The Accommodation Bookings module is where you manage your booking, produce proposals, and create confirmations and cancellations documents.

If you want to input a new booking into GRATIS without using the enquiries module then follow these steps below:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Creating a New Booking
• Guests
• Options
• Options Section
• Images
• Venue Option Detail
• Charges Section
• Transaction Fees Section
• Summary Section
• AGENTS TAB
• Bookings Management
• Confirming Your Booking
• Amendments
• Cancellations

Creating a New Booking

From the Home Menu, click once on ‘Accommodation Bookings’ and a new screen will open.

First, click on the ‘NEW’ command button located on the top right corner of the screen. A new Add Booking screen will appear; now using the pick-lists complete these fields with your client details. If this is a new client you will need to enter the client details in the Clients Profile area.

If you want to check or amend your client or contact details at this stage, click on the Client Screen command button.

TIP: here you can change the default consultant for this client for this and all future bookings by selecting Myself and Update Client Details from the Consultant Options pick-list

Once you’ve finished click the ‘ADD’ command button again to confirm these details and the main accommodation screen (General Tab) will now load. This screen is split into two sections; at the top is the Reservation related information

Your unique reservation number is allocated at the top and your client and contact details are already populated, now simply complete the information relevant to your booking; source, location, event name etc. The last field you see is Contract, which you can use to monitor contractual arrangements,  if applicable, or simply use not required

Now tab to the next section - ‘Booking’, and complete these fields using the tab key to navigate through.

Now complete the fields:

Lead Name – this will populate into your guest list.

Enter the arrival date

Number of Nights

Number of Guests

TIP use the Pop-Up Calendar to check arrival date/days match

Select the Billing Method from the drop-down list and the Liability Field will automatically be populated for you depending on this status.

Choose your Booking Guarantee from the drop-down pick-list

Finally, you can enter any Notes for Client & Venue and Billing information in the last two free text boxes. These fields will also automatically populate with any information that has been pre-set in the Agent Tab of your clients profile in the Clients Module. This is especially useful when a client has the same requirements for each event.

TIP  You can choose to either conceal your clients contact information by checking the Hide Clients Details box or using the Convert Booking checkbox to suspend all of your clients information from the venue.

Guests

Here you can build up your guest list, specifying different arrival dates, room types and notes to venue for example VIP or Accessible Rooms required together with any dietary/meal requirements and smoking or non-smoking rooms for each person.

Complete the details for your first guest and click on the ADD Guest to add to the enquiry.  If you don’t know names at this stage, enter the number of rooms in the GUEST NAME field eg 10 x Rooms – names to be confirmed. Further details can be added late on.

TIP – if you have a long guest/delegate list you can re-arrange the order, for instance by arrival date, number of nights or room type, by clicking on your preferred ‘Sort By” option at the top of the list

Next move onto the Options tab

Options

In order to add a venue to your booking, select the ADD OPTION command button.

TIP the Option Picklist at the top of the page in the options section, it won’t display anything until you’ve added an option(s)

When you click Add Option a pop-up box will appear; here you can type in the venue name (try first few letters and the pick-list will drop-down) and select the appropriate contact below.

The commission rate for this venue is displayed once you’ve chosen venue & contact.

Alternatively you can search using one of the search options below in the usual manner.

TIP You can also check to see if your client has a list of Preferred Venues by clicking on the Preferred Venue command button or display a list of venues that they’ve used before using the Prev Used Venues button.

When you’ve chosen your venue and contact, click once on the ADD command button (not Add and Confirm, this is an Accommodation Module function).

Options Section

Tab through the fields and complete as appropriate

Cancellation Policy – select from picklist

The Review Date is where you enter the date that by which you’ve agreed to follow up with your client and review with the venue - you must complete this field to progress with your booking.

The Accounts e-mail address is mandatory before confirming your booking, in the absence of a dedicated accounts contact in the drop-down list, you could choose your conference contact as well.

TIP The currency code is pre-populated from the venue profile and the Exchange Rate is updated in GRATIS so you don’t need to complete these.

The Dates Available field is for you to enter either a series or alternative set of dates to your client, and these will appear on your proposal if you are sending one, if fixed date you can leave this blank.

Select the Status of your option – eg 1st Option, 2nd Option, Not Held

The Sort Order is defaulted to 20 unless you select the apply sort order? tick box, you can rearrange the order in which your venues appear on your proposal by selecting 1 for the first venue option, 2 for the second venue option etc.

You can enter specific cancellation references in the Cancellation Policy field that will appear on both client and venue documents and the last field in the section Venue Notes, is for you to communicate privately any important information to the venue only.

TIP The abc? sign at the foot of any free-text box indicates the Spell Check facility is available for this field simply by clicking on the icon.

You can now tailor your option to suit the enquiry using the command  buttons on the top right corner of the Options Section.

Images

If you are sending a proposal you can select up to 6 images to include by clicking on the picklist on Image 1, scroll through the thumbnails on the picklist and click on your chosen image; repeat in Image 2 etc for additional images.

