When switching to Clock as your Booking.com connectivity partner, existing reservations created manually or via your previous provider require special attention. If a guest modifies or cancels one of these bookings via Booking.com, the update may not behave as expected in Clock.
This article explains what happens, the risks involved, and how to best manage these situations.
Downloading Future Bookings
When activating the connection, the Clock PMS+ Support Team will download all currently expected bookings from your Booking.com account (i.e., bookings created before the activation).
All downloaded bookings will appear in the Inbox of the connection as ignored bookings. We recommend importing them to avoid the issues described in the section "What Happens When a Guest Modifies a Booking Not Created via Clock's Booking.com Connection?".
Important: These bookings will not include any credit card details. If you have access to this information, you will need to manually add the card details to each booking.
During activation, the Clock PMS+ Support Team can assist with any questions about these bookings. If the same bookings already exist in Clock PMS+ - either created manually or through another channel manager - they must be voided. Be sure to transfer any relevant details, such as:
- Internal notes
- To-Dos
- Folio items
- Payments
After importing, review each booking to confirm all details (guest name, room type, dates, pricing) and inform us if you find any discrepancies.
Processing Invoices for Advance Payments from Existing Bookings
We suggest two main approaches. If your case cannot be resolved using one of these, please consult the Clock PMS+ Support Team for an individual review.
Void or issue full correction and Reissue
- Void or issue a full correction for the advance payment from the old booking.
- Add the advance payment as a new entry in the newly imported booking.
Keep the Original Invoice:
- Retain the advance payment invoice in the old booking.
- Ensure the old booking has the same reference number* as the newly imported booking.
*This makes it easy to quickly locate the old booking in the system when you need to process the advance payment (see next).
Steps:
- Open the old booking.
- Change its status from Cancelled to Expected.
- Use the advance payment as required. More information can be found HERE.
- Once the payment is processed, change the old booking status back to Cancelled.
This method allows you to retain the original invoice while still using the advance payment for the guest’s new booking.
What Happens When a Guest Modifies a Booking Not Created via Clock's Booking.com Connection?
If a booking was:
- Created manually in Clock
- Imported via another connectivity partner (e.g., before switching to Clock)
Clock will not recognize it as linked to Booking.com when a guest modifies the reservation.
In this case:
- Clock PMS+ will treat the modification as a new reservation and create a new booking. In case of cancellation, the new booking will be immediately cancelled if there is enough available information in the XML communication. If there isn't, the cancellation will stay in your inbox without actually importing.
- The original booking will remain in your system unchanged.
- If availability is limited, you may see an overbooking warning - this is not a real overbooking, but a result of both bookings being active simultaneously.
Note: This situation with duplicated bookings due to guest modifications will only occur temporarily - during the period when your system still contains Booking.com reservations not originally created through the direct Clock connection. Once all such legacy bookings have either been completed, canceled, or replaced (e.g., via a full push from Booking.com), all future modifications and cancellations will be matched and processed automatically.