Clock PMS+ Update (24 Jan 2017)

Booking Enquiries

We have added an option for your guests to finish their bookings in your web reservation system on their own.
This is done on the basis of the booking enquiry replies you have sent. With this feature, you make the booking process easier and more convenient for your customers.

Now they can book 24/7 regardless of the work time of your call centre. This way the booking enquiries resulting in bookings and the conversion rate will increase.

In addition, the new Waiting List option is another tool for boosting your sales through active interaction with potential guests.
We have also connected the booking enquiries to guest profiles to give you all the necessary profile information in one place.

WRS Integration

How it works

• When preparing your reply to a guest's booking enquiry with the desired periods of stay, room types and rates, you can include several different products. This way the guest has options to choose from, e.g. refundable and prepaid rates, with or without supper, etc. Also, if you wish, you can fix the prices in your offer, so that they stay the same for the guest, even in the event of changes to the rate.
• You email your reply to the guest's booking enquiry.
• After viewing your products and taking a booking decision, the guest can use the "Click here to create your booking" link in your email and make a booking.
• The offer opens in a browser. Clock PMS makes a few checks and highlights lines of the offer, if they contain:
  • Changed prices. If the price you have offered the guest has meanwhile changed, the system notifies the guest and highlights the line with the change.
  • Please note that when creating your offer, you can fix the price, so that it stays unaffected by changes to the rates.
  • No longer available rooms. If the available rooms have meanwhile been sold or the products have been stopped from sale, the respective lines will be highlighted, and the guest will receive a notification that unfortunately these rooms or products cannot be booked.
• The guest chooses which rooms from the offer to book and clicks the Next button. Please note that this way the WRS will allow a booking to be made with a rate, which may not have been included in the WRS. In other words, using booking enquiry replies, you can offer your guests special rates, which are not normally shown in your WRS.
• The system brings the guest to the third page of your WRS with the chosen rooms and guest details shown. Here rooms can be removed or added.
• The guest chooses a booking guarantee method and finishes the booking process accordingly. Even thus created, the bookings are the same as all of the rest bookings, and guests receive a confirmation email and link to the Self Service Portal.
  • Please note that the guarantee methods are connected to another change we have made to the WRS: "Booking products with different guarantee polices". See the description of this change below.

How it is set up

• The feature does not need setup. If your WRS is active, the link to it is automatically included in the booking enquiry reply.
• If you use a custom booking enquiry template, add the link to your template. To create the link, use the "WRS link for booking creation" parameter: . Example: Click Here

Link to WRS in booking enquiry e-mail

Booking Enquiry opened in WRS.

Management

• Booking enquiry search. The new booking enquiry search gives you an easy and quick way to find a specific booking enquiry, as well as view multiple booking enquiries meeting certain criteria. Use the new feature to search by: arrival date or in hotel bookings; Waiting List; booking enquiry number; guest contact info. There is also a booking enquiry status filter (see below). To use the new search option, go to Bookings – Booking Enquiry Search.

  

• Waiting List. We have added a new checkbox to the Booking Enquiry data edit screen - Waiting List. Use it to highlight certain enquiries. Then you can easily find them using a combination of the other filters or not with the enquiry search.
• Booking enquiry status. We have added a status to booking enquiries to make their search and management easier. All valid booking enquiries where a guest is yet to make a booking are active. All booking enquiries where a guest has made a booking become "Closed". Cancelled – these are the enquiries guests have cancelled and you have marked as invalid ones.
• Connection to profiles. When you create a new booking enquiry reply, you can search among the existing profiles, as well as in the bookings. Apart from completing guest's details faster, you will be able to view their profile history. This helps you decide on the prices to offer. We have also added links to all of the guest's booking enquiries .
• Quick price fixing. When editing the lines of a booking enquiry reply, use the newly added buttons (->) to fix the price for a specific line or for all the lines simultaneously, if needed.

Advanced Payment Processing Integration

We are introducing a new approach to online and card-present payment operations.

