In the Operational Charge templates article we presented an overview of charge templates that you use on a daily basis - templates for items and extra services (SPA, parking, Meals, etc.). However, there is a second type of Charge Template and those are the System Charge Templates. Their purpose is to be used by the system automatically and are not something that users post themselves.
The main difference in the settings between Operational and System ones is that the System charge template do not have a price set and are usually hidden on the posting screen.
Charge templates for Rates
Important: Please make sure you also read Charge Templates - Creating and Editing and Rates and price management.
Whenever you are creating a rate, the system will require from you to select a charge template for the rate. The purpose of this charge template is mainly to allocate the revenue generated by guest stays on this rate to the correct Revenue Group and Category. Furthermore, through the setting of the Charge Template you can set what the guest will see on their bill - e.g. Overnight stay or Accommodation, the applicable Tax% and more.
Important: Price should not be set in this Charge template because it is controlled by the rate itself.
Here is an example of such charge template:
When we have this charge template created, we can proceed with creating a rate and attach it.
This way, charges generated by the rate will:
- be visible in the reports as 'Overnight stay'
- revenue will be distributed to Group 'Rooms' and Category ' Overnight stay'
- guests will see 'Accommodation' on their bill
- 10% tax will be applied to those charges
- its hidden on the posting screen so that users don't post it accidentally to a folio
Depending on how you want the revenue for accommodation to be distributed. your setup of Revenue Categories and what do you want the guest to see on their bill, you may need 1 or more Charge templates for rates.
Let's examine a case to make this clear.
Situation:
- You have an establishment that has 3 separate structures - Hotel; Villa; Lake bungalows.
- Each of those structures has several 'room types'
- you want to be able to easily track total Room revenue, but also Revenue generated per structure
- furthermore, you want to have different 'text' on the guest folio depending on where they stay
Action:
- to achieve this, you've created 3 Revenue Categories under group 'Rooms' - Hotel; Villa; Lake bungalows
- create 3 separate charge templates with their different settings - each charge template is in Revenue Group 'Rooms', but in different 'Revenue Category'. Furthermore, each charge template has a different 'Print text' which will show on the guest bill
- When creating rates select:
- the 'Hotel' charge template for the rates for the 'Room types' located at the hotel
- the 'Villa' charge template for the rates for the 'Room types' located at the Villa
- the 'Bungalow' charge template for the rates for the 'Room types' located at the Lake
By doing this, you will achieve a segmentation of revenue in your revenue reports - you can see total 'Room' revenue (1), but also you can see that revenue segmented per category (2).
Of course, if you do not need to have such a segmentation or on your folios/bill you want to show e.g. 'Accommodation' always, you can create just 1 charge template and attach it to all your rates.
In any case, please consult with your Onboarding Specialist or our Customer Service team if you have any doubts.
Other System charge templates
Apart from the ones for used for Rates, there are a couple of other 'System' charge templates that need to be created if you are going to use the functions/features they are related to.
- Cancellation fee - you can create a charge template to be used by our Cancellation policy feature which automatically calculates and posts a cancellation fee based on the rules set when a booking is cancelled or marked as No-show. Typically, this charge template should be in Revenue Group 'Cancellation fee'. Leave the 'Price' empty as that will be calculated automatically by the system.
- Deposit - if you will use the 'Deposit folio' function you also are required to have a charge template in Revenue Group 'Pre-invoiced deposit' so you can fully utilize that function and issue Deposit invoices.
- Discount - you can configure a template to be applied when the Discount feature is used in folios. The presence of a preset template will automate the process itself and will reduce the possibility of errors.
- Surcharge - to use the Surcharge option in folios, you will need to configure the respective system template.