Gift Vouchers Web Shop
This is an entirely new module in Clock PMS which allows selling gift vouchers through the hotel website.
What is a Gift Voucher?
A few words about gift vouchers. Gift Voucher, Gift Certificate, Gift Card are terms with no clear distinction in their meaning and are often used interchangeably.
The idea: Instead of buying a present, which may or may not be liked, clients often prefer 'gifts of choice' (a gift vouchers).
The same applies to hotels: a holiday or a spa procedure is best presented with a gift voucher, so that the person receiving it can choose the time and date to use it.
>Gift vouchers are usually glossy cards or blank forms in fancy wrapping, which bear the value and/or the name of the service or package on them. In a way, they are the material expression of a non-material present.
A gift voucher can come in other forms, too: a code sent by e-mail or a debit smart card. However, these cases are not yet covered here.
Monetary gift vouchers are usually accepted at reception or at a till. If they are not used in full, no change is given for the remaining value. The same applies to vouchers for specific services, e.g. Spa package.
It is important to know that gift vouchers are subject to different accounting regulations. These vary between legislations, but several rules can be generally outlined:
- A gift voucher is considered 'money in cash'.
- The sale of a gift voucher does not require an invoice.
- Gift voucher sales are not revenue and are not taxable.
- Gift vouchers are recorded as revenue upon their use when they are treated like any other cash transaction. The only difference is that they are recorded as a different payment type ('voucher'). On day end vouchers are treated as cash: if the daily closure report says there are € 500 in vouchers, there must be cards/forms for the same amount present.
- The value of unused gift vouchers is 100% profit for the hotel.
What does the new module include
- Gift Voucher Web Shop
- Different gift vouchers sorted in groups. Each group can be given a name, a description and a gallery of pictures.
- Delivery options. Different delivery options can be offered: standard, express, at the hotel, etc., each of them with its own price, name and price (or free).
- Delivery restrictions for different countries. The country list in the delivery address can be set to show only countries, where delivery is offered. Note: Delivery prices are not calculated depending on country. If different prices are needed, e.g. for EU and non-EU countries, two separate positions should be entered. They should be named and described clearly, so that clients can choose the one that applies for them.
- Customization – headers, footers, policies, etc.
- Buyer name and address and an optional delivery address.
- A special field for personal messages
- Online payment using the options available in the system. Note: Currently ONLY online payments are supported.
- Purchase confirmation e-mail.
- To open the web shop go to the navigation strip – Web – Your Gift Voucher Web Shop. The web shop must be set up in advance.
Accounting
For each sale:
- The hotel is sent an e-mail notification
- A new To-Do task is created on the desktop
- A gift voucher is created with its folio. In the folio the voucher itself and the selected payment method are posted. The payment is also added.
- All sold gift vouchers can be seen in the navigation strip – Web – Gift Vouchers. The charges, folios and payments are included in all reports.
- Set up
The set up of the Gift Voucher Web Shop is fast and easy:
- Select a WRS user. Note: You do not have to use the web reservation system. The system needs a WRS user to be selected (Settings – WRS).
- Create charge templates for each gift voucher and for each delivery method. In the editing screen of the template you can upload a picture and translate the names and descriptions (Languages and Texts). On the web site the voucher charge templates are grouped in template groups.Template are not translatable yet.
- Indicate which charge templates should be shown as vouchers and which as deliveries (Settings – Gift vouchers).
- Set up at least one online payment interface.
- Additionally:
- Upload a picture for the shop header (Settings – Gift vouchers)
- The custom CSS in the WRS apply to the gift shop, too. Both are set in the same way (Settings – WRS).
- Customize texts (Settings – Languages and Texts – Gift Vouchers Translations):
- Title: Positioned at the head of every page. Suitable for branding.
- Footer: Positioned at the bottom of every page. Suitable for slogans and contact details.
- Voucher list – Title and Text: Positioned directly above the vouchers. Suitable for address to clients and general instructions.
- Delivery services list – Title and Text: Suitable for general instructions.
- Terms & Conditions – Title and Text: Shown on the last page before finalizing the purchase.
- Confirmation e-mail – Subject and Body.
Data Access API
We have developed an API which gives access to the financial information in our accounts (PMS, POS, Golf, etc.)
The data which can be accessed is as follows:
- Folios (all: open, closed, client, deposit, correction)
- Folio: charges (including modifiers)
- Folio: payments
- Folio: taxes
- Charges change log (revenue)
- Payments change log
- Companies
- Currencies and exchange rates
- Users
- Daily closures
The API is REST-based and returns three formats: XML, JSON or YAML.
It supports data filtering requests.
The access is granted by users themselves through the standard authentication system of users and rights. For this purpose there is a special new access right, as well as a special API access key.
The complete API documentation is still being compiled. A preliminary copy can be prepared on request.
Central management and reporting
- Common (centralized) settings of: Revenue categories, Payment Sub-types, Market segments. These settings can now be shared between account of the same type (PMS, POS, Golf) and can be defined from a single account per type (once for PMS, once for POS, once Golf). This change will help the unified reporting in chains and groups.
- The Payment report and the Open Payments report can now be run for more than one account at a time and summarize the information using the accounts filter.
Reports
- New report, Open Folios, showing all open folios. The folios are grouped topically and each group can be drilled down.
- More columns added to the Bed nights report: number of guests (adults and children), and number of bookings. This exhausts all possible accommodation options: bookings, nights, bed nights (a/c), and guests (a/c). As before, the report can be segmented by nationalities and a number of other parameters.
Other
- Drag and drop in the Room calendar. The Room calendar has been optimized for more and faster operations:
- Drag and drop: To avoid accidental moves on touch-screen devices, the operation is disabled on opening the screen. The navigation button in the upper part of the screen allows movement up/down (change of room), left/right (change of arrival date), and everyway (both).
- Opening bookings: just click on the desired booking.
- New booking: click on a free date.
- Change of housekeeping status: click on the room name (the leftmost column).
- The heading of rows Free rooms and Not assigned are now links to the Advanced search. This way it is easy to check which bookings exactly do not have rooms assigned to them or to see all bookings for a specific date.
- Batch printing: you can now print out all folios of bookings selected in a booking list. This can save time on check out if the folios of all leaving bookings are printed out in advance.
- Totals in booking lists: Screens Arrivals, Departures, In hotel, Search and Advanced search now show the total a mounts for each group and for all groups together.
- ParityRate: a new setting for ToDo tasks for new bookings. To allow for a better organization of the tasks linked to bookings received from online channels, a new ToDo task can now be created automatically for each new booking.
- WRS: optimized the visualization logic for adult and children fields. The 'children' field will not be shown if it is not used in the rate restrictions. The optimization is helpful for adults-only hotels.
- Commissions screen: Added button 'Select All/None' in the multi-select mode.
- Custom SMTP. When using own SMTP server, the e-mails to clients are now sent from the hotel e-mail address (Settings – Account Info – Hotel E-mail), instead of from noreply@clock-software.com .
- Time zone is now required for each new account.
Fixed bugs
- Charge template editor: the revenue category is not a combo-box, so that deleted values are also shown.
- Clear error message on login attempt at the wrong host.
- Extra services in WRS: all extra services enabled for WRS can now be disabled.
- WRS: Extra services are now charged for the arrival date.
- The Closed Folios report, when run with filter 'Not paid', does not include correction folios anymore.