New Features
BookDirect
To our new Web Reservation System, we have added several features related to the improvement of the sales process:
Extra Services - control depending on the rate
Control over which extra services to be offered to the guest. The new feature allows you to set which extra services NOT to be offered to the guest depending on the rate selected at the previous step. The aim is to prevent the confusion when the guest is being offered services included in the package that are not compatible with the guest's room or such that cannot be offered along with the rate for another reason
Example: If you offer "dinner" as a service that can be added by the guest to their booking, but if it is already included in certain rates, it will be clearer for the guest not to be also offered dinner as an extra services when it is already part of the selected rate.
To set up the control over the extra services:
- From the navigation menu, select Web->BookDirect Settings->WRS Extra Services;
- Click 'Select Charge Templates for WRS' - next to each service, select the rates for which this service is NOT to be offered ('Excluded rates (BookDirect only)');
- Save the changes.
Number of guests on the first screen
For the hotels preferring that guests enter the number of adults and children as early as the first step, we have also added the children's age, as well as we have facilitated the entry of adults and children
If you have enabled the "Ask for guests at the first step" setting, we have made the following two changes:
- We have added the option to select children's ages to the fields on the first screen. This way, the calculated prices at the next steps precisely correspond to the guest's enquiry. Even if your pricing doesn't depend on children's ages, this change is useful because it keeps the entry of related data in one and the same place.
Note: We would like to remind you that the "Ask for guests at the first step" setting is suitable for hotels whose pricing is heavily influenced by the number of adults and children. The advantage of using this setting is that guests immediately see products and prices corresponding to their specific enquiry, the disadvantage is that they do not see all your rooms and products.
- The fields for the number of adults and children on the first screen are now selectable instead of input ones, i.e. the value is selected from a list instead of being filled in. To have the selectable fields appear instead of the input ones, enter these two settings: "Max Guests per unit" and "Max Adults per unit" in the Guests section. In the fields, enter the number of guests that can be accommodated in the biggest room you offer.
Note: Please note that Max Guests per unit has to include both adults and children, and Max Adults per unit refers ONLY to the number of adults
We recommend you to complete this setting, if you use "Ask for guests at the first step".
Improvements
- We have added info of the meals to the 'Company Booking Charges by Folios' and 'Company Booking Charges by Reference' reports.
The reports intended for your work with Companies, Agents or Tour Operators. The meals data is retrieved the following way:
- If the booking rate is of the "Tour Operator Contract" type, then the meals are retrieved from the very contract, this way complying with the terminology of the tour operator.
- If the rate is not of the Contract type the meals are retrieved from the rate itself.
- Finally, if the booking has no rate, the meals are retrieved from the booking itself.
We have also applied the same logic to the Room Type for best compliance with the tour operator's terminology.
- We have addressed one very common question of yours: "Have all charges that need invoicing been invoiced?". We have changed the "Company Booking Charges by Folios" report to give you a clear answer to this question. Here are the changes: The report can now be run for all companies, and the data is grouped by company. This way, when using the arrival, departure and folio status filters, you can easily find all still open booking folios for a certain period.
- Following the transition to the new user interface, the new versions of the following reports have been added: Bed Nights, Open Folios, Open Folio Charge Age, Payments in Open Folios, Payments Report.
- To Clock POS, we have added the new screen versions for 'Users' and 'User Groups'.
FIXES
- Deposit Ledger - the fully used deposits under the Deduct Charges method with no changes as of the selected date are not included in the report.
- Events - when copying the events, the advance charges are omitted.
- Guarantee policy - the guarantee options requiring a zero deposit can be used in combination with the Bank Guarantee method for the WRS needs.
- Guarantee policy - in rare cases, when a deposit scheme based on the Average Daily price and a charge quantity other than 1 are used in combination, the deposit was not correctly calculated.
- Room Plan (the new screen) - the OOS status period reduction feature didn't work.
Integrations
- Gastronovi POS - In some cases, the payments were not imported for the full revenue push options which has now been fixed.