Setting a hotel up

Lists and reasons

Eighteen short lists your staff pick from, and why free text was worse.

Lists & reasons holds the short lists staff pick from: cancellation reasons, discount reasons, comp reasons, void reasons, no-show reasons, paid-out reasons, refund reasons, rate-override reasons, room-move reasons, out-of-order reasons, departments, card types, bed types, lost-and-found and maintenance categories.

Do this

Each box is one list, named for where it is used — cancellation reasons, void reasons, how you are paid.
Add an entry at the foot of the box. Tick *manager only* to keep a reason away from the desk.
Add.
× retires an entry. It stops being offered; everything already recorded against it stays.

Why they are lists and not free text: "why did we comp fourteen rooms last month" has never been an answerable question in a system where the reason is typed, because nobody types the same words twice.

Some entries can be marked manager only — an ordinary user is not offered them.
Most lists belong to the whole group; a few are per hotel — out-of-order reasons, for one — and those are added against the hotel on screen.
Nothing is deleted. Retiring an entry stops it being offered and leaves everything already recorded against it standing, so last year's reports do not change when this year's list does.

Add the entries your staff actually need. A list that does not contain the real reason trains people to pick the nearest wrong one, and then the reports lie confidently.

How you are paid, and where business comes from

The last two boxes on the screen are a different shape from the rest, and both used to be rows only Asar could insert.

How you are paid is the buttons a cashier sees when taking money. Add your own — Paytm, Amex, a local wallet — and say whether it appears at the desk, in the restaurant, or both, and whether it needs a reference (a card approval code, a UPI reference). Until this existed, adding one was a change to the product and a deployment, which is why nobody was ever offered it twice.
Where business comes from is the source picked on every booking, grouped by category — walk-in, telephone, website, OTA, travel agent, corporate. An OTA or an agent can carry a commission percentage, which is what makes the source reports worth reading.

Entries marked Asar ship with the product and cannot be renamed or retired: every report in the system groups by them, and a hotel redefining cash would make a tenders report mean two different things. Your own can be retired at any time, and everything already recorded against them stands.

Which UPI, which card

A method can sit under another one. UPI ships with PhonePe, Paytm, Google Pay, BharatPe and Airpay under it, so the cashier picks the app rather than typing it into the reference box — and the tenders report can then answer "how much came through PhonePe last month", which it never could before.

Add your own the same way: type the name, choose what it goes under, and it appears grouped there at the desk. Leave *under* blank and it stands on its own beside cash and card. Methods go two deep and no further.

Retiring a medium retires everything under it. Payments already taken through any of them stand, and still report under the app they were taken on.

Reasons for a correction

Two lists arrived in September with the administrator's corrections: status correction reasons (Correct status…, Put it back) and undo reasons (Undo on the card). Both are seeded with sensible starting points and edited here like the rest. On the dialogs the reason is picked, never typed; *Other…* opens a text box only when chosen, so the free line is the exception. The owner's words: "typing, people will do errors."

More in Setting a hotel up

Opening a hotel: the whole thing in orderSix phases from the GST certificate to the first night audit, and what each one needs. Getting the hotel group signed upWhat Asar does, what the hotel does, and why nobody here chooses your password. After the wizard: making the hotel actually readyThe wizard makes a hotel that exists. This is what makes it one that can trade. Setting the restaurant up, in the order it has to be doneGST groups and stations before dishes, dishes before tables. Backwards means rebuilding the menu. The first real dayOne booking end to end before you rely on it, then the three daily habits. The month after openingFour things to read on a schedule, and the one that changes on its own. Adding a hotel: the five stepsOne wizard, five steps, and the hotel exists. Everything after it is adjustable. Room types and real room numbersThe type sets the price. The numbers are the rooms a guest is actually given. Room categories and room numbersAdding a category, putting rooms in it, moving a room, and taking one out of the inventory. Rates, plans and the cancellation policyA rate per type and date, and the rules that go with selling it. Adding and changing rate plansCreating a plan, what the meal codes mean, pricing one plan off another, and what stops you retiring one. Closing a date, minimum stay and stop sellThe five rules that decide whether a night may be sold, how to set them, and how to lift one. Rates run out — the check that is not about configurationA hotel that was ready in August stops being sellable in February. Load rates further ahead. Changing a room's numberA room keeps its bookings, bills and history when its number changes. A guest in the room does not stop it. Seasons — a date range that prices differentlySetting a peak or a lean period once instead of typing a hundred nights. Moving a room to another category, and what is waiting on youA room can change category even with bookings ahead of it. Each of those bookings waits for a manager: upgrade it free, upgrade and charge, or release the room. Going live: the readiness checksEleven or so checks per hotel, and what each one means it cannot do yet. The rate sheetEvery room type, every plan, every night, with the rooms still free above them. It opens on All plans. Counting a room as another category for a few daysWhen something about a room changes for a while — a balcony shut, a lift out, a view gone — the room can be counted as a different category for stated nights and go back to its own on the night after. The onboarding boardEvery hotel in the group at once, and what each is still missing. One number and the gaps — the derived rate sheetPrice the cheapest room once; every other room type and plan is a gap on top. Type what you want in hand and be shown the rate to push. Invoice numbers: where they start and how they countHotel details has a box for the next invoice number — type it the way your accountant writes it, 27ACP01, and every bill after counts up. The system's own bill number stays beside it as the internal record. Only an administrator; never rewound over a bill already issued. GST registrations — one per state, and every rule with a dateThe registration is the unit of filing: one GSTIN per state per legal entity, its kind, its dates, its e-invoice threshold; which hotel invoices under it; the HSN/SAC master with dated rates and the condition in words.