Guarantee Policies

Guarantee policies are a very important element in the proper and automated operation of Clock PMS+ as well as your operations as a whole. The guarantee policies in Clock PMS+ are used to:

• Calculate the required pre-payment (if any)
• Define how bookings can be paid in your BookDirect (WRS)
• Allow guests to Guarantee their booking in the MyBooking portal (SSP)
• Apply the automatic calculation and posting of cancellation fees
• Communicate the Guarantee and Cancellation conditions to the guest
• Be used to filter bookings in certain Clock PMS+ functionalities (Payment Autopilot; Guest Mailer)
• Inform you about bookings being late with their guarantee (see 'Guarantee period' below)

Specifics

• Bookings created on the BookDirect (WRS) are automatically guaranteed as in order for guests to complete the booking they need to meet the conditions of the guarantee (e.g. provide card details or provide details and make payment).
• The only time a booking created on the BookDirect (WRS) will not be guaranteed is if the booking is created on a policy that allows Bank transfer payment (Bank Guarantee). A user will need to manually mark the booking as guaranteed once the required amount is transferred to your bank account by the guest.
• Bookings from the OTA's (created by the channel manager) will be automatically guaranteed if Card details are available (collected and sent to us by the OTA). Please note that the majority of bookings through the OTA's contain card details.
• Guests with non-guaranteed bookings can guarantee their reservation through the MyBooking Portal (SSP). In order for this to be possible, the guarantee option must offer payment services through a supported Payment provider. If you don't/cannot use a supported provider, use the 'Credit card' payment service to at least be able to collect card details through the Portal.
• If you use the Payment Autopilot, guarantee policies can play a vital role in the payment tasks you set. For example, if one of your policies is: 20% payment at time of booking and the remainder to be paid 2 days before arrival, you can set a payment task that will charge the remaining 80%, 2 days before arrival only bookings on this policy,
• Manually created bookings are non-guaranteed by default unless they are marked as guaranteed by the user creating the booking.
• Guarantee policies should be connected to rates.

Adding / Editing guarantee policy

You have no limit of how many guarantee policies you create in Clock PMS+. Each of them can be intended for different cases.

To add/edit a guarantee policy, navigate to Settings-> All Settings->Bookings-> Guarantee Policy-> click '+' to add a new one or click the edit button at the beginning of the respective row.

• Name (1) - Specify the name of the policy (e.g. 'Refundable guarantee policy', 'Non-refundable guarantee policy', 'Flexible guarantee policy', 'Payment needed 30 days before arrival', etc.). The name is mainly for system use. You can set a clearer text for your guests later through the Common translations menu.

• Priority (ascending) (2) - A rate in Clock PMS+ can have many seasons with a different guarantee policy applicable to them (e.g. Low season has Flexible 50% policy; high season has Flexible 100%). The 'Priority' defines which guarantee policy will be used with priority in cases of booking stays over two seasons (e.g. arrives in low, departs in high season). Enter a numeric value in ascending order (highest number has top priority).
• Cancellation Policy (3) - This feature allows you to automate the process of calculation and charging the cancellation fees. The selected policy will be applied in case of the booking cancellation. More details can be found in the Cancellation Policies article.
• No guarantee required (4) - select this option if you don't need any kind of guarantee from bookings created with this guarantee policy (no deposit, no card details). At the last step of the BookDirect (booking engine), guests can complete their booking without needing to provide any card details or pay a deposit.
• Payment services (4) - Select which payment services to apply to this policy. The payment services are used in your BookDirect (WRS) and MyBooking Portal (SSP). They define how a booking can be finalized: by online payment, by providing credit card details or through an off-line bank payment:

• Credit Card: The guest credit card will be collected and stored securely in the booking. 

• PayPal Express: The guest will be redirected to a page hosted by PayPal. PayPal add-on and interface configuration required.
• Worldpay Redirect: The guest will be redirected to a page hosted by WorldPay. WorldPay add-on and interface configuration required. 
• Authorize.Net: The guest will be redirected to a page hosted by Authorize.net. Authorize.net add-on and interface configuration required. 
• Adyen - Hosted Payment Page (HPP) - DO NOT USE. 
• Custom Payment API - DO NOT USE.
• Adyen - Tokenize Only - DO NOT USE.
• Adyen - Authorize and Capture - DO NOT USE.
• Adyen - Authorize, Capture and Tokenize - DO NOT USE.
• Bank Guarantee: The booking will be created without collecting any additional details from the guest. This is the only option that will create a non-guaranteed booking when the booking is made through the BookDirect (WRS).
• Gift Voucher: Allows the guest to guarantee the booking using a voucher purchased from the Gift voucher web shop.
• Credit Card tokenization/payment: This option will use the interfaces of the payment providers in Clock PMS+ (WorldLine/SixPayments, Elavon, Stripe, Adyen v2). Interface configuration for the respective provider is required.

Deposit (Fixed + Relative) amounts

Some or all of your guarantee policies may require a pre-payment (deposit). A deposit can contain a fixed and/or relative amount. You can use both (fixed and relative amount) or only one of them (fixed OR relative one).

• Deposit Fixed Amount (1) - Specify the fixed deposit amount which will be used for the policy.
• Deposit Relative Amount (2)- A deposit relative amount can be based on a percentage of the booking amount and/or nights. If both are defined, the greater amount applies. Both options are based on the selected revenue groups - rooms, packages, extra, etc (2.1).
  • Deposit percent (2.2) - Percentage of the booking amount compiled by the selected revenue groups.
  • Number of nights (2.3) - Here you can set how many nights to be counted as a deposit. The night amount is calculated based on the option "Average daily price". If selected, the required deposit will be the average night price based on the booking amount. If not selected, the required deposit will be the price of the selected nights.

Guarantee Period

This feature is used in cases where a booking is created as non-guaranteed. Use the fields of 'Max days after booking creation' and 'Min days before arrival' to define the period after the creation of booking and/or the period before arrival within which the booking is to be guaranteed.

Here are a couple of cases in which this feature is utilized:

1. Case 1 - You accept 'Bank guarantee' on the BookDirect (WRS). As mentioned above, the only case in which a booking through the BookDirect will be non-guaranteed is when the booking is made on a policy that allows payment with a bank transfer (Bank Guarantee). You can set a time frame in which the guest must transfer you the amount. If you haven't received the transfer within the set time frame (e.g. 5 days after booking creation) and respectively you haven't marked the booking as 'Guaranteed', the booking will be automatically marked as 'Expired guarantee'. This will indicate to you that the guests have not made the transfer yet and you can contact them to follow up.
2. Case 2 - Your policy requires card details and a 50% pre-payment at time of booking. A guest calls on the phone to book, but is not comfortable to provide card details over the phone. Your employee can create the booking, leave it non-guaranteed and advise the guest that they have 5 days to go to the MyBooking portal (access to which they can receive through an email your employee sends them) and safely and securely provide details and make payment. If they haven't done that within 5 days, the booking will be marked as 'Expired guarantee' so you can be informed and follow up with the guest.