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This feature release includes the introduction of Rate Plan Packages in HOP, as well as a number of improvements to the CSL (Customer Sales Ledger). It also contains a number of enhancements to general functionality and navigation of both the PMS and the Booking Engine.
Please share this with all relevant staff at your property.
We’d love to hear your feedback on our new features; please feel free to use the Comments section below.
Contents
Rate Plan Packages
You now have the ability to create Packages in HOP by going to Rates > Rate Plan Packages on the PMS. You will also make any changes to price or dates the package is available in here rather than going to Rate Calendar.
When setting this up you will notice you need to set the total number of nights and total package amount in the Details tab.
You can then set any variation in price for different room types or exclude room types on the Rates Tab:
When adding articles, we have changed the way this is done, so that articles can be applied only on certain nights. So with the below if you are adding a dinner on night two, you select the article, then under Charge Night select the night you wish it to be applied on (e.g. the 2nd night)
This will then show it as night two. You can also select to add the same article more than once. So for example if you have a 7 night package with dinner on night 2 and night 5 you can add food again and enter 5 against the charge night and it will apply the dinner twice during the guests stay.
On the Restrictions tab you can select to have the package open as default or you can select Date Range restrictions. When restrictions are added the history will be shown within the Package rather than in Restrictions History to make it easier to track. It will also display your current restrictions should you need to know what the packages is currently set as by clicking the Current Tab.
Should you need to change the price of the package you can do so in the Rate Updates tab. You can do this by room type and for different date ranges. Again the system will store the history of these changes in the package rather than in Rate History so it’s clear and you can search or look for specific dates when checking the history.
Packages can be sold on your booking engine by selecting Include in Booking Engine on the Details Tab. Should you wish the package to be sold through OTA’s you will need to ensure the package is set up in the OTA then contact us with the details so we can arrange to Map them in the Channel Manager.
Additional Field in Rate and Restriction History
We have added a time stamp to changes that are logged in the Rate History and Restriction History sections of HOP, to ensure that changes are easier to find:
Upgrades to the Audit Log
Similar to Rate and Restriction Histories, we have added a timestamp to the entries in Administration > Audit Log as well. Furthermore, we have also added a drop-down box that can filter to specific parts of HOP (e.g. Events, Rate Plans etc) and from and to date ranges to allow for easier reading of the data when searching for particular actions that may have been taken in the PMS.
Date range search for House Accounts
If you go to House Accounts > Manage you will see that there is now a date range filter on the top of the screen, so that you have the option to narrow down your search when looking for a particular house account:
Show Company name when making Account to Company payments
When attaching a company to a booking, you can now see the company associated with this booking on the transaction screen within Reservations and House Accounts. This is to enable Reception to be able to clearly see which account the payment is going to and help reduce errors when processing payments, especially during peak times of day (e.g. check out)
CSL – Credit Note
We have now given users the ability to add a credit note to a company or individual invoice within the CSL. To do this, go to CSL > Accounts Overview and click on the relevant company name to view its invoice activities. There is now a Credit Note button in the top right-hand corner of the screen:
Select the Credit Note button. You can now select the invoice you want to allocate the payment to by using the drop-down box or searching by invoice number. Once selected, enter the amount you want to allocate to this invoice and then press Add Credit Note. Alternatively, you can leave the Activity field empty and not allocate the Credit Note to a specific invoice, in which case it will be used to deduct money from the overall balance.
CSL – Move transaction/edit assigned Account
At the request of several members of the HOP community, we have added the ability to move a transaction that has gone onto the wrong company within CSL. To do this, go to CSL > Accounts Overview and click on the relevant company name to view its invoice activities. Select the "+" sign next to the transaction you would like to move in order to expand it and in the far right-hand corner you will now see a Move button:
Select this to move the transaction to another company and you will be presented with a pop-up window which will allow you to search for the correct company you wish to move it to.
CSL – Removal of VAT Breakdown from Statements
For the sake of clarity, we have removed the VAT breakdown from company statements in the CSL as this is a Statement rather than an Invoice or Receipt. Please see the attached PDF document for an example Statement showing this change.
