip on Thursday is two bookings, which is why they are held together by a Booking ID rather than squeezed into one row.Online booking
Booking ID
- A Booking ID is the reference for a guest's whole visit — every activity they booked, every participant, every payment and every waiver under one short code such as SCU-B0081. It is what a guest quotes on the phone, and it exists so that adding a second dive to a visit does not create a second conversation.
BZD settlement
- BZD settlement is the fact that a card payment taken in United States dollars arrives in a Belize bank account in Belize dollars, converted at the rate the merchant account is set to. Belize's currency is pegged at two Belize dollars to one US dollar, so a US$160 booking settles as BZD 320 and the shop's books are in BZD.Built in Belize
Cash drawer
- The cash drawer is the physical float at the counter, counted at the start of a shift and again at the end. The session between those two counts is what makes cash answerable: every sale rung up belongs to one drawer, and the difference between the count and the total is the only honest measure of a mistake.Point of sale
Confirmed
- A confirmed trip is one the shop has committed to running: the boat is going, the crew is assigned, and guests can be told so. Confirming is a decision about the departure rather than about any one booking, and it is the moment the manifest stops being a plan and starts being the list somebody takes to the dock.
Deposit
- A deposit is the part of the price paid to hold a seat, set per activity as a percentage or a fixed amount per guest, with the rest owed before the trip. It is the default ask at checkout: a shop that takes the full amount up front loses bookings, and one that takes nothing loses mornings to no-shows.Payments and deposits
Gift card
- A gift card is a prepaid code sold to one person and redeemed by another, usually as a holiday present for a course or a day's diving. For a shop it is revenue taken now against a trip run later, so the code has to survive until it is used, and be spendable at checkout and at the counter.
No-show
- A no-show is a guest who booked a seat and did not arrive for it, which costs a shop twice: the seat could have been sold and the boat went out lighter. A deposit taken at booking is the usual defence, because the money that holds the seat is also the money that makes turning up worth it.
Package
- A package is several activities sold together at one price, such as a five-dive pack used across a week or a course bundled with two fun dives. Its usefulness is in how it is consumed rather than sold: the guest books the individual departures as they choose them, and the package is what pays for each seat.
Payment link
- A payment link is a web address that opens a checkout for one specific thing a guest owes — a balance, an invoice, a quote — with the amount filled in and the payment landing back on its booking. It replaces reading a card number over the phone, and chasing a bank transfer that nobody can match.Payments and deposits
Promo code
- A promo code is a short word a guest types at checkout to get a set discount — a hotel partnership, a repeat-visitor rate, a shoulder-season offer — applied to the price before the deposit is worked out. It is how a shop runs an offer without publishing a second price list or quoting a different number on the phone.
Refund
- A refund returns money a guest has already paid, either to the card it came from or as store credit, and it is a new record rather than an edit of the payment it reverses. Keeping it that way is what lets a shop answer later what was taken, what was given back, when, and by whom.
Secured
- A seat is secured when the money that holds it has actually arrived — the deposit paid by card at checkout, or cash taken at the counter — rather than when someone said they would come. The distinction is the whole reason deposits exist: a secured seat is off sale and countable, and a promised one is neither.
Store credit
- Store credit is money a shop owes a guest and keeps on their record instead of returning it to a card: the value of a weather-day cancellation, an overpayment, or a goodwill gesture. It is spent at checkout or at the till like any other payment method, and it stays attached to the client rather than to any one booking.
Till
Also called Point of sale, POS
- The till is the counter screen: walk-in activities, rentals, tank fills and retail sold on the spot, paid by cash or card, with a receipt out by email. It is the same catalogue and the same money as the booking side rather than a separate machine, which is what makes the end-of-day total one number instead of two that disagree.Point of sale
Void
- To void is to strike out a record that should never have stood — a payment typed twice, a tip on the wrong booking — leaving the original visible and marked rather than deleting it. It is not a refund: no money moves. The difference matters at year end, when a deleted row is indistinguishable from one that never existed.
Z-report
Also called End of day
- A Z-report is the closing summary of a till session: what was sold, how it was paid for, what the drawer should hold and what it actually held. The name comes from cash registers and the job is unchanged: it lets a shop close out an evening and know, rather than assume, that the money is right.
People and paperwork
Who is diving, what they have signed, and what is on their record.
Certification agency
- A certification agency is the body that trained and certified a diver — PADI, SSI, NAUI, CMAS, BSAC and others — and issued the card they present at the shop. Agencies differ in course names and in the order they teach things, so a shop records the agency alongside the level rather than assuming everyone speaks one dialect.
Certification level
- A certification level is how far a diver has trained: Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Rescue, Divemaster and beyond, or the equivalent under another agency. It decides which activities a guest may book, how deep they may go, and whether a shop can accept them for a site at all, so it belongs on the manifest and on the booking.
