The front desk

The registration card (GRC)

Print it from the booking card. It carries the guest details, the stay, and the declaration they sign.

Open a booking and press Registration card. It opens ready to print on one A4 sheet.

You can print it before the guest arrives — that is the point. The desk prints it while the guest walks from the door to the counter, so there is something to sign on arrival rather than after.

What it carries: the guest's name, permanent address, company, ID, and — for a foreign national — the passport and visa block that Form C also needs. Then the room, dates, tariff, and the declaration and signature lines.

Anything the system does not know prints as a ruled line for the guest to complete in ink. A hotel that has never recorded a permanent address still gets a usable card.

Aadhaar always prints masked — XXXX XXXX 1234. Only the last four digits may be shown, and the card is a sheet that sits in a drawer at reception. A passport prints in full, because it is checked against the document in hand.

More in The front desk

Checking a guest inRoom, identity, and the folio opens. What stops a check-in and what to do about it. Aadhaar, PAN, passport and Form CWhat identity the law wants, what the system checks, and where Form C is filed. Form C for foreign guestsRecording a passport and visa, raising the form, reading out what the portal asks for, and the register. The folioOne guest, one stay, every charge and payment on it — and what its balance means. Sending money backHow a refund is recorded, who may authorise one, and the four things that will stop you. Posting a chargePost a charge on the folio, choose what it is for, and it lands with your name on it. Taking a paymentTake a payment on the folio: method, amount, reference. It is the reference that saves you later. Splitting a payment across methodsOne settlement, several methods, checked against the folio as one movement. Reprinting a registration cardReprints are allowed and counted. The second onwards is stamped COPY. Advances and depositsMoney taken before the charges exist, held against the stay and applied when they do. Correcting an invoice that has already been issuedDo not reopen the bill. Issue a credit note if the value falls, a debit note if it rises. The deadline for reclaiming tax on a credit noteTax may be adjusted until 30 November after the invoice financial year. After that, the money is credited and the tax is not. Voiding a posting, writing off a balanceNothing is deleted. A mistake is reversed with a reason, and both lines stay visible. Checking out, and the tax invoiceSettle the folio, print the invoice, and the room goes dirty for housekeeping. Splitting a stay across several invoicesRoom, food and spa on one bill or three — the guest decides, and you tick the lines. Proforma invoice — a bill before the stayWhat a company needs to raise a purchase order. Not a tax invoice, and it says so. Billing a company: the city ledgerA folio routed to a company instead of collected, and the ageing that follows it. Money owed and open balancesThe list that stops a hotel losing money quietly, and the red dot that counts it.