Capacity Counters
Capacity Counters have two main functions:
- through Capacity counters you set and control availability of items/services with limited capacity - e.g. parking spaces preventing overselling.
- using Capacity counters you can limit the sales of certain rates. It could be due to the rate including a packaged item/service that has limited capacity or simply, you want to sell that particular rate only X number of times for a day/period.
Creating Capacity Counters
To create a Capacity Counter navigate to menu Settings->All Settings->Charges & Taxes->Capacity counters -> press the button '+' on the top right corner.
In the window that pops up, enter the name of the counter and its capacity.
Once you have created your counters, edit the respective Charge Template/s and select them through the Capacity counter field:
Note: You can use the same capacity counter for many charge templates that need to use that availability. For example, if you charge for parking in Tiers: parking per day - 10 EUR; parking 3 days - 25 EUR; parking 1 week - 60 EUR; - you need one counter for your parking spots, attached to the 3 charge templates.
How they work
By having counters attached to charge templates, Clock PMS+ will track the availability of those items/services and restrict their sales on the BookDirect (WRS) and MyBooking Portal (SSP) whenever there is no availability. With this, you ensure that you won't 'oversell' a particular item or service.
Furthermore, you can use the 'Charge Template Availability report' to track the availability of those items/services in case you need to manually post a charge to a folio.
Important: Sales over the capacity limit are still possible through the backend. For example parking spaces - usually they are for cars, but it is possible to have 2 guests with motorbikes to actually occupy one parking space, but each pays for the use. In this case the hotel team has the option to sell over the capacity limit.
Tip: You can also use capacity counters to track availability of items you give free of charge, for example, a Baby Cot. Simply create a Charge template with 0 price for the baby cot and attach the counter. When guests request a baby cot, simply post that 0 price charge in their folio to adjust and track its availability.
Daily availability
You can set and control the daily availability of the Capacity Counters by using the "Capacity Counters by days". It allows you to view and edit the daily availability of the Capacity Counters you have created. You can access the screen from the navigation menu Availability->Capacity Counters - Days, or if you have already opened the 'Capacity Counters' screen, switch to the 'Days' page at the bottom of the screen.
- In the calendar, mark the period for which you wish to view or adjust the capacity of the counters;
- Select at least one counter whose capacity to load for that period;
The screen will show you data about the capacity of the selected counters, you can make adjustments for random dates in the period, as well as view whether there are any exceptions set in the period.
- To set the exception, simply click in the cell of the respective date and select the edit button in the upper right corner;
- Enter the new capacity and save.
Similarly, you can set exceptions for several adjacent dates by selecting them with a mouse drag beforehand.
The screen has two visualisation modes, which are changed by clicking the small button in the top right corner. The detailed view shows all counters and all data for the selected period (capacity, sold, available). Similar to the compact view, you can also set exceptions for random dates here.
Mass Update
In addition to adjusting capacity for specific dates, we've provided a tool through which you can easily set or remove exceptions for multiple periods and counters simultaneously.
- From the navigation menu, select Availability->Capacity Counters - Mass Update, or if you have already opened the 'Capacity Counters' screen, switch to the 'Mass Update' page at the bottom of the screen;
- Select the counters for which you want to set the same exceptions;
- Highlight the periods for which to apply the adjustment;
- Enter the new capacity value and save.
Capacity Counters and Rates
You can also use Capacity counters to restrict the number of sales of a particular rate/package. You simply need to attach a counter to an element added in a Rate Package and the system will track the number of sales and stop them when the full capacity has been reached.
Note: Different counters can also be used for individual package elements, e.g. one counter for the breakfast and a different one for the SPA. The availability of such a package will be the lesser one of the two elements. In other words, if you have 20 available breakfasts and 10 spa procedures, the whole package availability will be 10.
Furthermore, If you simply wish to control the sales of a particular rate for the purposes of the revenue management, you can add an additional element to the package at a zero price whose availability to track.
When applied, rates that include this package element will be automatically stopped for sale online (BookDirect, Channel Manager, Upsell module) once capacity is reached of at least one of the elements.
For enquiries or manual bookings, you will be able to see how many are available by the small green icon in the Rate and Availability screen.
