Clock PMS+ Update (19 Nov 2024)

New features 

Online check-in 

Attribute Based Sales (ABS)

One of our main goals is to provide you with tools to increase your sales and discover new revenue streams. We are happy to introduce our new development in this area Attribute Based Sales (ABS).

This method of selling hotel services is based on the understanding that your hotel rooms are not exactly the same. Some have a better view, others are a bit bigger, others have a desk, others are far from the elevator, others are on a low floor and so on. On the flip side, stand the guest preferences. Each guest has different preferences in terms of room, and some are willing to pay an extra price to get a room that more closely matches their preferences. It is in this direction that we have developed our new tool  Attribute Based Sales. 

Here's how it works:

• It's based on Room Features. If you already use them to manage guest room requirements, you can specify which ones to sell and at what price.
• In each feature, you can select a charge template, and specify the price in it. You can also enter a price of 0 if you decide to provide a free choice of features. In the feature itself, you can specify whether the price from the charge template is a one-time price or is per night. Once you select a charge template for a feature, it is already included in the list that will be offered to the customer. Room features without the charge template are not displayed to the guest.
• Shape the commercial presentation of the room feature- add a description and a photo.
• Attribute Based Sales are currently included in the Online Check-In application. To enable the step, select in the application settings - Attribute Based Sales (ABS).
• The guest will see the room features you set up with their prices, descriptions and a photo. The system reports the Room Type in the guest's booking and offers the features associated with the room numbers of that type.
• Follows the guest's selection of features. Here we have tried to make everything clear to the guest, in terms of what they can choose.
• To begin with, in the list of room features he sees only those for which there are available room numbers, i.e. if the feature is selected, it is guaranteed that the guest will be provided with the corresponding room.

• The guest can select multiple room features. In this process, after each selection the system updates in real time the remaining room features, disabling those that are not compatible and available. This means that for that particular combination of features, you either do not have a similar room, or you do but it is no longer available.

• The guest can turn the different features on and off, thus being able to choose the combination that suits him best in terms of choice and price.

After confirming his choice, the following happens:

• The charge templates from the room features will be added to the booking mu, such as "Daily Charges”;
• The booking will be assigned a room number, which matches the selected features;
• On the booking, the option "Disable Room Change” is included;

This way, the guest will get what he/she has selected and the hotel staff will see that the guest has paid for the selected room. The "Disable Room Change" option will prevent staff from making mistakes when trying to allocate another room.

Upsell rates (Special Offers)

This functionality has long existed in the system, but can now be taken advantage of by those using the  Online check-in app. Through it, you can upgrade the room type and package of guests by offering them higher and more expensive product levels.

Functionality is organised so that you can use both your standard rates and specially designed ones. This means you can choose from two strategies - offer the guest to book a more expensive room type or package by paying the difference in the standard rates, or by paying a lower ("promotional") rate for the higher package. In the latter case, by managing a separate (promotional) rate plan, you can use rate restrictions to manage when those rates are available or not, including building a dynamic promotional strategy based on Occupancy Adaptable Rates.

The Special Offers step comes before the Attribute Based Sales step. This way, the two steps can work together, i.e. if a guest has booked a Double Room and chooses to pay extra for a Suite, then on the Attribute Based Sales step, the Suites features will be offered.

To include the Special Offers step in the Online check-in, in the app settings, select Upsell rates (Special Offers). 

For more on the behaviours and settings of the new features, please see Attribute Based Sales (ABS) and Special Offers through Online Check-in.

Tour Operator Contracts

Packages

With the recent changes, we want to resolve the following package cases:

• New Year's Eve Dinner, which is mandatory for all guests;
• Christmas dinner, which guests can choose whether they want it or not;
• X-day golf/spa/ski package, for guests who have purchased them;
• Additionally, through the packages, you can now also opt for  flat-rate discounts such as “full seats” - we've removed the restriction on negative pricing in the packages for this purpose.

• For the packages that are on fixed dates (holidays), we have made a new table with conditions “Holiday Packages”.

  • For these,  a date must be specified. If the booking has an overnight stay on that date, one condition for charging the package is met. The package itself is charged  on the date in question.
  • Holiday Packages can be activated with an Activation Code or with a “Multiplier (Per)”- this is also the second condition for charging.
    •  with Activation Code (case study: “Christmas Dinner Optional") - as many times as the code is in the booking, the package service will be charged (on the date in question), 1 code = 1 dinner. If adults and children have different prices, two lines should be configured with different activation codes and different prices.
    • with Multiplier (Per) ( case study: “Mandatory New Year's Eve Dinner”). The service is always charged with a certain amount (multiplier), in this case, you do not have to fill in codes in the bookings. per Booking; per Guest; per Adult; per Child.

