Dive shop software has to do more than ring up a mask and fins. On a busy Saturday the same counter sells gear, fits a rental BCD, fills a dozen tanks, signs up an Open Water class and takes a deposit on next month's boat trip. Many shops run that day on a retail POS, a spreadsheet roster, a paper air card in a shoebox and a separate booking tool for trips.
Ribbe is rental, booking and point-of-sale software that runs all of it on one system and one customer record. This guide covers what a dive shop needs from its software and how Ribbe handles each part: courses, prepaid air fill cards, certification checks, gear rental, cylinder maintenance, trips and retail. For the short version, see the dive shop software overview.
Courses and certifications. Sell seats with a cap, run the roster, track each student through the curriculum and record the certification when they pass.
Prepaid air fills. Sell a 10-fill card, take one fill off per visit and show the balance without hunting for a paper card.
Certification checks. See a diver's c-card before tanks and regulators leave the shop.
Gear rental. Rent BCDs, regulators, wetsuits and tanks unit by unit, with a signed waiver and a deposit.
Equipment maintenance. Keep cylinder visual inspections, hydrostatic tests and regulator service on schedule.
Trips and charters. Manifests, travel forms, balances and pre-trip details for every departure.
Retail and service. Inventory, purchase orders and repair work orders at the same register.
When those live in five tools, your customer lives in five places too. The rest of this guide takes them one at a time.
In Ribbe a course is tied to the product that sells its seats. Each class date is a session with its own seat cap, and the same cap applies at the counter and on your booking site, so you never sell a ninth seat in an eight-student class.
Two scuba divers swimming past a school of yellow fish
When a student books, online or at the register, they appear on the course roster automatically. If they move to another date, they move to that session's roster; if the booking is cancelled, they are withdrawn. You assign the instructor per session, or per student when a class is split between instructors.
Ribbe students page for the Open Water course with session, status, progress, mark and certification
Everyone on the Open Water course: session, status, progress, mark and certification number.
Each course carries its own curriculum: knowledge development, confined water sessions, open water dives, or whatever your training standards call for. Instructors sign items off as done, failed or not applicable and add notes, and the student's status moves from Enrolled to In progress on its own. You can grade a course by sign-off only, by score out of 100 or by letter grade, with a weight on each item and a pass mark, so every student's running average is always in view.
When a student passes, mark them Certified. The certification is saved on the customer's Training tab with its number, agency, issue date and expiry. For dive agencies, the number and agency also fill in the customer's dive certificate, so the next time that diver rents a tank the counter can see it.
Ribbe Open Water course curriculum with score-out-of-100 grading, a 75% pass mark and weighted sections
The Open Water curriculum: graded out of 100 with a 75% pass mark and a weight on each section.
One student's course record in Ribbe with each curriculum item signed off and scored
One student's record: every item signed off with a score, who signed it and when, and the running mark.
Ribbe can build quizzes and exams for a course: multiple choice, choose-all-that-apply, true or false and short written answers, with a pass mark, a time limit and a limit on attempts. Send the paper by email, by text or with a QR code at the counter. The student answers on their own phone, one question per screen, with no app and no password.
Choice questions mark themselves. A written answer is checked against the answer you expect, or held for the instructor to mark. Pin a quiz to a curriculum item and passing it signs that item off and feeds the score into the course grade. The built-in assistant can draft a quiz from the course's own curriculum for you to edit.
Quizzes and exams on a Ribbe course with the papers sent out and their results
A course's quizzes and exams, with every paper sent out and how it came back.
A student's phone showing a passed quiz with a score of 75 percent
On the student's phone: the paper is marked the moment it is submitted.
The instructor report shows each instructor's sessions, students, pass rate and course revenue for any date range. Set a commission rule on each course (a percentage of revenue, a flat amount per student, per certified student or per session) and the report works out what each instructor earned. Export it to CSV for payroll. The whole workflow is in dive course management in Ribbe.
You don't have to build courses from scratch. The course library includes dive templates such as Discover Scuba Diving, Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water, Enriched Air (Nitrox), Deep, Rescue Diver, a ReActivate refresher, Freediver, Divemaster and First Aid & CPR, each with a starter curriculum. Import them as they are or edit them first. Each course can also have its own picture, a printable info sheet and a brochure you design inside Ribbe, ready to hand over the counter.
Ribbe course library filtered to dive shop course templates
The course library, open on the dive shop templates. Import as-is or edit first.
Regular divers fill tanks every week, and most shops reward them with a prepaid air card: pay for ten fills up front, usually at a discount. A paper card gets lost, double-punched or left at home. In Ribbe the air card is a punch card attached to the customer, so the balance is always on file.
Rows of scuba cylinders and BCDs racked on a dive boat
Create a product such as Air Card – 10 fills and mark it as a punch card.
Set the number of uses, what the card covers (a single product such as an air fill, a whole category such as Tanks & Air Fills, or anything you sell) and, if you like, an expiry in months.
Price it. Charging less than ten single fills is your frequent-filler discount, and the promotions engine can add offers on top.
Ribbe product page for an air card set up as a punch card with 10 punches and a 12-month expiry
Setting up the air card: 10 punches, the product it covers and a 12-month expiry.
Sell the card at the register or online. Once the sale is rung up, the card is issued to that customer with its own card number. Next time they bring tanks in, put the customer on the ticket and add the fills: Ribbe spends one punch per fill and the fills ring up at no charge. Two tanks, two punches.
