Clock PMS+ Update (20 May 2025)

New Features

Room Calendar - Best Available Rate (BAR) and Minimum Stay

 We've added another feature to the Room Calendar, making this popular tool even more useful for you. In the calendar, you can now see the Rates and Minimum Stay for each date and room. This way, you can quickly respond to guest enquiries about availability, prices and restrictions. We plan further improvements in this direction in the future, by linking the calendar more closely with the "Rate and Availability" screen.

• The calendar can display a price for each day, this is the "Best Available Rate" (BAR) for the room type. To determine which are "BAR", we have added a new setting in the rates. Open the rates that are "BAR" for each room type for editing, select the "Marketing and Tags" tab, in the "Rate Category" field select "Best Available Rate (BAR)", and Save. For one room type, only one rate can be "BAR".

• As well as being able to see the prices in the calendar, this categorisation can help you find these rates quickly - there is a button for quickly opening them on the home page of the rate editor. In the future, we will also use them in the new "Rate and Availability" screen.

• Once you have set up the "BAR" rates, open the Calendar, select the filter button and click "Best Available Rate (BAR)". You will see the prices from the selected rates in the calendar. If you want the calendar to always open with prices, you can save the filters as default.

• In addition to the prices, the calendar visualises the minimum stay by colour, as well as the days that are stopped or have no availability. Hover the mouse over a price to see details about it - the two restrictions: Min Stay and Min Stay on Arrival. You will also see the legend for colouring the price depending on the minimum stay: black if there is no minimum stay restriction, green for 2 days, blue for 3 days, orange for 4 days and red for more than 4 days (1). If the date/room type cannot be sold, due to lack of availability or STOP, the price is on a red background (2).

Multi-Folio View

To make splitting bills easier, we've added a new view in which you can see several folios side by side.

You can open the new view in two ways:

• From the booking - with the new "Multi-Folio View" button in the "Rates and Folios" section. The open folios of the booking will be loaded.

• From the folio itself - select the "..." button (top-right) and select "Multi-Folio view". The open folios of the Payer of the current folio will be loaded. That is, if this is a booking folio - all the folios of the booking will be loaded. If it is a Company/Event folio, the folios of the company/event payer will be opened respectively.

Here are the features in the new "Multi-Folio View":

• Quick Transfer - Simply select the charges from one or more folios and click the "Transfer here" button (1) in the folio you want to transfer them to.
• Fast Split - Select the "Split" (4) function from the "Selected" drop-down menu (if you only want to split selected charges). The split screen will directly open to its second page, where you can fill in the split percentages and method. If you want to exclude a folio from the split - you can remove it with the red button after it.
• Create a new folio (5) - Add a new folio for the same payer to split bills or charge something to a separate folio.
• All other charge manipulation functions are also available here: Addition, Editing, Discount, Void, Split and Transfer to other folios, Discount codes.
• If you need other folio functions - open the specific folio with the "Open" button (3) in a new tab.

Discount Codes

A new, promising feature that could change the way you price in the future. Currently, it can cover specific cases related to company folios, but we will soon support it much more broadly and it will be able to solve many more cases.

What is the difference between existing Discounts and the new Discount Codes? 

• Existing Discounts are applied manually. The value of the discount is calculated at the time of application and does not change if the value of the charges in the folio changes (adding new ones, transfer or cancellation)
• Discount Codes are added to the folio, and this can be done automatically. When the value of the charges changes, the discount value is automatically recalculated. You can add several Discount Codes to the folio, each of which will be calculated and make a separate negative charge for the discount. The fact that you can add them to the folio from the start makes them suitable for automatic transfer.

Where can Discount Codes be set at the moment?

• The Folio - codes are added to the folio and calculate the value of the discounts in the folio automatically.
• The Company -  In the Company Contract, you can add one or more codes. They will automatically be transferred to the folio when a new company folio is created. The transfer is only when a new folio is created, after that they can be edited in the folio.
• The use of codes (setting them in the Company or Folio) is linked to a new right ("Apply Discount Codes"), which you must grant to users.

Where do we plan to add them next?

Our plans are to add them to the Booking, Events and Guest Profile as well, so that they can be fully used as part of your pricing policy and customer loyalty system. 

What is the behaviour of Discount Codes in a multi-hotel environment?

If you have a chain of hotels, then through Discount Codes, you can flexibly manage the size of the discount for each of the hotels. This means that if a Company has a discount code, for example "LEVEL_1", which you have entered in the Company Contract, then for each hotel, this code may carry a different size and nature of discount - that is, in some hotels it may be 10% only on the nights, and in others it may be 12% on the nights and meals.

Why have we added them to the Company Contract and not to the Company itself? 

The Company Contract that is selected in the Company is a feature that allows you to manage the special rates agreed with that company. The Company's discounts are part of that same pricing policy and agreement. In addition, the Company Contract is very convenient when you have a Company with many branches. Similar to rate tags, you can manage discount codes in one, single place, and they will apply to all branches of the same company.