Venue Option Detail

This is where you update the room details, venue facilities and description that you want to appear in your proposal. Click on Venue Option Detail  command button and this pop-up box appears:

You can change the label and contents of the Supplementary Information facility to suit your requirements.

The venue description is drawn from the venue database and you can edit as appropriate.

Offsite and Onsite Facilities are drawn from the venue database, again you can edit as required for this option.

Once you’ve finished updating scroll to the top of the box and click on the UPDATE command button.

TIP Always use the UPDATE button, if you just close this box any information that you have entered will not be saved.

Charges Section

Moving down to the this section, you will see that the system has populated elements of the charges grid based on information that you’ve already entered in the other sections of your booking.

Now working across the grid you’ll see:

No – this is the amount of guests or delegates, items of equipment etc

Nights – this could refer to one day, part day, overnight or evening; the value indicated is for the number of the sessions irrespective.

Category – R for rooms and O for sundry charges.

Description – for additional fields you can select an item from the pick-list or choose Free Text to add your own description

Published here you can enter the published rate

Negotiated here you enter your negotiated rate

Tax here you select inc tax or ex tax depending on whether these are included or excluded in the rates added in the published & negotiated fields

Tax % populates with current UK vat rate, you can change this where appropriate to other countries rate of tax.

Comm % displays the commission rate that is generated from the items on this line of the booking. This is drawn from the venue profile or if loaded a special commission rate for the date of enquiry or event. You can amend as required.

Comm Calc This indicates if the commission being claimed is calculated on the amount including vat or the amount excluding vat.

Sell inc this field is used when marking up an item to sell at a profit (see separate instructions about how to use this)

TIP Always use the tab to navigate across the charges grid from left to right in order to calculate the total charges for each line.

Use the ADD command button in the charges section to add further lines to your grid as required.  You can also delete lines of charges using the X link on the right of the grid and change the order in which they are displayed to your client by using the up and down arrows.

Commission checked this tick box is used to show the consultant has checked the commission percentage with the option proposed

Add Note this is where you can add specific information regarding a commission agreement for this booking  

Transaction Fees Section

If your agency makes a transaction fee to the client, enter the total nett value of the fee in the box; this charge will only appear on the clients documents, not the venues.

Summary Section

This box displays the total cost of the option to the client and the agency revenue including any transaction fees and commissions. If you click on re-calculate, all charges will appear.

You can now add a further venue option(s) using the ADD OPTION command button in the options section or delete any options that you’ve mistakenly added to the booking using the DELETE OPTION command button.  

AGENTS TAB

If your client requires a purchase order or other reporting field to be included in their bookings, you will need to enter this information in the Client Fields of the Agents Tab.  Please note this information will need to be pre-loaded in the Clients module, under client fields to allow you to select in the accommodation bookings module.

There is also an Agents Comments Box which is a free text field that provides you with space to write any additional information in support of your overall proposal as opposed to any particular venue.

Once you’ve completed you can update your booking to save your work and produce your proposal. Click once on the SAVE command button at the top of the screen. If at this stage you’ve missed anything a list will appear in the menu column on the left for you to review.

A pop-up box asking you to choose which options to send to the client, select the one or more that you wish to send and click on OK and your documents will be posted to the Outbox for audit/onward transmission.

Bookings Management

You can edit your booking at any stage by selecting the booking, making the changes and clicking SAVE.

If you wish to re-contact the venues, for instance to request an extension to an option, you can also do this from within your booking. Click on the Options tab, select the venue, click once on the Recontact Options command button; a pop-up message box will appear for you to contact the venues and if you’ve changed the review date, the system will automatically update your booking with the new details.

Confirming Your Booking

To confirm a booking, go to the Options Tab of you booking, select the option you wish to confirm.  The Confirm command button is located in the options section at the top, click this once a pop-up box will appear; you can choose to either schedule an activity or confirm without.

If you click on Confirm with activity, the contacts profile will open on the Activities Tab pre-populated with the reference for this specific booking; complete as required and click on the ADD command button, another box will appear asking “do you want to add another activity?” Yes or No, select as appropriate, then select SAVE to close the task.

Your scheduled activity will now appear as a to do item in the contact profile and in the History & Activities section on the General Tab of your booking plus of course on your GRATIS homepage from where you can open the task when you’re ready to complete and update it.

Your confirmation documents for both client and venue are then available to transmit from your Outbox together with release documents (where appropriate) to unsuccessful venues, advising them to release the space and notifying them of the successful venue.

Amendments

You can amend your booking at any time prior to the arrival date, simply by selecting booking, changing those elements you need to and clicking on the Save command button; this will generate an amendment document for both venue and client that will be available in your Outbox.

Cancellations

When you need to make a cancellation, and remember you can only cancel a confirmed booking, select the appropriate booking number, the cancellation button is located in the general tab, under booking, it is a grey box on the right hand side, saying cancel booking.  Click once on this and a pop-up will appear to give the chance to proceed or abandon the action.

Note: If the cancellation has charges attached to it, do not cancel the booking, update the charges grid, using the description box to detail cancellation charges.

When you click on Save, you will be prompted to enter a reason for cancellation, and once this has been done the appropriate documents will be available on the Outbox for you to send out to client and venue.