Check-in
- Check-in is the moment a guest who is booked becomes a guest who is here: details confirmed, waiver signed, gear sizes taken, and the manifest updated before the tanks are loaded. Done on a phone or a tablet at the counter it takes a minute; done on a clipboard it is re-typed in the evening by whoever is still there.Waivers and check-in
Client record
Also called Customer record
- A client record is everything a shop knows about one person across every visit: contact details, certification agency and level, logged dives, gear sizes, waivers signed, and each Booking ID they appear on. Its value is in the second visit — a returning diver should not be asked for their card, their sizes or their cert again.Client records
Guardian waiver
Also called Minor waiver
- A guardian waiver is the release for a guest under the age of majority, signed by a parent or guardian, with the guardian's name and relationship recorded alongside the signature. A shop that stores it as an ordinary waiver cannot later show who signed for the minor, which is the one question that will be asked.Waivers and check-in
Logged dives
Also called Dive count
- Logged dives are how many dives a guest has recorded, and the number a shop actually uses when deciding whether a certified diver needs a refresher or a guide. Certification says what somebody was once trained to do; the dive count, together with the date of the last one, says what they have done recently.
Medical statement
- A medical statement is the questionnaire a diver completes about conditions that affect diving — heart, lungs, ears, medication, pregnancy — where any yes means a doctor signs before they get in the water. For a shop it is a gate on the morning rather than paperwork: it is better answered the night before than discovered on the dock.
No-fly time
Also called Flying after diving
- No-fly time is the interval a diver must spend at surface pressure before boarding a flight, so that dissolved nitrogen has time to leave the body rather than expand at altitude. For a shop it shapes the last day of a guest's holiday: the afternoon two-tank on departure eve is the booking that most often should not be sold.No-fly calculator
Participant
- A participant is a person on a booking, as distinct from the person who made it. Four friends on one Booking ID are one booker and four participants, each with their own certification, gear sizes, waiver and dietary note — which is why per-person facts belong on the participant and never on the booking as a whole.
Waiver
Also called Liability release
- A waiver is the liability release a guest signs before getting in the water, covering the risks of the activity they are about to do. Signed on a phone before the trip, it is a record with a name, a date, a version and a signature attached to the person, which is what makes it findable a year later.Waivers and check-in
Walk-in
- A walk-in is a guest who arrives without a booking and wants to go out today, which is ordinary business in a dive town and awkward in a booking system. Handled properly they take a real seat against real capacity, appear on the manifest, sign the same waiver and pay at the counter.
Diving and courses
The terms a shop uses with divers and students, and what they mean for a booking.
BCD
Also called Buoyancy control device
- A BCD, or buoyancy control device, is the inflatable jacket a diver wears to hold the tank and control how they float. A shop rents them in sizes, so the size is a per-person fact collected at booking and printed on the manifest — the alternative is finding out on the boat that nothing fits the last diver.
Con-ed
Also called Continuing education
- Con-ed, short for continuing education, is any course a certified diver takes after Open Water — Advanced, Nitrox, Rescue, a speciality, or professional training. For a shop it is the highest-value booking on the calendar and the one most dependent on an instructor being free, which is why courses are scheduled against staff rather than only against boats.
Confined water
- Confined water is the pool, or a shallow sheltered bay standing in for one, where a student first breathes underwater and practises skills before going to a dive site. It occupies a morning and an instructor without occupying a seat on the boat, which is exactly the kind of commitment a calendar built only around departures tends to lose.
DSD
Also called Discover Scuba Diving, Try dive
- A DSD, or Discover Scuba Diving, is a first dive for someone with no certification at all: a briefing, shallow skills, and a supervised dive with an instructor. It is the busiest product in a tourist town and the most paperwork-heavy per head, because everyone on it is new and everything about them has to be collected today.
eLearning code
Also called PADI eLearning code
- An eLearning code is the voucher a shop buys from a training agency and gives to a student so they can do the theory online before they arrive. Each code belongs to one student and is useless a day late, which is why losing track of which code went to whom is a costly and very common piece of admin.PADI eLearning
Open Water
- Open Water is the entry-level certification course that lets someone dive without an instructor, typically taught over three or four days as theory, confined-water skills and four open-water dives. It is one booking across several days rather than four separate sales, which is what makes course scheduling different from selling fun dives.PADI eLearning
Weights
- Weights are the lead a diver wears to offset the buoyancy of their body, suit and gear, and the amount is personal — it depends on the person, the exposure suit and whether the water is salt or fresh. The crew loads them before the guests arrive, so the number belongs on the manifest rather than in somebody's memory.
Wetsuit size
- Wetsuit size is the rental size a guest needs, recorded as the shop stocks it rather than as a clothing size, and stored on the person so a returning diver is never asked twice. Together with BCD size and weights it is the gear line of the manifest, which is what the crew loads the boat from.
Why does the wording matter?
Because a system that calls two different things by one name eventually offers you the wrong one. An activity is a dive, a course or a tour you run; a product is a thing off the shelf. Getting that wrong put a button in this product that said “add product” and opened a list of trips, and it survived for a month before a shop said so.
Something missing?
If you use a word this list does not have, or use one of these to mean something else, tell us. The vocabulary belongs to the shops, not to the software, and the list is easier to change than a habit is.
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