Settings

To set up discount codes for each hotel:

• Select Settings -> All Settings -> Charges & Taxes -> Discount codes. 
• Add a new code and fill in the fields:
  • Code - the code cannot be repeated in the same account. Once saved, the code cannot be changed. You will use this code in the Company to link the Company to the discount.
  • Name - As well as for description, the name is used for the text of the discount charge.
  • Charge template - The template will be used for: the revenue group and category, additional fields and the text when printing. You can use one template for all codes or create several, depending on your needs.
• Revenue Groups - select on which revenue groups the discount itself will be calculated. You can also select groups from the POS. In this case, the discount calculation will also take into account the transferred charges from the POS. 
• Code Editing - If you change the revenue groups or the size of the discount for an existing code, all open folios in which this code is involved will be recalculated with the new discount size.
• To add, edit and remove codes, you must have "Settings" access.

To add discount codes to a folio:

• To add and remove codes to the folio, you need to have the new right "Apply Discount Codes".
• Open the folio. In the Charges - Discount Codes section - select the edit button.
• Select the codes, which you can search for by name. Save.
• One or more discount charges will appear for each of the Codes, depending on the available tax rates. The discount charges per Code may be more than one for the following reason: The charges that are subject to discount are grouped by tax rates and a separate charge is made for each tax rate. This mechanism guarantees that there is no possibility of negative tax bases appearing on the invoice.
• If the folio has a large number of charges, you may not see the discount immediately. Reload the folio after some time.
• When adding or removing Codes, the discounts are recalculated automatically. The same applies when charges are changed.

To set Discount Codes for a Company:

• To add and remove codes to the Company, you need to have the new right "Apply Discount Codes". 
• The codes are set in the Company Contract. You can read more about Company Contracts HERE.
• Open the Company.
• In the "Company Contract" section select "Edit"
• If there is already a contract select "Edit", and if there is not select "New". You can also choose from existing contracts.
• Fill in the Discount Codes, after each code press "Add" to add it to the list. Save.
• The codes are transferred to the company's folios only and only at the time of creating a new folio.

Expect small changes to the navigation.

Soon, we will be making small changes to the navigation bar:

• Menu Web will become WBE (web booking engine). The access and settings to the legacy booking engine along with the settings for the Gift voucher webshop will be moved to Prevoius Versons sub-menu. 
•  Settings for the Guest portal and Online check-in will be moved to a new menu - Guest Interaction.
•  Mailing list will be moved from Other to Guest Interaction.

Improvements

• Booking Engine - manual prices. In the Booking Engine we have added a new option, through which, all created bookings can be made with "manual prices". In this way, the price of the guest is fixed and even if it is recalculated in the booking, it will be saved. On the other hand, the disadvantages of manual prices are that because they do not change automatically, more attention is required from your side when changing the period or extending it. The new option is located in: Web -> BookDirect Settings -> BookDirect Rates -> "Create bookings with manual price" (or Web -> Settings - Web reservation system -> "Create bookings with manual price" if you use the legacy booking engine).
• Rates - quick display of "Best Available Rate (BAR)" and the rates published on the booking engine. In the first screen of the rate setting, we added two buttons, through which you can load your BAR rates or those published on the booking engine with one click.
• Room Calendar - in the information for each booking that is displayed in the pop-up, we also added the Arrival Time and Departure Time of the booking (if available)
• Reports"Meals" and "Meals - Summary" - the new reports have been reworked to work in the background, so they work seamlessly with larger volumes of data. Restrictions have also been added for both reports - 10 days for the operational "Meals" and 3 months for the summary "Meals - Summary".
• In the Housekeeper App, you can now see the departure time of the booking for each task. As a reminder, the arrival time is already visible, as well as information about early arrival/late departure.

Fixes

• In the Rate and Availability screen - in the "Favourite rates" menu, we've hidden archived rates. Previously, the list was becoming too long.
• Deleting meals was not working if there was a lot of accumulated data.
• Arrivals/Departures/In Hotel/Advanced Search
  • The last used encoder for issuing key cards was not being remembered.
  • The button to delete a key card was not being displayed.
  • In Hotel / Departures - the Room column was not showing the room change.
  • Searching was slow when searching by free text.
  • Advanced search - searching by guest name and booking status simultaneously was causing an error.
• Room Calendar
  • Room moves were not being displayed correctly.
  • Depending on the local time zone of the browser, today's date was not being marked correctly, nor were the weekend days.
• Rooming/Guest Lists - a problem has been fixed whereby a user without "Settings" permission could not create bookings with meals.
• The "Event Activities" search screen - Depending on the local time zone of the browser, it was not filtering Activities correctly.
• Trial balance - we added the account name to the print form.
• Guest Profiles  -> Advanced Search - the In Period Filter showed profiles with voided bookings.

Localizations

• Italian police form- Italian police require specific information to be collected for every guest. Some of the data is related to data already selected in another field, and with this feature, the data is narrowed down based on a selection of a previous field. For example:
  • If you select Italy in the new field  "Document issue place italian police", two new fields appear: "Document issue province" and "Document issue municipality code". When a specific Document issue province is selected, the Document issue municipality code will offer only the municipalities from the province. 
  • The same goes for the new fields  "Country of birth - italian police", "Birth place province" and "Birth place comuni".

Configurations:  

• Enable the form from Settings > All Settings > Guest profile fields. There, you can enable the Italian police form fields. Once enabled, the necessary fields will be created and automatically added to the guest registration card (back office, self-service and online check-in).
• Set the form as visible from Settings -> All Settings -> Guest profile fields visibility. Set the Italian police form as visible for the various points.