We are turning to a new innovative model of credit card operations, which we believe does away with a number of the shortcomings of the traditional method, namely:

Main principles and functions of the Advanced Payment Processing Integration:

• The credit card is only REQUIRED ONCE - on booking through the WRS, on guaranteeing through the hotel app (the digital guest portal), or on import from the Channel manager. Once the card details are in the system, clients don’t even need to present their card physically.
• The credit card details are TOKENIZED as early as possible. The tokenization uses reliable secure technology so that no person has access to sensitive information, like credit card numbers or CSV codes. Not hotel staff, not even the system itself. The credit card details are safely tokenized in the secure environment of the payment provider and cannot be abused in any way. With this approach the hotel only needs to meet the lowest PCI DSS requirements, i.e. SAQ A.
• The tokenization includes an actual transaction to CHECK THE VALIDITY of the credit card. Fake, stolen, expired, ‘Do not Honor’ cards or cards invalid in any other way are automatically rejected. Additionally, you can use any other risk management mechanism - CSV check, address verification, filtering by IP and country, etc.
• Tokenized cards can be used multiple times but only for payments for that specific guest at that specific hotel. This allows for secure ONE-CLICK PAYMENTS at Reception (check-in, during stay, on and after checkout) as well as by guests themselves ( digital guest portal, kiosk).
• Tokenized cards are also convenient for PRE-AUTHORIZATION where one click guarantees the payment. Again, with just one click you can CAPTURE part of or the entire pre-authorized amount.
• Payments initiated in the system will automatically ADD PAYMENT TO THE FOLIO of the guest. This eliminates errors and mismatching between the actual payments, the information in the folio, and the financial reports.
• Based on the tokenized card, you can also initiate REFUNDS from the system. The only thing you have to do is specify the refunded amount.
• The credit card payments interface to the POINT OF SALE TERMINAL eliminates the double entering of the payment amount. The amount can be entered manually, of course, but normally it is defined by the charges on the folio. Payments made through the POS terminal are automatically added to the folio. Clients are served faster and without mistakes.
• An interface between Clock POS and point of sale terminal will also be released soon to facilitate payments in the busy restaurant environment.

* A RoomCloud interface for importing credit cards from the Channel manager will be released soon.

How guests use it

• Web Reservation System. When guests complete their booking in the WRS, they input their credit card details. If the validity check confirms the card is good, the booking is guaranteed and the card is tokenized. This may include deposit payment or not.
• OTA bookings. If an OTA sends credit card details, the card is tokenized. If for some reason the card is rejected, the system creates a ToDo task. Then you can use the automated Guest mailer to send a message to the guest and request another credit card. Clients can use the hotel app (the guest self service portal) to guarantee their booking with another credit card.
• Offline bookings. Guests use the digital portal to guarantee the bookings they have made offline. Again, beside the validity check and the tokenization, this may or may not include a deposit payment.
• Kiosk - self check-in. In cases of unassisted check-in, the tokenized credit card allows guests to pay with one click. If the card has not been tokenized yet, they enter its details, pay, and have it tokenized.
• Assisted mobile check-in. If you are meeting guests with a tablet, you can do everything that can be done at the kiosk.
• Self checkout. Guests check out on their own or pay their bills in the digital guest portal while still at the hotel. Paying with a tokenized card takes one click. If they haven’t used their card so far, they can enter its details at this point.

