Parking allocation without the arguments

Write down who has which bay

It sounds too obvious to state, and it is the single most common gap. If the allocation lives in a manager’s memory, it leaves when they do.

Decide whether a bay belongs to a unit or a person

Both models work, and mixing them without noticing does not. A bay tied to a unit passes to the next resident; a bay tied to a person leaves with them. Choose per bay, deliberately.

Separate included from paid

Some bays come with the lease, some are rented on top, some are for visitors. Charging correctly requires knowing which is which, and residents notice immediately when you get it wrong.

Register the vehicles

Without a vehicle on record, an unfamiliar car is unresolvable. With one, it is a thirty-second lookup.

Keep the history

When a bay changes hands, do not overwrite the previous allocation — close it and open a new one. Six months later, when somebody insists the bay has always been theirs, the record settles it.

Expect to correct things

Allocations get made in a hurry and on wrong assumptions. What matters is that a correction is possible without destroying the history of what was charged before it.