Create a booking

#The booking calendar

Bookings → Calendar is your front desk. Rooms run down the left, grouped by room type, and dates run across the top with today highlighted. Every bar is a booking, coloured by its status. Hover over a bar for a quick summary and click it to open the booking.

• Range sets how many days are visible at once. Today and the arrows move the window.
• Search finds a guest by name. Press Enter to search beyond the visible dates.
• More Filters narrows the calendar by status, room type, floor, location or booking source.
• Today’s Bookings is the panel on the right with today’s arrivals, in-house guests and departures, each with its balance. Collapse it with the arrow for a wider calendar.

#Create a single booking

Click + New at the top left of the calendar. Or click and drag across empty cells on the room you want: the room and dates are filled in for you.

1. Type the guest’s name in Customer
   Matching guests appear as you type. Pick an existing guest to keep their stay history together, or keep typing to create a new guest.
2. Set Check-in and Check-out
   The number of nights is shown above the check-out date.
3. Choose the Room Type, then the Room
   Only rooms that are free for the whole stay are offered. Each shows its housekeeping status, such as 201 (Clean).
4. Choose the Charge Type (rate plan)
   The nightly rate fills in from the rate calendar, along with the stay total with and without tax. To charge a negotiated price, type your own Rate.
5. Check Pay Period
   Nightly for most stays. Weekly or Monthly bills long stays per week or month.
6. Set Adults, Children and Booking Source
   Prices can depend on the number of adults, and the source feeds the Booking Source report.
7. Add Booking Notes for anything staff should know, then click Create Booking

#Create a group booking

For weddings, tours, teams and corporate blocks, switch to the Group Booking tab in the same dialog.

1. Pick the lead guest in Customer and set the dates
2. Give the group a name and a booking source
   For example, “Hartley–Moreno Wedding”.
3. For each room type, choose the number of rooms, adults, children and charge type
   The number of free rooms of each type is shown on the right.
4. Click Create Booking
   Each room becomes its own booking linked to the group. The group also gets a master invoice covering every room.

Open any booking in the group and go to its Group Booking tab to see every room. From there you can View Group Invoice, Add Booking (another room) or Remove from Group. Rename each room’s guest as the names come in.

#Bookings that arrive by themselves

• Online booking engine — guests book on your own site. See Set up the online booking engine.
• OTAs — Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and others arrive through the channel manager, with the guest, rate and payment details. See Connect OTAs.

Either way, the booking appears on the calendar with its source set, and the room is taken off sale everywhere else straight away.

#What next?

#Common questions