The Supplier Module is where to manage your additional services bookings, 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:

Creating a New Booking

From the Home Menu, click once on ‘SUPPLIER MODULE’ 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 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 supplier screen (General Tab) will now load. This screen is split into two sections; at the top is the Reservation related information:

Your unique booking 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 Supplier 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.

Now complete the fields:

Contact on the day

Enter the arrival date

Number of Attendees

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 & Supplier 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 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 Supplier.

Next move onto the Options tab

Option

In order to add an option to your booking, select the ADD OPTION

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 supplier name (try first few letters and the pick-list will drop-down) and select the appropriate contact below.

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

When you’ve chosen your supplier and contact, click once on the OK command button.

Options Section

Tab through the fields and complete as appropriate:

Cancellation Policy – select from the picklist

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

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

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

The Dates Available field - This allows 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 the fixed date you can leave this blank.

Status - 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 suppliers appear on your proposal by selecting 1 for the first option, 2 for the second option etc.

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

Supplier Option Detail

This is where you update the supplier description that you want to appear in your proposal. Click on Supplier 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 event.

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

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 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.

Working across the grid you’ll see:

No – this is the number of attendees, 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 Supplier 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

Published- here you can enter the published rate

Negotiated -  here you enter your negotiated rate

Tax - here you can select from the drop down whether the charges are Inc Tx or Ex Tax

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 supplier 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.

GUV 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.

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 client's documents, not the Suppliers.

Summary Section

This box displays the total cost of the option to the client and the agency including any transaction fees and commissions.

You can now add further 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 Supplier.

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.

Bookings Management

If you wish to re-contact your suppliers 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 Suppliers 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 your booking 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 supplier are then available to transmit from your Intranet Viewer together with release documents (where appropriate) to unsuccessful Suppliers, advising them to release the space and notifying them of the successful Supplier.

Amendments

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

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 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 Supplier.