Photo ID pictures
Do you check guests' photo IDs at check-in? If so, then our new feature can be very useful for you.
We have added it to let you add a picture of the guest's passport or ID card to the registration card.
This way your guests will be able to completely skip the registration process at the reception desk. Instead, the whole registration process can be completed online via the Self Service Portal (still in progress) prior to the arrival or through the Kiosk at the hotel lobby.
You can also make a picture of the ID documents through the back office app and speed up the check-in procedure without having to keep their photo IDs. Using the taken pictures, the hotel staff can verify the authenticity and accuracy of the guest details entered into the registration card and mark it as 'Checked' (the Checked marking option is still in progress).
The new feature fully complies with GDPR, as well as with the modern data security requirements.
The pictures of ID documents are kept for a period of 10 days after departure or booking cancellation and then – automatically erased. It's not necessary to take care of this process, otherwise mandatory as per GDPR.
When guests themselves make these pictures via the Self Service Portal or the hotel kiosk, a special Artificial Intelligence based algorithm, we have created, will check if the provided picture resembles a photo ID.
If the AI-based algorithm doesn't recognise it as a picture of an identity document, your guests will kindly be reminded to provide a picture of their photo ID.
Still there is a possibility for the algorithm to not correctly recognise a guest's document. Here is why there is an option for keeping the picture though it has not been accepted as a valid one.
Considering that ID documents differ from country to country, we have allowed for the system's learning of the ID documents of the different countries. This way, the functionality will become more and more precise with time.
To enable the new feature for the Kiosk: Go to 'Settings' – 'Kiosks'. For each of the kiosks which should require photo ID pictures, select: 'Requirement document picture'.
Integrated Payments
- Channel Manager – automated processing of refundable/non-refundable bookings with an option for payment or pre-authorization only. Here is the whole credit card handling feature when bookings are imported after the following changes:
- First, a credit card is recorded in the booking. The initially received credit card details can always be checked and used by you (provided you have been granted the necessary access rights).
- Then, if the booking requires a deposit (as per the guarantee policy related to the rate), the deposit is directly paid or is only pre-authorized. Whether it is paid or pre-authorized depends on a new setting. The credit card is tokenized through Adyen and can be used for one-click payments later on.
- If the booking does not require a deposit, the credit card is only tokenized through Adyen. This operation does not check for certain funds availability, but verifies if it is a valid and active one. This is done through an actual €0 transaction.
- The available settings are: 1. Save Credit Card Only (only the fist step of the above is implemented); 2. Tokenize. Pay the deposit, if any (it determines if a deposit is to be paid at step 2); 3. Tokenize. Pre-Authorize the deposit, if any (It determines if a deposit is to be only pre-authorized at step 2).
- The tokenized cards (both the Adyen-tokenized ones, and the ones recorded in the booking) can now be used by guests via the Self Service Portal or at the Kiosk for one-click payments. Here are a few possible ways to ease your guests:
- A guest books via the WRS and guarantees by credit card. The card data is tokenized through Adyen. At arrival, the guest checks in using the hotel kiosk. As tokenized cards allow for one-click payments, your customer doesn't need to enter all the details once again.
- The booking is made through Booking.com. It is imported by the Channel Manager and one night is automatically charged to the guest's card. Check-in. At departure, the guest decides to check out via the Self Service Portal. There the hotel bill can be paid in a click with the already tokenized card.
- Adyen tokenization of an already recorded card. If a booking contains card details, now you can automatically create an Adyen Token without any data copying and pasting.
- Interface to Adyen Terminal. A window close button appears in 60 seconds. This should reduce the number of interface issues arising from the accidental screen closing which makes instructions no longer visible from the POS terminal, especially during signature confirmation.
Other improvements and changes
- Booking period change and auto-charges. We have improved the logic of the automated adding and removal of charges in case of a stay period change. Up till now there was a requirement for a folio to be open for charges to be automatically voided in case of a shortened stay.