One-Click payment with tokenized credit card

Integrated credit card payment terminal

Fully integrated POS terminal

How the hotel uses it

• Tokenized cards can be found in section Credit Card of their respective bookings. There you can also:
  • Add a card if you have received its details over the phone, for example. Click button ‘Operations’ - 'Save Credit Card (Tokenization)'.
  • Pre-authorize amounts on the credit card: 'Operations' - 'Preauthorize (Authorization Hold)'.
  • Capture the full or part of the pre-authorized amount: 'Operations' - 'Capture prior preauthorization'.
  • Cancel the existing pre-authorization and release the funds on the client credit card: 'Operations' - Cancel prior preauthorization'
• To preview the bookings for a certain period and find those with or without pre-authorization:
  • Open the Booking Pre-Authorizations report in section Bookings of menu Reports.
  • Use filters Arrival in the period, Guarantee and Pre-authorization to find the bookings you need.
  • Check the bookings without tokenized cards or pre-authorizations. Open each of them to pre-authorize amounts or contact the guests for another card.
• To make a payment:
  • Open the payment recipient folio and click Credit Card.
  • The default amount is the folio balance. Change it if necessary.
  • If there are tokenized cards for this folio, click the button of the card that will be used for this payment.
  • If there are no tokenized cards, enter a credit card details in the fields. This will initialize payment AND tokenization.
• Refund:
  • Open the folio where the payment is. Click Refund in the Credit Card dropdown menu.
  • Specify the refunded amount and select the payment and the credit card the refund affects.
• To make a card-present payment on a credit card terminal:
  • Open the payment recipient folio and click button Terminal.
  • Enter the amount. The first time you perform the operation you will need to select the terminal as well.
  • Follow the instructions. Depending on your account settings, you may see and possibly have to confirm the client signature.

Setting it up

In your Adyen account:

• Set "Standard Notification" (also for your online payments account and for your POS terminal if you have one). You will need the "Standard notification url", which is found in Clock PMS - Settings - Adyen (Integrated Payments). See §2 to §6 in the help article (https://www.clock-software.com/support-center/pms-web-reservation-system/adyen-setup).
• Set "Capture Delay" to "Manual" if you are going to use pre-authorization. Find the setting in your Adyen account - Settings - Merchant Settings.
  • The POS terminal interface does not currently support pre-authorization. Please enable this option for your online payments accounts only!

In Clock PMS (Internet payments)

• Go to Clock PMS - Settings - Adyen (Integrated Payments).
• Fill in fields Account code, API username and API password with the details from your Adyen account.
• Fill in CSE library URL. It can be found in your Adyen account - Settings - Users. Select 'System' from the menu in the top right in the user table. Select the user created for API payments ( ws...@.... ). In the 'Easy Encryption' section, copy the content of field 'Library location'. Contact Adyen support for more information.
• Select the currency that is going to be used for the amounts sent to Adyen.
• Select ‘Address verification required (AVS)’ if you use Adyen address verification. The address fields will be added to the credit card form your clients fill.
• Select services (Authorize and Capture (Payment), Tokenize (Save Card) Only, Authorize, Capture (Payment) and Tokenize (Save Card), Authorize Only (Pre-Authorization), Refund) to activate them.
• Save.

In Clock PMS (Point-of-sale terminal)

• This interface requires ClockIoT Device installed in the same network as the POS terminals.
• Select Clock PMS - Settings - Adyen (POS Terminal)
• Fill in Merchant Account, User Name, Password from your Adyen account.
• Select the currency in which the amounts will be sent to the terminal.
• In section 'POS Terminals' add the POS terminals you are going to be using. Give a name to each (e.g. Reception1) and IP address.
• Each terminal has an additional setting, 'Signature Autoconfirm'. It defines whether you will be required to confirm the client signature for each transaction. Select the option you need.
  • If the setting is disabled, the signature will be displayed in Clock PMS and you will be required to confirm it after comparing it to the on the card. If the signature is not confirmed, the transaction fails.
  • If the setting is enabled, the signature will be displayed in Clock PMS, but you will not be required to do anything. The system will confirm it automatically and the transaction will proceed.