CSL – PO number to be included on the Statement
If you and your customers use PO numbers, this will now appear next to invoice numbers within a CSL Statement. (Please remember that to include the PO number on your invoices, you first need to add this to the PO Number field within Reservation or House Account before settling a payment as Account to Company.) Please see the attached PDF document for an example Statement showing this change.
CSL – Inclusion of Aged Debtor "period values"
We have also added the "period values" from the Aged Debtor Report in at the bottom of the Statement, so that you can provide your customers with an all-in-one document. Please see the attached PDF document for an example Statement showing this change.
End of Day Reports – Till Revenues
We have now added the Till Revenues report to the list of available reports to choose from when setting up an End of Day report (whether that be one that you manually download each day or wish to have emailed directly to you). To set this up, please head to Administration > End of Day Reports and then either configure a new report or add the Till Revenues reports to an existing one:
Room Configuration field added to Email Templates
For customers with differing room configurations, we have added a new Custom Field that can now be selected to display on your email confirmations. If you go to Administration > Email Templates and select the confirmation template you wish to add it to, write in the text to go around it (e.g. "Your chosen room configuration is...") and then select the Custom Field from the drop-down and click +Insert Field where you would like this to show:
Cancellation reason can be set to mandatory
Cancellations are of course a key metric for accommodation businesses. HOP already provides you with the ability to capture cancellation reasons for your reservations, however there is now an option under Administration > Property to set the cancellation reason to be mandatory.
If you would like to change or expand upon the available list of reasons to choose from, please go to Administration > Option Sets and search for ‘Cancellation Reason’ using the drop-down menu at the top:
Source and Referral Source for Events
We have added the ability to capture the source and referral source of Events. Having these fields completed by your team will allow you to track where your event/function revenue is coming from and target your marketing accordingly. Like with reservations, we have given individual properties the option to decide whether these fields are mandatory and must be filled in by staff when creating an event. To turn this on, head to Administration > Property and tick these boxes:
As with reservations, if you try to save an event with the information missing, you will see an error message at the top of the screen and get a red highlight around the box(es) in question:
The actual names of the items in the list that can be set as a Source or Referral Source are the same as the ones that are currently used for reservations. If you need to add to this list, simply head to Administration > Option Sets to make the necessary additions.
Guest notes visible at time of booking
As a further enhancement to the updates made to CRM in last month's feature release, we have now implemented the following: when adding an individual to a reservation, if there are notes present on their CRM profile, these will now show as a pop-up on-screen:
File size limit on CRM documents
There is now a limit of 5MB on files that can be uploaded in CRM > Documents within HOP. This is to prevent excessively large files from slowing down the operation of the system for users.
Services excluded by Rate Plan
We have increased the number of options available to users when excluding a Service (i.e. added extra) from being sold on the Booking Engine. If you go to Administration > Excluded Services you now have the option to exclude a Service from a specific Room Type and/or Rate Plan, and decide if this applies to a specific date range or not. In the example below, it has been decided not to offer the 2 Course A La Carte Dinner to guests booking the FLEXIDBB package:
On the Booking Engine, this will grey out the ‘SELECT’ button to prevent guests from adding the dinner to their reservation:
Charge Articles on arrival
We have added an option within articles to allow charges to be applied on arrival, as a one-off fee. This functionality was already available for articles attached to rate plans but has now been widened out so that it can be applied to any article in HOP. To enable this setting on one of your articles, go to Administration > Articles and select the article you want to edit (or create a new one). At the bottom of the screen, you will the see a tick box called Charge on Arrival – tick this and then press Save at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
Update to Room Type photo carousel
We have made an update to the photo carousel on the Booking Engine so that if you have more than one image uploaded for any given Room Type, it will automatically scroll through them all:
Contact Us button on Booking Engine
We have made a minor amendment to the Contact Us button on the Booking Engine so that when a customer clicks on this, a pop-up with your hotel’s contact information appears:
This information is pulled through from what is entered in Administration > Property in HOP so you should not need to change anything for this to work after this release.
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CSL Example ....pdf
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