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Bookings and the calendar

Cancelling, and no-shows

Both need a reason from the list, and both leave the record standing.

Cancel booking on the booking card. It asks for a reason from your hotel's cancellation list — not free text, because "why did we lose forty bookings last month" is only answerable if the same reason was picked twice.

The cancel dialog: what is retained, the reason, and the administrator's waiver.
The cancel dialog: what is retained, the reason, and the administrator's waiver.

Do this

  1. What is retained — priced by the policy on the rate plan before you press anything. Read it to the guest; it is the number they will ask about.
  2. Reason — from your hotel's own list, so a report can later say why bookings are lost.
  3. Waive the charge — an administrator's decision, recorded as one. The desk cannot tick it.
  4. Cancel booking. Keep it closes the dialog with nothing changed.

If a cancellation was a mistake, there is a recover path for a booking cancelled in error. It is not an undo — it re-creates the stay if the room is still free — so it is faster to ask before cancelling than after.

Marking a no-show

The booking card. No-show sits beside Cancel booking and wakes on the arrival date.
The booking card. No-show sits beside Cancel booking and wakes on the arrival date.
  1. No-show is on every booking card beside Cancel booking, and greyed out until the arrival date has come: an arrival that has not come due is a cancellation, not a no-show. It asks for a reason and shows the retention before it charges it.

No-show on the booking card, beside Cancel. It appears on an arrival that has come due and has not checked in, and nowhere else — before the arrival date the answer is a cancellation, because that is the policy that applies.

You do not have to catch them all. The night audit still sweeps up every arrival that never checked in, and marks it — and charges nothing either. Marking it yourself means the room is sellable hours earlier and the reason is yours rather than "never arrived". Every marked no-show, yours or the audit's, then waits on Operations → No-shows for the hotel's manager, revenue manager or an administrator to decide two things: charge the retention or waive it, and tell the OTA or not. Nothing is charged and no OTA is told until they do.

Once marked, it shows on the booking's own history with the reason, the amount retained and who decided it, and on the no-show and cancellation report the same way.

What becomes of the retention, and whether the OTA is told, is decided afterwards on the hotel's no-show queue — see No-shows: marked by the desk, decided by the manager.

More in Bookings and the calendar

Reading the calendarRooms down the side, dates across the top, and four things worth knowing about the colours. Blocking a room from the chartRight-click a room, say why, from which night to which, and who is blocking it. The channel is told; the chart draws it; a booking into it is refused. Making a bookingNew booking, or click an empty square on the chart. What each field is for. A booking the desk may hold and a manager confirmsAn OTA booking, or one billed to a company or an agent, is held by the desk for 30 minutes — or confirmed there and then with a manager's own login. Bookings that have no room yetEvery live booking with no room number, from any source, is drawn on the chart and listed beside it — and dragged onto a room. Taking a group at your own deskA party needing rooms of more than one kind — a wedding, an offsite, a tour — is taken from the calendar as ONE group: a line per room type, one contact, one code over all of it. Who is paying for a bookingOn a booking typed by hand, the payer — guest, company, travel agent or OTA — can be corrected. The bill moves with it. Where the price comes fromThe rate plan sets the price. Who may change it is a separate question with a deliberate answer. Changing the rate on a bookingAnybody at the desk may name the rate until the guest checks out; after that only an administrator, and it is a tax note. An OTA rate is never changed here. Changing a bookingDates, room, guest and rate can all be amended. Some changes are refused, and some can be overridden. Holding a room, and the guest pay linkA time-boxed hold with a link the guest can pay on. It releases itself if they do not. Putting a stay in another guest's nameOnly an administrator. Any status, before or after check-out. The booking and its bills carry the new guest; the invoice number, the charges and the tax do not move. A room with more people than it sleepsMoving a party of four into a room that sleeps three is allowed: the picker warns, asks once, does it, and records who said yes. Day use: a room sold for the day, not the nightA guest who arrives in the morning and leaves in the evening and never sleeps in the room. It reserves nothing, holds no room until the desk hands over a key, and the same room can serve two day guests and still take its overnight guest. Booking the same stay againBook again copies a stay for a returning guest, and tells you what the price would be now. Group bookingsMany rooms under one name, created together and cancellable together. Moving a guest to another roomDrag the bar on the chart, or use Move room. It asks for a reason and refuses for good ones. UpgradesMove a guest up a grade, priced or complimentary, with the reason recorded. Messaging a guestTemplates render the message; a person sends it. Nothing goes out on its own.