The application dashboard is the central panel that provides you with all the information you need to work during most of your work-day. You will find the following (from top to bottom):

Room Status/Checking In/Checking out

This panel displays your rooms status (occupied, free rooms, reservation sources etc) and will also show you the reservations that will be checking in and checking out today. You have the options to click and check each reservation in/out, as well as issue invoices in case of a check-out. By clicking the reservation icon, you can view the reservation details, and by clicking the device icon   you can have your guest use the checkin-spot to enter or correct their details (if applicable).

Weather & Hotel Notes

This is the top right panel of your dashboard, which can be used to show the following:

• Calendar date & weather information
• Notepad (to add custom notes, visible to all the users of the application)

Room Search, Housekeeping Status and Wakeup Calls/Checklists

You can search for available rooms using the reservation search tool, by providing the Arrival date, nights, and number of guests. Hotelist will find the best room for you, and you can then use said room to create a new reservation.

The middle part is the Housekeeping status, which will show you all the *live* housekeeping data for your Hotel. You will see this data changing as your housekeeping personel perform their daily work schedule.

On the right, you will see the Wakeup Calls and ToDo Checklist window boxes that you can use to program your alerts.

Accounting, News, Email Queue

The last panel of Hotelist Dashboard contains a map with your latest reservation locations, as well as the current month's accounting figures (calculated to the best possible accuracy, but not official). On the right you will find our news and announcements, as well as the scheduled emails (to guests etc).

 

You can use Hotelist to calculate invoice prices & compose printable invoices with your Logo and Hotel information, as well as guest information, reservation ID and others.

Disclaimer: Hotelist is not a financing or ERP software. It calculates the prices for your reservations, as well as taxes and tourist tax, but in no way does it guarrantee the validity of the information or that the numbers are optimized for your business. It is the Hotelier's responsibility to check the validity and correctness of the produced numbers as well as the taxing format.

 

To issue a new Invoice or Receipt, navigate to Financial -> Invoices (or Receipts) and click the "+ New Invoice" button on the top right. You may select the reservation ID (or booking ID) for the reservation you wish to create an invoice for, or just create a custom invoice which isn't connected to a reservation.

In the next step, you will be presented with a preview of the invoice which you can confirm and proceed to issuing the current invoice, or go back and make further changes.

Note: Hotelist runs the calculations for you, and fills in all the numbers in their appropriate positions and boxes. You then have the option to change the numbers as they suit your needs.

The Housekeeping subsystem takes into account the Hotel reservations, per day, and produces daily lists of rooms that need to be serviced, with either breakfast or cleaning.

Furthermore, for the cleaning schedule, Hotelist provides an Android app for your cleaning staff, that lists all the rooms and their various servicing details, per day.

Manage daily Housekeeping actions

Navigate to Housekeeping -> Settings to manage your housekeeping settings.

You may add a new cleaning action by writing its name, the frequency that it should be executed and the room types that it applies to and clicking the "Add action" button.

Under the addition form, you will find a list of all the currently created and enabled actions in the system.

Create Email Templates

This is where you create email templates which are usable and available throughout the application, for use in Newsletters or Automations.

Navigate to "Email Manager -> Templates" from the main menu, and press the "+ New Template" button at the top toolbar. Give your template a name and click on "+ Add Block" to start dragging blocks inside the email template available space.

 

To replace the pseudo-texts with your own, click on the text and start editing the text immediately. To replace the photographs with your own, click on the camera icon that appears on the photograph when you roll your mouse over it.

 

You can add custom merge variables that will be replaced with real values before sending any email. To add variables to your template, like the guest's name or the reservation ID, for example, open up the variables box by clicking the "Variables" button and then select the copy icon of the variable you wish to use. Paste this variable wherever you want on your email text.

Click on "Save Template" button to save your email template.

 

Create Newsletters

To send newsletters, either immediately or at a scheduled date, navigate to "Email Manager -> Newsletter" from the main menu, and click the "+ Create Newsletter" button from the top toolbar.

