Partners
Handing a trip to another company
A partner is another company you hand one of your trips to: they run it with their own driver and car. (Some operators call partners affiliates, or say they farm out a trip.) Each company keeps its own copy of the trip on its own board, linked to the other, and your client only ever sees your company — never the partner's name. A partner isn't a driver on your roster: you hand the trip to the company, and it chooses who drives. Partners works in the Console, or in the RideBits app once it's up to date.
Your partners list
It's under Settings → Partners in the Console, and the Partners row in the ☰ menu of the RideBits app once it's up to date; admins and staff can use it. To add a partner on RideBits, find them by their exact @handle: the company shows with its name before you add it (nothing is suggested as you type). For one that isn't on RideBits, give their company name and, if you have one, a mobile number or email (it's optional — they join from the link you send them). Nothing is looked up before you save; afterwards you're told if that number or email already belongs to someone on RideBits. If it does, each trip you send them shows in their app, as well as coming with a link you can send. The name on an entry is your label for them — nobody else sees your list.
Each entry shows where things stand: Hasn't joined (they haven't joined from your link yet, whether or not their number is on RideBits), Joined (on RideBits, nothing accepted yet), Request sent (your first offer is waiting), Partner (one of you has accepted a trip from the other — their own company name then shows beside your label) or Not interested (they stopped your offers, so you can't send to them). You can rename an entry, change or clear its number, or remove it — they aren't told, and past trips keep their records — though not while a trip of yours is with them.
Sending a trip
On a trip that isn't assigned yet, once you have a partner you can send to, Send to a partner sits beside Assign Driver (in the app, Partner beside Driver; on Solo, beside Accept). Before you have one, the list of drivers ends with Or send it out › Send to a partner, and it's always in the trip's ⋮. Pick a partner (or add one), add an optional rate in your currency — what you'll pay them — choose how long they have to answer, add an optional short note, and send it. The time to answer is 15 min, 1 hour, 4 hours, or until 2 hours before pickup; it starts at 1 hour for a partner who has joined, and at "until 2 hours before pickup" for one who hasn't. Whatever you pick, it never runs later than 2 hours before pickup (15 minutes before, on a short-notice trip — and they always get at least 15 minutes).
If one of your drivers is on the trip, you're asked once; then they're taken off it and told, any offers out to your drivers are withdrawn, and your car comes off — while a trip is with a partner, the driver and car are theirs. You can send a trip that hasn't started, ended or been cancelled and isn't already with a partner, to a partner who works in your currency. A "ride now" trip still being offered to your drivers needs assigning, or its offers stopping, first; and a trip a partner sent you can't be passed on. When a send can't go, you're told why.
Before accepting, the partner sees the time, the places and stops, the vehicle class, the flight, your rate, and the add-ons your client chose (by name, never their price). Your client's name and number and the notes for the driver reach them once they accept. Your client's price never reaches them.
What your client sees
Your company, always. Until the partner puts a driver on it, the trip reads exactly like one of your own trips waiting for a driver. Then your client sees their driver — name, number, and photo when both companies show driver photos — and their car, exactly where one of your drivers would be: every step as it happens, and the driver on the map on their trip page (and in their app, once the driver's RideBits app is up to date). The driver joins your client's trip chat when they're put on the trip, and your client can message and call them as they would your own; the partner's office isn't in that chat. Nothing your client receives names the partner.
While a partner has your trip
Once they accept, your trip reads With partner until their office puts a driver on it. Then it shows their driver and their car, and reads Assigned and then each step as theirs does; you get a card in Operations. The trip's With Northside row says where it stands — "Accepted · Kenny D. driving", for example — and opens the details. When their driver finishes, or their office marks it complete, your trip completes too and the row reads Run by Northside. If neither does — the trip happened, but their driver didn't finish it — your office can Mark complete your trip (⋮) once they've accepted it, their driver is on it and the pickup time has passed: it completes the trip for both of you, their office is told, and the rate stays owed until they record your payment. If the passenger doesn't show, their driver or office marks it, and your admins and staff get a card to decide what to charge your client. Call on the trip reaches whoever accepted it when their phone is confirmed, otherwise the number on your partners list, if there is one.
Change the trip as usual and their copy follows; some changes ask them to re-confirm. Tap the trip's With Northside row (or use ⋮) for the rest. Change rate or note changes what you're paying or the note. Withdraw offer before they accept, or Take back after, with an optional reason they see: their driver is taken off it and told, and the trip is back with you to assign your own driver or send to another partner (if their driver is already on the way, you're asked once first). Cancel the trip as usual and it's cancelled on their board too. While it's with them you can't put your own driver or car on it or mark a no-show — take it back first — and you can mark it complete only once their driver is on it and the pickup time has passed. Your Unassigned view leaves it out until it's back with you. Once it's back, the row reads Back from Northside over how it ended, with their note if they left one. On Solo, a trip that comes back after they'd accepted it has I'll drive it to put you back on it.
A company that isn't on RideBits yet
Send them the trip anyway. If the mobile number or email you gave belongs to someone already on RideBits, they get a notification about the trip when you send it, and it waits for them in their RideBits app once it's up to date — you can still send them the link. Otherwise RideBits messages no one: you send them the trip's link yourself, from your own phone or email. Send the link (or Copy link) on the trip gives you a ready message with it. The trip shows which it is: their office was told, it's in their app, or the link is yours to send.
The link works once — send it only to them. The first mobile number typed on its page holds it (the same number again is fine); anyone typing another number is told the link has been used and to ask you for a new one, never which number holds it. If it reached the wrong person, or they typed the wrong number, Send a new link on the trip's partner row replaces it: the link you sent stops working, and you send them the new one.
