The following section will deal with how to manage rooms (and all the things in them) from within a reservation. This means that all the detail below details with how a room is detailed and configured for a specific reservation. If you want to learn more about how to set up a room in the first place, head over to the room type settings section.
Adding a Room to a Reservation
Provided that a reservation is not checked-in, checked-out or cancelled, you’ll be able to add extra rooms to your reservation at any time. This is done by clicking the “ADD ROOM” card on the “Rooms” section when viewing a reservation. This card will appear as the last card after all current rooms in the reservation.
The next step is almost identical to creating a reservation: you will be given a list of all the different room types available for your reservation. The list you see will also be determined by what the current rate type of the reservation is and if there are rates for the new rooms you want to add.
Once you have selected how many rooms you want from one or more of the room types available to you, the next step will be to specify how many guests will be occupying each new room being added.
The following step will allow you to allocate any movable assets to the new rooms, such as extra beds. Again, if you don’t see any movable assets in this section, then it probably means that they have not been configured for your selected room types or they do not have any rates added for the reservation’s rate type.
When you’re happy with the new rooms, the guest allocation and your selection of movable assets, you will be given a before-and-after summary of your changes in the “EDIT SUMMARY” step of this wizard. You can accept the changes if you are happy with them in order to go through the cancellation policy and guarantee policy changes.
As with many other processes involved in managing a reservation, you may want to view your cancellation and guarantee policy details and changes and perform any actions if they’re required. This is not entirely likely, however, as adding new rooms to a reservation is not likely to incur a cancellation penalty, for example.
Once you are happy with all the changes, you can go ahead and confirm the process. You will now be able to see your new rooms in the “Rooms” section of a reservation. You can also go and add any other details, such as guest details, if you wish to do so.
Removing a Room from a Reservation
If you’d like to remove a room from a reservation, you’ll be able to do so through the “Rooms” section of a reservation.
Provided that there is more than one room in the reservation, you’ll have the option to “REMOVE” the room from the reservation by hovering over the room card and clicking on this button. This will open up Benson’s editing window which will guide you through your changes.
Locking a Room
By “locking” down a room, Benson will prevent the room from being moved or swapped about. This may be particularly important if a guest requests a specific room and you want to prevent that guest from ever being moved out of that room into another.
To prevent a room from being moved or swapped, click on the “Do Not Move” checkbox that appears at the top of the room page. This will hide all abilities to change or swap that room about. It also means that this room will not be available to swap with any other oom in a reservation.
Changing a Room
Different from changing the general room type of a room, changing a room simply means that you will be moving guests (and any relevant charges) from one room within a room type to another room in the same room type.
To do this, you simply need to open up the room drop-down list to see the list of rooms available. The list may be divided into an “Occupied” and “Unoccupied” section. Moving from the current room to an occupied room is a simple process since the new room is not in use by any other reservation. You can select the new room and click “SAVE”.
However, by selecting an “occupied” room you will be swapping the current room with another room being used in a reservation. By swapping two rooms around, Benson will also make sure that all charge, guest and movable asset data is moved across as well automatically. Swapping a room with another will safely move everything as well and you will not need to worry about changing any data manually. Once you have selected which “occupied” room you want to swap with, you can click the “SAVE” button to finish the process.
Since you have the ability to prevent a room from being swapped or moved, it is likely that some rooms may not appear in the room drop-down list if they have been “locked” this way.
Changing a Room Type
Moving guests from one room type into another is a slightly lengthier process as it does entail the possibility of price changes. While “free upgrades” to better room types are available, there is still a wizard process to navigate through.
To start moving from one room type to another, click the button labelled “CHANGE ROOM TYPE” to the right of the room page. The first step is to select which room type you are moving your guests to from the “Select Room Type” drop-down list that appears. If you don’t see a room type in this list, it might mean that there are no rooms available in that room type or there are no rates for that room type based on the reservation’s current rate type.
Once a room type has been selected from the drop-down list, Benson will display all the rooms available to choose from. To select a room, hover over it and click the “SELECT” button. This will automatically take you to the “SUMMARY” section of this process.
As with many of the other reservation processes, Benson will give you a before-and-after view of the reservation. However, if you or your users have the security right to give “Free Upgrades”, there will be an option to either keep the current reservation amount (which means no changes whatsoever to your accommodation charges) or to use the new reservation amount.
If you need to know more about setting up user rights, check out the user section.
Once you are happy with your changes, you can proceed with the cancellation policy and guarantee policies changes if any changes are applicable. On confirming this process, you’ll see that your charges, guests and movable assets will now be in the new room type that you selected.
Changing or Adding a Bed Configuration
If you need to know more about how to set up and assign various bed configurations to your room types, check out the section on bed configurations.
In the meantime, you can change or select a bed configuration for a room in any reservation at any time. By navigating to the room you wish yo manage within a reservation, click the “Bed Configuration” drop-down list to see which bed configurations are available for the room. If you’re looking for a particular bed configuration but can’t seem to find it in this drop-down list, make sure that it has been created and assigned to the room type you are managing.
Select a bed configuration from the drop-down list and click “SAVE” to finish the change. As usual, the bed configuration for that room will appear in the Guest List.