For X day packages, we have made changes to the “Package Services” section:

• Added charging scheme: On Arrival, On Departure, Every day, First N days.
• Current packages recorded in the contracts were migrated to “On Arrival”, to keep the current behavior. 
• First N days - means the first N days of the booking stay. Feature: if N (say 7) is greater than the stay (say 3), 3 packages will be charged (as many as the stay, but no more). 
• The activation code still works as before. As many codes are added to the booking, as many times a package will be added, according to the chosen charging scheme. 

Detailed information on setting up package services can be found in TO Contracts - Packages.

Discounts

We have also made changes to Discounts and Free nights to work alongside the new packages.

In both places (Discounts and Free nights) you can specify which accruals affect which conditions. For each Discount or Free night, depending on your contract, you can specify whether to apply to: Accommodation, Extra board, Package. checkbox "Package" applies to both types of packages: Holiday Packages or Pa. 

In addition, to make it easier to view your contract details, we've made it so that the contract lines retain their original order. The system now sorts them according to the order in which they were added by the user.

Improvements

• Information on Room Upgrades. We want to clarify that the term "Room Upgrade" does not refer to the Upsell Rates (Special Offers) features listed above. It refers to cases where the guest has booked a Double Room but the hotel has decided to provide a higher room type, such as a Double Deluxe or Suite, either because there are no available Double Rooms or because they want to increase guest loyalty in this way. In these situations, the originally booked room type was lost until now. We have taken a broader approach to solving this problem. We don't keep track of what the original booked room type was because that would prevent us from distinguishing between booking edits or upsell rates and room upgrades. What the system does track is whether there is a difference in the Room Type that the rate is for and the Room Type that the guest is using (the room of arrival and the rooms of their moves). In other words, whether the guest is using what they are paying for. If the system detects a difference between usage and rate, it marks the booking as a "Room Upgrade". An indication of this is visible in the booking screen, below the room itself. Also both (or more) room types are visible - the rate and the accommodation. Currently this information is only visible in the booking screen, but will be included in new versions of the Arrivals, In Hotel, Departures screens, and as a filter in the Advanced Search.

• In Hotel / Expected Events - we've added more periods. In addition to the existing 14-day report, we've added two more choices - a quick 31-day period button and a random period button. The report was also optimised for printing.
• BookDirect extra services - for the extra services for which you selected the "Allow date selection" setting, there are now two more options: "Allow on Arrival” and “Allow on Departure”. Thus, depending on the nature of the service, you can set the system to allow or not allow the selection of this service on the corresponding date of the guest's stay. For existing services, the "Allow on Arrival" field is automatically filled in as was the previous behaviour of the system.
• BookDirect - Waiting list URL - We have added the ability to integrate an external Waiting list management system. If you wish to integrate such a system you need to set up a link to it. Once you set the link, a link to it will appear in BookDirect  Notify me when available". The link is always present after the list of room types on the second page. Additionally, if the hotel has no rooms available, it also appears at the top of the screen to get the guest's attention. To set up the link for integration with a waiting list system, select BookDirect - Settings -> Website Integration -> Waiting list URL. The text "Notify me when available", can be changed from the BookDirect translation screen.
• BookDirect - Card Verification - For users who do not have the option to use the direct integration with a payment provider, we have added a basic credit card number verification against the industry standard. Basic verification is only about whether the number itself meets the standard, but in no way guarantees that the card is valid and can be used.
• In all screens of Channel Managers regarding Company mapping, we have changed the company selection field to allow searching for the company by name.
• When archiving a room number, we now check for OOS statuses added to it for future periods. It also checks for future bookings that this room has been assigned to. Before archiving the room, it is necessary to remove its future uses and blocks.

Fixes

• Events -  corrected the error text that appeared when recording a Catering or Room Reservation for the wrong period, so it is now clear what the issue stems from;
• BookDirect - fixed an issue where after creating a booking for multiple rooms, the confirmation for all rooms was not being received. The issue was occurring when the last step required the user to fill in a “Language” field and different languages were selected for the guests.
• Payments Report - corrected an issue where GL codes were not outputting correctly in cases where the report was running for a different account than the one the user was logged into;
• Charges By Rooms Report  - corrected data presentation so that services were not displayed for both virtual and component rooms at the same time.

Localisations

• Norway: KID Number Added to the System. In Norway, the Invoice KID number is used to streamline payment and document reconciliation. The KID number serves as a unique identifier for each sale. It is automatically generated during the folio closing process and is included in the folio printout. Please Note: To activate the automatic generation of KID numbers for your Clock PMS+ account, please contact the Clock PMS+ Support team.