Guest Mailer

• We have added a new filter to the Guest Mailer – Companies.Use it to select to which companies the specific template to be or not to be sent. You can set up two lists:
  • Included companies. In this case, the template will be sent for the bookings of the companies on this list.
  • Excluded companies. In this case, the template will be sent for the bookings of all companies but the ones of the companies on this list.
  • Example: If you wish to have one template for the bookings from booking.com, another for the Expedia bookings, and a third one for all other bookings, you can make the following three templates: For the first one, select booking.com to be on the Included companies list; for the second one, specify Expedia to be on the Included companies list, and on the Excluded companies list of the third template, enter booking.com and Expedia.
• Pre-departure emails. Now you can set automated emails to to sent a certain number of hours prior to departure. As with all of the rest templates, the hours are counted back from 12:00 noon (on the date of departure). Example: If you want the pre-departure emails to be sent at 17:00 on the day before departure, you need to enter in the 'Time Range (hours)' field: 19, i.e. 19 hours before 12:00 noon on the date of departure. The emails are only sent for bookings with a "Checked-in" status.
• Editor selection.We have added an option to choose the editor of the template content. Your editor selection is saved and used for opening this template afterwards. This change gives greater flexibility when creating your templates:
  • The two built-in rich text (HTML) editors (CKeditor and TinyMCE) allow you to easily and quickly edit simple templates. The editors provide easy access to rich text formatting: styles, bold, various fonts, plain tables, etc. You can choose the editor that is most convenient for you. Please note that a parameter list is only supported by CKeditor. You can add parameters to TinyMCE too, but you need to write them in full (e.g.: ).
  • 'Plain text editor'. Use it to have full control over the HTML content. It is very convenient when you create your templates through an external design system or import them from another system. This way you can build custom templates of a more complex design.
  • Please note that switching the editor used can change the format of your HTML. For the complex design templates in particular, going from 'Plain text editor' to a rich text editor will add new tags and remove the ones this editor does not support.

Out Of season

For seasonal hotels or the ones closed for a short period, we have added a new ''Out of season'' feature. It has two functions:

• Help your customers know when your hotel will be open again.
• Quickly stop all your rates.

Helping your customers know when your hotel will be open again.

Message in WRS for out of season hotel

Up till now if you have closed the hotel for the season, renovations, maintenance or other reasons, you had to stop all your rates, so that hotel rooms are no longer sold over the WRS or the channel manager.
The inconvenience for your clients was that WRS notification was merely: "No available rooms". This way it was not clear when the hotel would be open again.
The new feature lets your customers receive a clear message from the first page of your WRS when your hotel is closed and for how long, as well as when it opens again. This notification can also be received from the second WRS page with the results when looking for a room in a period, for which your hotel is set to be closed.
Once again, your customers will know how long the hotel will be closed and when it opens.

Quick stop of all your rates.

It is no longer necessary to stop all your rates to stop the sales over the WRS and the channel manager. With only one setting, it happens automatically. To set up the periods, in which your hotel will be closed:

• Go to Settings - Rate Plan.
• Click the 'Out of season' button in upper right corner.
• Add the periods when your hotel is closed.
• Save.

