Bookings and the calendar

Making a booking

New booking, or click an empty square on the chart. What each field is for.

A booking can start from any free square on the calendar: the room and the date come from the square you clicked, so you are never typing them twice.

The new booking form, opened from an empty square.

Do this

Guest name — first and last. A phone number is worth having; an email means the guest gets their confirmation.
Arrival and departure — already filled from the square you clicked. Change the departure to set the number of nights.
Rate plan — Standard, Non Refundable, or whatever your hotel sells. The price follows the plan.
Source — where the booking came from: walk-in, phone, an OTA, a travel agent. It is the field every report about business mix is built from, so it is worth getting right.
Press Create booking.

Check the price before you save

As soon as there are dates, the box at the bottom prices the stay night by night and shows the total.

The same form, filled in, with the price it worked out.

The quote — every night listed, and the total. If a night looks wrong, the rate for that night is wrong, not the booking.
Create booking — the guest now has a reference number and appears on the calendar in blue.

Leave "Per night" blank and the rate plan decides the price. Type a number only when you are agreeing a special rate — it is recorded against your name.
Bill to a company or a travel agent and the charges go to their account instead of the guest's pocket. The account has to exist first.

What refuses it

"That room is already occupied for those dates" — something else is in the room for one of those nights. Look along the row.
Minimum stay, maximum stay, closed, stop sell — the hotel has a restriction on one of those nights. It is not a fault; somebody set it deliberately.
A rate that will not appear — the rate plan has no price loaded for those dates. Rates run out; that is a rates job, not a booking one.

Before it is taken

The form first asks whether a live booking for the same name or phone already overlaps these nights, and refuses with the list if one does — usually the channel booking that could not be found. An administrator may choose Book anyway, and that is recorded. See This guest is already booked here for these dates.

The booking card shows Room charges, GST, Total, Paid, Balance — the total the guest will actually be asked for, tax in, the same figure the bill will carry.

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. 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. Cancelling, and no-showsBoth need a reason from the list, and both leave the record standing. 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.