In the next step, fill in the Newsletter campaign Name, sender email, Clients group etc, and select the delivery type and date as well as the Email Template to use (you will be able to make adjustments to the template in the next step). Click "Save & Continue" to go to the next step.

Modify the selected template, changing what you need. As soon as your editing is complete, click "Save Design & Review".

Your newsletter is ready to be scheduled! Clicking the "Send" or "Schedule" button will finish the process.

 

Create Automations

Create automations that will be executed based on various "triggers". For example, send a Welcome email 1 day before the check-in of a reservation. Navigate to "Email Manager -> Automations" from the main menu, and click on the "+ New Automation" button at the top toolbar, to create a new automation.

In the first step, fill in the automation name, its trigger (when to fire), the reservation source (fire automation only for specific sources, e.g. expedia), the guest nationality (to be able to send messages in different languages, or omit other Nationalities) and click "Create & Edit".

In the second step, you can create the actions that will automation will execute. You may have more than 1 emails or actions executed, per trigger.

There are 3 action types that an automation can execute:

1. Immediate email delivery.
2. Delivery on a later date (with filters like X days before checkin or X days after checkout etc).
3. Repeated delivery on a specific date.

Action types 2 and 3 can be configured in the next step (3).

In step 3, add the Sender Name and Email, as well as the Subject. In this step you can also configure the non-immediate sending parameters.

Also, you can edit and modify the selected template. Once your are done editing and configuring this action, click "Review & Complete".

This automation action has been configured. Click "Save and Schedule this Action" to save it.

 

Managing your rates and restrictions can be done in 2 ways. The first is through the season subsystem, where you define your Hotel's seasons and change prices for your room types per season, massively. The second way is to add your rates and restrictions separately using "from - to" dates.

Seasons

Navigate to "Channel Manager > Hotel Seasons" from the main menu. Click on the "+ New Season" button at the top toolbar to open the new season form. Fill in the season's name (e.g. High Season) and use the "+ New period" button to add all the periods that define this season. You may enter as many periods as you need.

After creating your season, click "Save season & periods". Your season will be saved and you will now be able to use it for updating rates and restrictions.

To update rates & restrictions per season, click the button "Prices & Restrictions" of the season you wish to work on. A table will de displayed showing a list of your room types. Fill the rates and restrictions per room type. On the right hand side you can select the year of validity (which year to apply these values to) the rate plan as well as the restrictions plan that you wish to update. To perform the update, click "Update Season".

 

Updating Availability & Prices

You may update rates and restrictions between dates, individually, by navigating to "Channel Manager -> Availability & Prices" from the main menu. At the top of this section, the toolbar contains four buttons, "Change Rates", "Change Availability", "Change Restrictions", "Change All".

To update the rates, click on the "Change Rates" button. On the popup that will appear, fill in:

1. The date period (from - to).
2. The room type(s). You may select multiple room types.
3. The rate plan that will be updated.

Set the rate value and click "Save".

All the changes you perform go into a "Pending Updates" state. To make them permanent, click "Apply changes & send to channels".

To update the availability, click the button "Change Availability". On the popup that will appear, fill in:

1. The date period (from - to).
2. The room type(s). You may update more than one room types.

Enter the availability value for each room type, and click "Save".

To allow a room type to be sold only on your Online Booking engine and not in the rest of the channels (booking, expedia etc), then de-select the checkbox right next to the room type availability input box.

The system will try to protect you from overbookings, if the availability number you are trying to set is bigger than the real number of available rooms.

Click on "Apply changes & send to channels" to make these changes permanent.

 

Restrictions and Stop Sales/Closure

To update your room types restrictions, click on "Change restrictions". On the popup that will appear, fill in:

1. The date period (from - to).
2. The room type(s). You may update more than one room types.
3. The restrictions plan that will be updated.

Set the minimum and maximum stay per room type and click "Save".

To Stop Sales (do not sell anywhere at all) per room type, check the box right next to the maximum stay input box.

Click on "Apply changes & send to channels" to make these changes permanent. The button "Change All" opens up a popup with all the previous 2 forms, combined.