Bookings & Folios

• Automatic cancellation of charges for cancelled bookings.We have added a new setting to choose the system behaviour when a booking is cancelled. No matter how a booking is cancelled (by an employee, automatically by the channel manager or by the guest via the Self Service Portal), the system behaviour will be the one you set:
  • No automatic voiding. This will be the default behaviour. The booking charges remain valid and it is up to you to decide what to do with them. For your convenience, the system automatically creates a To-Do, if it finds valid charges in cancelled bookings.
  • Automatic voiding. If you choose this system behaviour, the system will try to automatically void the folio charges of cancelled booking. If it fails (for example, the folio is closed), it will create a To-Do for further actions.
  • The new setting is on the Guarantee options screen - Settings - Guarantee Options - Auto-void booking charges on booking cancellation.
• Booking folio currency.If you use multiple currencies, now you have a default currency setting for booking folio creation. There are two possible options:
  • Rate currency. This is the default behaviour. The booking folio is created using the currency of the set rate.
  • National currency. The booking folio is always created using the national currency.
  • The new settings can be accessed from Settings - Tax Settings - Default booking folios currency
• On the New booking/booking edit screens, we have added short information of the number of bookings connected to the booking's guest profile. There you can find info of the number of the checked-out and expected bookings in this hotel, as well as the number of checked-out bookings in the other hotels of the subscription.
• Update of the 'Disable Room Change' field for multiple bookings. Now you can update the 'Disable Room Change' field for multiple bookings simultaneously from the booking search screens (Advanced Search, Arrivals, In Hotel, Departures). The option is to be found on the 'Room' menu.
• Tax removal for folios.The feature facilitates the removal of the tax from a folio, when your contractor is entitled to this. The action of this feature depends on the tax mode you use:
  • If you use the 'Tax included in prices' tax mode, the feature will decrease the value of each charge by the amount of its tax and will make the tax percent zero. In other words, if you have a charge to the amount of EUR 120 and 20% VAT, after using this feature, you will have a charge to the amount of EUR 100 and 0% VAT.
  • If you use the 'Tax not included in prices' tax mode, this functionality will make the charge tax zero. Example: if you have a charge to the amount EUR 100 and 20% VAT, after using the feature, you will have a charge to the amount of EUR 100 and 0% VAT.
  • To access this feature: Open a folio and select Functions from the Charges section, and then "Remove/Subtract taxes from prices".
  • This functionality has also been added to the POS – on the Settle screen, go to the Functions section and click "Remove/Subtract taxes from prices".
• In the section for editing multiple bookings on the 'Booking - edit multiple' screen, we have added a field for quick departure date editing. Now you can choose to edit the field that is more convenient for you – Stay or Departure date.
• Group booking confirmation – we have added a field showing the total amount of charges from all included bookings.
• Group booking confirmation – we have added a new translation field, letting you enter a custom text to be shown only in group booking confirmations. The text appears immediately after the the 'Confirmation email text' – at the top of the confirmation email. The text can be edited from Settings - "Languages and Texts" - "Booking Confirmation - Cancellation - Page" - "Additional text for multi-booking confirmation".
• Registration cards – we have added a language field.

PBX

• Charging by Phone Call Zones. The price of a telephone call can be determined by the zone of the dialled number. The zones are determined depending on your needs. To set up this charging:
  • Go to Setting - Phone Call Settings - Edit. In the Pricing Method field, select Price per Zone. Save.
  • In the Zones section (Pricing Method: Price per zone), add all the zones, you will charge by clicking the 'Add' button.
  • For each zone, enter: Name (e.g.: 'International 1'), Dialled number prefixes – all prefixes you wish to belong to this zone, entering each of them in a separate line. Fill in the call price, as it is the sum of the fixed price and price per minute (each of these two can be left empty). Each started minute will be charged.
  • Test it. Use the Test button to enter a phone number and call duration in minutes. The system will show you the phone call zone and how much the call would cost.
• Domestic lines. You can exclude certain domestic lines from charging. This way they will be marked as excluded. To fill in the list of domestic lines, excluded from charging, go to Settings - Phone Call Settings - Edit. In the Excluded lines field, enter each line in a separate line.

Rates

• Percent package elements. Now you can add elements of a percent value to a package. The percent value is always calculated on the basis of the initial rate price and does not depend on the order in which you have added the elements or the values of the other elements.
• We have added a rate change log.The log does not include each of the actions, because they can be too many in number. However, you can quickly find out the user and the time of the last edit of a parameter. To open the change log of a rate – find the rate through the rate search; click the dropdown menu icon next to the rate and select "Change Log".
  • We have also added a deleted rate log. This way you can see the user and time of rate deleting. The link to the log can be found in the lower left corner of the rate search screen (Rate Plan).
  • Please note that the tracking of this log information will start after the update release on 24 Jan 2017.

