Setting a hotel up

Room types and real room numbers

The type sets the price. The numbers are the rooms a guest is actually given.

A room type — Deluxe, Executive, Suite — is what is sold and what carries a price. The rooms under it are the physical rooms, with the numbers on the doors.

Section 3 of the setup wizard: room types and the room numbers under each.

Do this

Code and name of the type — STD, Standard.
Sleeps — the normal occupancy.
Room numbers — the real numbers, typed as a list or a range: 101-108, 201, 204. A number is never reused in a hotel.
Add a room type for the next one.

Type them as guests will read them: 101, 102, 201. Not "Room 1".
For the OTAs, or internal only? The form asks. A type for the OTAs is registered with the channel manager the moment it is saved and goes out on every push from then on; an internal type is sold at the desk, the CRS and the booking engine and never leaves the building. A parking category for rooms you do not sell online is the internal kind. Change your mind on Edit category — taking a type off the channels retires its mapping, so the pushes stop carrying it.
Every type needs at least one room, or nothing under it can be sold.
The order of the types is the upgrade ladder. An upgrade moves a guest up it, so put them in the order a general manager would.
Adding a room later is ordinary. Removing one that has history is not — take it out of order instead, permanently if the room no longer exists.

Availability is counted from these rooms. A hotel that types thirty rooms and owns forty will sell out ten rooms early, every night, and nobody will notice for a month.

The day-use switch

A category can also be marked as one a day guest may be put in — the day use tag. It reserves nothing and takes nothing off that category's nightly sale; it is read only when the desk looks for a room to give a day guest at the door. See Day use: a room sold for the day, not the night.

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