The Event Booking Module is where to manage your booking,  produce proposals, and create confirmations and cancellations documents.

If you’ve already created and converted an Enquiry, see Converted Enquiries section. However, 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
• Event Rooms/Space
• Accommodation
• Venue Options
• Options Section
  • Room Allocation Manager 
  • Images
  • Venue Option Detail
  • Charges Section
  • Transaction Fees Section
  • Summary Section
• Agents Tab
• Bookings Management
  • Confirming your booking
  • Cancellations

Creating a New Booking

From the Home Menu, click once on ‘Event Booking Module’ and a new blank 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 basic enquiry information.

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 conference 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, event name etc.

The last field you see is Contract, here you can determine not only the contractual arrangement eg Venue to Contract Direct but also monitor and manage each stage of the process by updating the status as you progress.

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

If you have an exact date but maybe flexible, leave the Approx Dates box blank, if you don’t have a date eg Tuesday in March you can indicate that here.

Enter the number of days or part days  - for instance, an evening event is counted as one day.

Choose the Basis, either Conference for a package rate requirement or Room Hire for a breakdown rate (this is mainly used for reporting purposes).

Enter the arrival date or a notional one if you don’t have that information; you can clarify this in the Notes for Client & Venue section below

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

24 Hour Delegates; complete this if you have overnight accommodation attached to the event, or leave blank for day events.

If you know the Noticeboard or Contact on the Day Information you can complete those here or return at a later stage when you’re finalising your booking details.

Day Delegates – this is where you enter the number of people attending the event irrespective of type, eg this is where you would enter the number of dinner guests attending an evening function.

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; in most instances for Conference & Events, this will be None as this field is generally used for transient accommodation bookings.

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 client's profile in the Client Module. This is especially useful when a client has the same requirements for each event.

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

Event Rooms/Space

To specify your event space requirements move to the Conf Rooms Tab

This is where you add in the event room(s) to your booking, using the pick-lists to specify the layout and equipment required for each room, programme timings and any other relevant information.

Enter details for your first room and click on the ADD ROOM command button located at the foot of the page on the right. 

 Add in equipment for that room and then repeat the process for additional rooms until complete.

You can amend the individual room information by clicking on the EDIT link located on the right of the equipment specifications.

TIP – you can re-arrange the order that rooms appear in your booking simply by clicking on the relevant ↑ ↓ arrows on the right side of the screen

Accommodation

If your event has an accommodation requirement, move onto the GUESTS tab, (if non-residential you can skip this step and go directly to the venue tab).

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

The guest list works just like the Rooms feature, complete the details for your first guest and click on the ADD Guest to add to the enquiry.  As you’re unlikely to 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

Venue Options

Next move onto the Options tab

In order to add an option to your booking, select the ADD OPTION command button that is discretely located in the summary section at the foot of the page on the right.

Your RFP Questions and Answers will show at the bottom of the page, these are editable by clicking on the pencil icon.

TIP  - the Option Picklist at the top of the page in the options section at the top of the page 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.

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).

Your conference booking option screen is now ready for editing. The screen is divided into four sections, Options, Charges, Transaction Fees and Summary

Options Section

Tab through the fields and complete as appropriate:

Enter the Suite and Syndicate Room Names if you know them, otherwise, you can return to complete at a later stage.

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 by 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.

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

The Sort Order is defaulted to 20 unless your administrator has defined  differently, you can re-arrange 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 abcÖ 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 event brief using the command  buttons on the top right corner of the Options Section.

Room Allocation Manager 

This video steps through the new pick a room features in GRATIS

Please click here to view the video

Images

You can select up to 6 images (where available) that are most appropriate to the event, eg banqueting photos for dinners, or bridal for weddings 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:

The Main Meeting Room & Syndicate Room boxes are pre-populated with standard information to which you can add, amend or delete as required.

The information displayed in the Day Delegate Details and Residential Delegate Details fields are either drawn from the venue’s own data entry, or if this is missing, the system will populate with the default data.

TIP The default text settings for Meeting, Syndicate Room, Day and Residential Details & Supplementary Information fields are user defined and can be managed through the Office Admin section, (options tab) 

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

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, delete any default information that you don’t require eg Residential Delegate package if your booking is for a day meeting, 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 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 – C for Conference & Event, O for sundry charges, R for rooms and T for Transaction Fees.

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

Pub (ex) here you can enter the published rate excluding vat or

Pub (inc) published rate including vat

Neg (ex) here you enter your negotiated rate excluding vat or

Neg (inc) negotiated rate including vat

Amt (ex) shows the total value for the quantity of items on this line

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.  The Sell (inc) value is what will display on the client document instead of the value in the Negotiated field and the Negotiated value will display on the Venue documentation. Example: If the Negotiated value is 80 inc tax and you want to mark up by 5, insert 85 in the Sell (inc) field.

• !! The Sell (inc) field is always inclusive of tax, if your Negotiated value is ex tax you could be selling for less than the Negotiated value.
• !! If your Sell (inc) value is higher than the Published value, your client saving report will be negatively affected.
• More information – Adding a Mark Up to a booking

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.

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 Show Calculations, a pop-up box will appear with an itemised list.

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

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 Update 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 Intranet Viewer for audit/onward transmission.

Bookings Management

You can edit your booking at any stage by selecting the EDIT command button and amending or adding details at will. 

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 once on the Recontact Options command button within the Options section; 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, click on edit and select the option that 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 Yes and Schedule 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 in order to save your entry and then on Update 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 Intranet Viewer together with release documents (where appropriate) to unsuccessful venues, advising them to release the space and notifying them of the successful venue.

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 of your Conference Booking. Click once on this and a pop-up will appear to give the chance to proceed or abandon the action.

If you need to add any cancellation charges to your booking, click on cancel and update these on the charges grid.

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