The checkout screen shows what's left, the receipt prints it (for example 7 of 10 left) and you can text or email the card and its balance to the diver. The balance also shows on the customer's account at the register and on their profile, so nobody digs through a shoebox. If a fill is voided or returned, the punch goes back on the card; if the card itself is refunded, it is voided. Staff with the right permission can adjust a balance by hand.
Punch cards aren't only for air. The same tool runs a five-dive boat pass, a block of pool sessions or a bundle of rental days, because a card can cover whichever product or category you choose.
Setting the price: how to price air fills and prepaid air cards.
A customer's profile in Ribbe showing an air card with 4 of 10 punches left
The air card on the diver's profile: 4 of 10 fills left, with the order that bought it.
Ribbe keeps a diver's certification on the customer record: the certification number, the agency and a photo of the card itself. If the counter computer has no camera, staff show a QR code and the picture is taken on a phone; it lands on the customer straight away. Divers booking online can add it the same way.
Make the dive certificate required on the products that need it, such as tank and regulator rentals or boat dives, and the register and online checkout ask for the card before the sale goes through. It stays on file next to the diver's ID and their signed waiver.
Rental gear is tracked unit by unit, so you know which regulator went out with which diver and when it came back. Rent by the day or by the hour, offer wetsuits, BCDs and fins in sizes, and take a security deposit on the order. Ribbe's waiver library includes a ready-made Scuba & Snorkel Gear Rental release you can edit, and divers sign it on a tablet at the counter, on their own phone or online when they book. Read more about digital waivers in Ribbe.
Ribbe's maintenance plans include a dive shop set you can add in one step:
Cylinder visual inspection every year, with a checklist for the exterior, valve and threads, interior and VIP sticker.
Cylinder hydrostatic test every five years.
Regulator annual service covering first and second stages, hoses and a bench test.
BCD inspection every six months.
Rinse and check after every rental.
One cylinder can carry the visual inspection and the hydro plan at the same time, each with its own due date. Items coming due show on the maintenance board and on the unit itself, with a warning window before the date. When an inspection fails, the unit can be taken out of service and returned once it passes. These plans cover the cylinders and gear your shop owns.
Ribbe maintenance plans library open on the Scuba and snorkel set
The Scuba & snorkel set in the plans library: cylinder VIP, hydro, regulator service, BCD inspection and rinse-and-check.
Trips sell the same way as courses: each departure has its own seat cap and can be booked online or at the counter, by individuals or groups, with a deposit up front. For every departure, the manifest shows who's going, what they owe and whether their paperwork is done.
Travel forms. Build your travel form once under Templates (passport details, emergency contacts, medical notes and more) and pick it on each trip. Each guest fills theirs in on their phone from a link.
Balances. The manifest shows each booking's balance, and a balance reminder is one click away.
Pre-trip reminders. Send the meeting point, departure time and your pre-trip notes by email or text.
Each row shows which guests still owe a form, who has been reminded and whether the trip is paid, so the night before a boat day is a quick check, not a scramble. Step by step: our dive trip manifest checklist. More on tours and tickets in Ribbe.
Ribbe trip manifest showing the day's departures, guests, check-in, waivers and balance due
The manifest for the day: departures, guests, check-in, waivers and what's still owed.
Ribbe is a full retail point of sale as well: inventory with sizes and colors, purchase orders (including AI import of a supplier's price list), barcode scanning, gift cards and customer accounts. Customer regulator servicing and repairs run as work orders in the service module, on the same customer record as their courses, fills and rentals. See Ribbe's point of sale and repairs and service.
Choose Dive shop when you sign up. Ribbe creates starter categories: Scuba Gear, Tanks & Air Fills, Dive Trips and Courses.
Import your courses from the course library and link each one to the product that sells its seats.
Create your air card as a punch card on the Tanks & Air Fills category.
Load the scuba waiver from the waiver library and adapt it with your legal adviser.
Add the dive maintenance plans to your cylinders, regulators and BCDs.
Require the dive certificate on the rentals and trips that need it.
Publish your booking site so courses, trips and rentals sell online.
Yes. Courses and trips sell on your Ribbe booking site with live seat counts for each session, and online bookings land on the course roster or the trip manifest automatically.
An air card is a punch card product. When a customer buys it, the card is issued to their profile. Each time they buy a covered fill, Ribbe spends a punch and the fill rings up free. The balance prints on the receipt and shows on the customer's account.
Not directly today. Ribbe tracks each student's progress and certification and stores the agency and certification number on the customer, but it doesn't sync student records or eLearning codes with a training agency. You process certifications with your agency as you do now.
Yes, for the cylinders your shop owns. Each one can carry a yearly visual inspection plan and a five-year hydrostatic test plan, with due dates and checklists. Customer-owned cylinders and a gas-blend fill log aren't tracked yet.
You can make a c-card photo required on any rental or trip, and the sale asks for it before it goes through. Ribbe doesn't yet check the certification level automatically (for example, Advanced for a deep trip); staff confirm that from the card on file.
Yes. Set a commission rule on each course and the instructor report totals it for each instructor, alongside sessions, students, pass rate and revenue.
Run your dive shop on Ribbe Courses, air cards, rentals, trips and retail on one system and one customer record. Try it with your own shop. Start a free trial