The link opens a page with your company's name and the trip's date, pickup time and town — nothing personal: never your client's name, the addresses or the rate. It takes them through three steps: get the RideBits app; in the app, tap Work in transportation? → I'm a partner; and sign in with their mobile number, which they type on the page — or, if they already use RideBits with an email, add the number to their profile. Someone new confirms an email too, names their company and says who drives — Just me, My drivers and me, or I have drivers — and it starts on the free Partner plan, with your currency, country and distance unit. Someone who already runs a company on RideBits can choose it instead, if they're its admin and it works in your currency. Either way, your trip is waiting on their board, and you get a card saying they joined.
If your offer ran out before they joined, the page and the app say the trip is no longer available, and they can still set up their company. Your list then shows them as Joined: send the trip again, or your next one, and it goes straight to their board.
The Partner plan
A company that joins through a partner's trip starts on the free Partner plan — no card, no trial, and it never expires. It runs the trips partners send it: answering offers, putting its drivers and cars on them, its inbox, and Record payment — and inviting drivers, staff and admins and adding vehicles are all there. Its own bookings and clients, a booking page and prices, card payments and Alfred wait for Upgrade; the Console shows each of those with the way to Upgrade, and the app says Upgrade is in the Console.
Upgrade is in the Console under Plan & billing (an admin does it). It runs the sign-up wizard on the company you already have — your services, how people book you, pricing and payments, your booking link, then Solo or Fleet and a card — and everything stays: trips, drivers, vehicles, partners and your settings. Solo is for an owner who drives; picking it when you have drivers stops them taking trips, partners' included. The 14-day free trial comes with Upgrade when the company has never had a subscription and its owner doesn't already run a paying company on RideBits; otherwise it's billed from the day it upgrades, and the wizard says which before you add a card. Starting a sign-up with your own email offers the same Upgrade. And if a paid plan ends, the company keeps receiving and running partners' trips; its own new bookings pause until it's paid again — see Your RideBits subscription.
When a partner sends you a trip
It arrives on your board as an Offer — with their company's name, the rate (or "No rate") and the time to answer — and your admins and staff get a card in Operations. On the trip, its From Acme Limo row says the same, and Decline and Accept sit at the bottom; tap the row for the offer's details. Accept confirms it on your board, makes the rate its price, and adds the passenger, their number and the notes for the driver; your first trip from a company adds them to your partners list, so trips can flow both ways later. Then you put one of your drivers on it directly — there's no offering it to them — and a car if you like. On Solo, or on the Partner plan when the owner is the only driver, Accept puts you on the trip too, so confirm your phone number first. On an older RideBits app, Confirm (or Accept, on Solo) on the offer counts as accepting; everything else about a partner's trip needs the Console, or the app once it's up to date.
Decline with a reason — Not available then, No vehicle of that class, The rate doesn't work, My driver isn't on RideBits, or Other with a short note — and it goes back to them. On a company's first trip to you, Decline also offers Stop trips from Acme Limo — tick it to decline the trip and stop them sending you trips (no reason needed then); Allow their offers again on their entry in your partners list undoes that. Until you answer, an offer is only an offer — you can't assign, change, price or record a payment on it — and if the time to answer runs out, it goes back to them.
Once you've accepted, put a driver on it by 2 hours before pickup (or 15 minutes after a late accept): your admins and staff get a card 30 minutes before if nobody's on it, and at the deadline it goes back to them. Your driver runs it like any trip of yours. Can't run it after all? Release it from the trip's From Acme Limo row with a reason (Not available then, No vehicle of that class, My driver isn't on RideBits, Vehicle problem, or Other with a note) and it goes back to them; your driver is told. A trip that leaves you before it's done is kept as a record only — the date and time, the towns, the rate and how it ended, without the passenger, the addresses, the notes or your driver and car; on one you'd accepted you can still record a payment, such as a cancellation fee. The trip is theirs to change or cancel: you can't edit, cancel, share it or change its price, and card payments aren't available on it. Call on it reaches whoever sent it when their phone is confirmed, otherwise the number on your partners list, if there is one.
If they change the pickup time, the hours, the stops, the vehicle class, the add-ons or the rate after you've accepted, you see it straight away and you're asked to Re-confirm — or release it — within the time to answer they first gave you, never past your deadline to put a driver on it. A new rate becomes your price when you re-confirm. If nobody answers, the trip goes back to them — unless that deadline has passed with your driver on it: then your driver keeps it, running with the change, new rate included. Other changes, like the client's number, the flight or the notes, simply arrive; a new note for the driver also sends your office a card.
Paying a partner
RideBits never moves money between companies. Your client pays you, as on any trip — cash they hand the partner's driver is your fare, recorded on your trip. You pay the partner yourself, outside RideBits (a bank transfer, for example). The rate is what you owe them: when they accept, and each time they re-confirm a change, it becomes the price on their copy — one "Total" line in your currency, whatever their own pricing setting — and the trip waits in their Unpaid view until they record your payment. Their office can't change it; you do, with Change rate or note.
They record what you paid with Record payment on their copy — a payment from your company, with an optional reference such as the transfer number. Once it's recorded in full, your trip's partner row shows Settled with the date and their reference — no card or notification, since it's your own payment to them. With no rate, nothing is owed inside RideBits; if you pay anyway, they type the amount when they record it. A cancellation fee is between the two of you, and is recorded the same way. Your trips export ends with Partner and Partner rate columns.