Cobot – Management Tools for Coworking Spaces

As the percentage of the U.S. workforce made up of freelancers and “solopreneurs” continues to grow, the number of coworking spaces where these professionals can work has increased exponentially. Coworking spaces give freelancers the opportunity to get work done outside the house, connect with peers, and meet with clients in a professional environment. Cobot is a web-based platform that the owners and managers of coworking spaces can use to run their businesses more efficiently.

Add your space to Cobot and start unloading common management tasks, like calendar booking and payment processing, onto the system. Each of the coworkers at your space (known as “members”) should have his or her own Cobot account. Clicking on a member’s name brings up a full profile, including a photo and contact information. You can see the member’s next invoicing date, along with an outstanding charges from the current billing period. You can also see any reservations the member has made in your Booking Calendar. The Booking Calendar allows you to manage large resources, like meeting rooms, lockers, and large screens. The charges for any resources that clients reserve through the Cobot Booking Calendar show up on their invoices automatically. Cobot uses WiFi integration to enforce time limits on resources, and offers tools that members can use to buy additional time passes online, when necessary.

Cobot offers a number of analysis features that can provide managers with insight into how their coworking spaces are performing. Users can review member attendance by day, plan utilizations (the culmination of the average visits per member and plan), and membership trends. Managers can also accept monthly payments from their members via credit card or Paypal.

Practical Uses:

• Encourage members to book their conference rooms on their own
• Optimize your pricing based on how frequently most members show up to work
• Accept online payments from members at your coworking space
• Enforce time limit rules in your conference rooms and other group workspaces

Insider Tips:

• Create separate calendar feeds for each meeting room at your space
• Offer new members a discount on their monthly pricing rates
• Automatically send members an email before their credit cards are charged
• Send monthly newsletters with updates about new equipment and members who’ve joined your space

What we liked:

• Coworking members can book their own resourcing without emailing the manager
• Cobot offers all the tools a coworking space manager could need
• Managers can integrate their Booking Calendars into Google Calendar
• Cobot uses WiFi to enforce time limit rules

What we didn’t like:

• Lump sum payments are not currently a feature in Cobot, however there is a workaround for managers who wish to charge members in advance

Alternatives:

• Desktime – https://www.desktimeapp.com
• LiquidSpace – https://liquidspace.com

Company Info:

• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
• Founded by: Angel Kwiatkowski
• Web site: https://www.cobot.me

Costs:

• $35 per month for up to 15 coworkers
• $75 per month for up to 35 coworkers
• $125 per month for up to 80 coworkers
• $210 per month for up to 150 coworkers
• $300 per month for unlimited coworkers