Adding a Guest
Provided that you are not started to break any of the rules put in place regarding the minimum and maximum numbers of guests allowed in a room, you’ll be able to add a guest to a room in a reservation at any time before check-in. To learn more about how minimum and maximum guest rules are set up for a room type, check out the room type settings section.
Adding a guest to a room is a pretty simple process. Your first step is to navigate over to the room that the new guest will be occupying and open it up. You’ll see the “ADD A GUEST” card at the end of all current guests in the room. Click “ADD A GUEST” to start the wizard process of adding the guest.
Since adding an extra guest may entail price changes, Benson will take on the wizard approach that will guide you through the changes and inform you of any price changes.
You’ll immediately be taken to the “EDIT SUMMARY” section which will outline the current and new reservation setup. You’ll also be notified of any price changes and will need to accept these before continuing.
The last two steps will guide you through the cancellation policy and guarantee policy steps if there are any changes if any of the changes you’ve made are applicable to these items.
Removing a Guest
To remove a guest from a room, hover over the guest’s card in the room and click the “REMOVE” button. This button should always show regardless of the minimum and maximum guest limits set up for that room type. Benson has decided to bypass the guest rule in this case in the event that a guest has to leave regardless of the rules in place.
As is the case when adding a guest, the edit wizard will open and Benson will immediately take you to the “EDIT SUMMARY” section of this wizard. Your current reservation and edited reservation details will be outlined here along with any price changes should any price changes apply to removing a guest.
Once you are happy with the changes, you can accept them and proceed through the cancellation policy and guarantee policy steps. These will outline any changes if they are applicable. You’ll be able to add a cancellation fee on the cancellation policy step if one applies to a guest being removed out a room in a reservation.
Editing Guest Details
You can add details to your guests in one of two ways: you can either select a guest from the client database if they have been captured as a client, or you can add a name, email address and contact number for that guest.
Let’s assume that the guest staying in that room exists as a client on your property’s client database. The first you’ll need to do is go into the room they’re staying in, hover over the guest card and click “SEARCH”. This will open up the client search page and you’ll be able to search for that guest profile here. Benson will not include any clients that have been captured as “Entities” because it’s not possible for an entity to sleep in one of your rooms!
Once you have found the client, hover over their card and click “SELECT”. This will automatically add them to the room and they will now be the occupant of that room.
On the other hand, if the guest in the room is not part of your client database, then you don’t need to worry about adding them as a client in order to capture some of their more important information.
Hover over the guest card and click the “EDIT” button. This will open up the guest popup and you will be capture a guest name, email address and contact number. It’s up to you what you want to capture! If you happen to have integrated with GuestRevu, then capturing their name and email address here will ensure that GuestRevu get in touch with them for a review after checking-out.
Adding a Movable Asset
If you need to add a movable asset, such as an extra bed or coffee machine, to a room at any point after creating a reservation, you’ll be able to do just that.
To get going on this, navigate over to the room in the reservation which the movable asset is to be added to and open it up. Below the “ROOM DETAILS” tab you’ll be the tab named “MOVABLE ASSETS”. Go ahead and click on this tab. You will see an empty card labelled “ADD A MOVABLE ASSET”. Click on this card to start choosing which movable assets you’d like to add to the room.
In order to see what movable assets are available for the room, you will need to make sure of two things:
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That a movable asset has been created and assigned to the room type you want to add it to.
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That the movable asset has rates for the current rate type of the reservation.
Provided that the two above conditions have been met, you should see a list of movable assets to choose from. You can go ahead and select which movable assets you’d like to add. You can also add as many as you want to provided that there is availability and that the room type itself can accommodate the number you have specified.
Once you are happy with your selection, you can continue on to the “EDIT SUMMARY” step of this process. This section will outline the changes that you have made and will display any price changes that may apply. When you are happy with the changes, you can proceed though the cancellation policy and guarantee policy steps. Adding a movable asset should pose too much of a change to your cancellation and guarantee policies, so you should shortly be able to confirm the process.
Once done, you’ll see the movable asset listed in the “MOVABLE ASSETS” section of the room. Benson will also have gone and added any charges that the movable asset incurs automatically.
Removing a Movable Asset
If you have added a movable asset, such as an extra bed, to a room in a reservation at any point, you will be able to remove that movable asset so long as the reservation is not cancelled, checked-in or checked-out.
To get started, head over to the room in the reservation which currently has that movable asset assigned to it. Open the room and click on the “MOVABLE ASSET” tab to see the list of movable assets that have been added. To start the process of removing the movable asset, hover over its card and click “REMOVE”.
Benson’s edit wizard will immediately open onto the “EDIT SUMMARY” step at this point and you will be given a break-down of the changes that are being made to the reservation as well as any price changes that may apply by removing the movable asset.
Once you’re happy with your new reservation details, you can proceed through the next few steps. You’ll be able to capture a cancellation penalty, if any should apply, on the cancellation penalty step. You’ll also see if there are any changes to your guarantee policy on the guarantee policy step, but this is not likely.
Once you’re happy and have confirmed the process, you’ll see that the movable asset card has been removed from the room. Benson will also have removed or cancelled any of the charges that were relevant to the movable asset that was removed.