We have redesigned the feature, so that these charges can be voided even if the folio is already closed. So if a stay is shortened after closing a folio and certain charges are to be voided, now they will be posted with a negative value to the new open folio. This applies to all automatically posted charges: nights, package elements, city tax, service and booking charge templates. - Housekeeping sector and Housekeeping report.
- For the purposes of the Housekeeping report, we have added a new field to the Room screen – Housekeeping sector.
- To the housekeeping report, we have added a new option for grouping rooms. The grouping can be done by Housekeeping sector, as well as by Room Type, Room Location or without grouping.
- A new option for sorting rooms added to the Housekeeping report. The room arrangement can be a standard one (defined by you from the Settings - Room - Sorting ) or by time of arrival.
- New Report - Daily Charges By Sources. The report can show the summarised charges by revenue groups for each date and source (booking, company, event, etc.) which makes it very useful for management and operational purposes.
- Show unit price in the folio printout. The new setting allows you to show or hide the unit price column (gross and net) in the folio printout. Use this setting (Settings - Tax settings - Folio Printing section), if there are legal requirements for this attribute to be present on your invoices. We don't recommend you to use this column without a good reason. This is because of the way the values in this column are calculated: the value of the charge is divided by the quantity. In such an operation, the result is rounded. As a result, if you multiply the already rounded value by the quantity, you may get certain differences to the values due to the rounding. In principle, this does not affect the invoice and its values, however, these it may lead to confusion in your customers. For example: if the column value is $100, tax not included, and the quantity is 3, the rounded unit price value without the tax will be $33.33 The invoice will show Unit price: $33.33; Quantity: 3; Value: $100.
- For easier selection of rates, we have changed the standard selects for ones which you can search for on the derived rate edit screen and multiple booking edit screen.
- On the Room Calendar screen, we have added a housekeeping note and guest requests to the booking details section.
- Telephone and Email have been added to the settings of the booking mandatory fields.
- We have restricted the period within which the WRS, Rate and Availability screen and the respective API ends. This period is now 10 years ahead.
Localizations
- Bulgaria - Interface to the Datecs FP705 fiscal printer and other printers supporting the same protocol.
- Sweden - Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics Report
POS
- eMenu – Opening hours. For those of you using the eMenu for room service orders from the Self Service Portal, we have added an option for setting the opening times. This way your guests will know when they may place a room service order and when it's not longer possible for the day. For each day of the week, you can set the opening hours from 'Management' - 'eMenu'. Your customers will not be able to place orders outside these opening hours and will get clear info of the room service opening hours.
- The last kitchen for each table, is now visible on the main screen. If using the kitchen instructions to track which meal is served to each table, this new feature will allow you to track the status of each table and send instructions to the kitchen regarding the next meal. For example, if your customers have ordered a 5-course menu and the final instruction sent to the kitchen is 'd-3', on the main screen you'll be able to see that 'd-3' is already ordered and thus you will know which meal your guests have reached.
- The number of guests (covers) has been added to the kitchen receipts. This way the kitchen staff will be better informed of the specifics of the orders.
- To the multiple menu item edit screen, we have added the Order Group field.
API
- The rate end point now supports the creation of a new rate.
- To the folio end point, a new payment_terms_date field has been added.
- To the occupancy_forecast end point, the id_room_type field has been added.
- To the booking end point, a new rate_calculation field has been added. It contains information of the initial price at which the booking was created. The information is necessary for revenue management systems.
Fixes
- On the price edit screen, two unnecessary empty lines appeared
- Sometimes there were cases when the transactionReference was missing in successful or failed Adyen payments
- On the WRS, it was possible to book using an already cancelled Booking Enquery.
- Guest mailer – a few parameters were missing in the drop-down menu
- WRS – the order of picture showing was incorrect.
- The import of bookings from a file with the option for automatic company creation didn't work.
- In the registration card, the hotel log took the whole width instead of just the half.
- The deletion of a standard room, although it is a component of a virtual room type.