Virtual Rooms

Based on your comments, we have changed the way virtual rooms are reflected in the statistics and occupancy reports. The goal of these changes is to let you get statistics from your main indicators like occupancy %, ADR, not accounting for virtual rooms, and still to be able to have info on the sales of virtual rooms and their performance. Here are the changes in greater detail:

• Occupancy Forecast – it shows the total of occupied and available rooms, as well as the occupancy percentage accounting for the real rooms only. Additionally, you can see the values, which include the virtual rooms (shown under the main figures and in a smaller font). Example: If you use a FAM virtual room type, the number of occupied and available rooms of this type will be shown in the report, but the data of these rooms will not be included in the report's total.
• Occupancy and Charges.We have made the following changes for you to have correct occupancy data, as well as information on the sales of virtual rooms, if you wish.
  • When the report is run with a filter to see all room types, the Capacity, Booked rooms and Occupancy columns DO NOT include virtual room types. Therefore the Occupancy % is calculated for the real rooms.
  • When the report is run with a filter for a specific room type, the Booked rooms column only includes the direct bookings for this room type, and the Occupancy column – the entire occupancy for this room type, no matter whether a room is directly or indirectly occupied. We have added Booked% accounting for the percentage of direct sales of the room type. The ADR quotient also accounts for the direct sale of this room type.
• Occupancy and Charges D-M-Y Report. The changes are similar to the ones in the previous report.
• Bednights Report – it does not account for the indirectly occupied rooms. Example: A booking for a virtual FAM room type indirectly occupies two more double rooms. These two indirectly occupied rooms are not accounted for in the report.

Other Improvements

• WRS – now guests can book rates together, even if they have different guarantee policies. Up till now it was forbidden by the system. With such bookings, the required deposit is calculated separately for each booking depending on its guarantee policy. There are also changes to the way of determining the payment methods to be used for finishing the booking process in the WRS. The list is determined based on the payment methods selected in the participating guarantee policies. Please note that your settings may prevent your clients from finishing their bookings in some cases. For example, if one of the guarantee policies requires the collection of credit card details only, and the other requires an on-line payment through PayPal only. In such cases, the system cannot find a common payment method between the two policies and shows a notification of a booking containing incompatible guarantee policies.
• New report - Booking Segmentation Report.The report gives information on: Number of bookings and nights, Lead days (how many days before arrival bookings have been made), LOS (Average length of stay), avg. Guests (average guests per booking), Room charges (sum of room charges), Total charges (total of all charges), ADR (Average Daily Rate), ACB (Average charges per booking). With an option to:
  • Filter bookings by: Period, Company, Marketing source, Marketing channel, Room type, Status, Country
  • Segment bookings by: Company, Country, City, Adults + Children, Rate, Arrival Day, Departure Day, Nights, Marketing Channel, Marketing Source, Meals, User, Room type, Guaranteed.
• New report - Self Service Statistics. The report shows the number of visits to your Self Service Portal and the individual portal pages for a certain period. The collection of information for this statistics starts with the update on 24 Jan 2017.
• The To-Do list is now paginated for easier viewing.
• Self Service Portal – the screen requiring PIN can now be translated, showing the customisations made (theme or custom css)
• The liquid parameters referring to amounts (custom template parameters) now have a division function and various values can be calculated directly in the template.

Fixes

• The 'min children' restriction of rates has been fixed. Now it is applied separately from the total number of guests, i.e. it is applied to the number of children only.
• Self Service Portal – extra services. If a guest does not select services and confirms the screen, a To-Do is no longer created.
• The icons of some buttons did not show in the WRS, when custom css used.
• Vouchers – the voucher folio did not open.
• iCalc – it did not work for virtual rooms
• User copying – it did not copy the To-Do channels set up by the user.
• Rate Control Report – when virtual rooms used, it showed the values of both virtual and real rooms.
• User groups. In certain cases, a group could not be created under a given name.
• Booking Enquiry – the printout did not show the set footer.
• Kiosk – when issuing an invoice for a company, an unclear error message appeared if the company name was missing
• The charges related to events did not appear under the respective company in the charge segmentation reports.
• Credit (and Debit) folio did not copy the billing data from the original invoice and the data had to be entered manually.
• Registration card – standard printout – the field labels can now be translated.