WHAT S NEW in 7.0 RELEASE NOTES January 2015

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1 WHAT S NEW in 7.0 RELEASE NOTES January 2015

2 * Indicates this enhancement is a result of suggestions submitted via IDEAlink. Table of Contents Transaction Forecast Report... 3 Show Company Name when Posting Payment to Direct Bill... 6 * Business on the Books Report... 7 * Date Range on Reports... 9 * Future Availability Sell Preview Screen AR Tax Invoice Defaults to Direct Bill Company Additional Items Addressed in this Release

3 Transaction Forecast Report How many times have you had to forecast the amount of tickets you need to purchase for your ski package or chocolates for your honeymoon package? This is a time consuming process. With the introduction of the Transaction Forecast report, it becomes as easy as This report displays the detailed breakdown of a transaction type by day, over a selected range of dates. This allows for a more efficient method of collecting forecasted data for hotel usage. The Transaction Forecast Report will show the details broken down by each day for the range of dates selected. A minimum of at least one day must be entered in the range, up to a maximum of three months (90 days). This report is located under Front Desk Reports from the Run > Reports menu. 3

4 Transaction Forecast Report (cont.) The filter screen allows you to: : Enter a start and end date up to a maximum of three months. : If there is a report grouping you commonly use, you can save report options by placing a check next to Save selected transaction codes. The saved grouping will appear by default the next time you run the report. If you place a check in the box marked Save selected transaction codes, you can go to F&B or Misc Transaction Codes and select the transaction codes you wish to view. This section will only display active transaction codes. The codes that have been selected will remain saved as your selections until you decide to change them. If you want to include information on non-picked up group rooms, place a check next to Include Group Not Picked Up Revenue. It will calculate based on the max number of adults per room type. : F&B/Misc Transaction Codes. By clicking or the expansion indicators, a list of transaction codes categorized as either F&B Transaction Codes or Misc. Transaction Codes is displayed. : Information Placement allows you to drag and drop the sort order of the data in the report. Formatting Options allow the generation of the report in a CSV (comma-separated values) format for viewing in Microsoft Excel. 4

5 Transaction Forecast Report (cont.) Below is the view of active transaction codes for the property listed under F&B Transaction Codes and Misc Transaction codes and a sample of the report. 5

6 Show Company Name when Posting Payment to Direct Bill Did you ever want to verify that you are posting a direct bill payment to the right company? It couldn t be done without going back to the payment information screen. As of this release, that will no longer be necessary. Company Name is now displayed in the Transaction Detail when posting a payment to direct bill accounts. This will help confirm that the payment is being posted for the right client. When a guest folio has a direct bill company profile assigned, the Transaction Detail will list the company name when posting payment to the folio. 6

7 Business on the Books Report Forecasting upcoming business is difficult to do. To do this correctly, you must have the right information at the right time. Some of the information you need has not been in choiceadvantage. But now, choiceadvantage is delivering a new Business on the Books report to help you collect this information and help make forecasting faster and easier. Details provided on the report include: Daily View List displays by day Transient Rooms Transient PPL Number of guests Group Rooms Shows number of group rooms picked up Group PPL Number of people in groups that day Definite Group Block not picked up - Can be added or removed on filter screen Tentative Group Block not picked up - Can be added or removed on filter screen Total Occupied Rooms Total PPL Occupancy % Comps Comp Rooms Room Revenue RevPAR Revenue Per Available Room ADR Average Daily Rate Property Restrictions (CTA/MLOS) Can be added or removed on filter screen Total/AVG Total/Average for each column CSV export Will allow you to use with Excel Access the Business on the Books report from the Run > Reports menu under the Reservation Reports subheading. 7

8 Business on the Books Report (cont.) : Required fields for Start Date and End Date. : Check boxes that allow for the inclusion of group blocks that have not been picked up and/or property level restrictions. 8

9 Date Range on Reports There are times that you need information to cover a certain time period. To get that information, you had to run individual reports for individual days, put each one into a spreadsheet and sum up the data. As part of this release, we make the process much easier for you. This feature will allow more customization options. It will provide the ability to narrow the focus over a range of specified dates. The ability to enter a range of dates has been added to the following reports: Gross Room Revenue Summary Up to 1 year in the past Hotel Statistics Up to 1 year in the past Hotel Journal Summary Up to 1 year in the past Hotel Journal Detail Up to 1 month in the past Transaction Balance Report Up to 1 month in the past Gross Room Revenue Summary: Provides a daily summary of revenue postings. 9

10 Date Range on Reports (cont.) Hotel Statistics: A status report for the property which includes room, occupancy, revenue, and guest statistics. When End Date is not required, the report will display and print, only the day listed in the Start Date field. 10

11 Date Range on Reports (cont.) Hotel Journal Summary: A summary of today s posted transaction codes. 11

12 Date Range on Reports (cont.) Hotel Journal Detail: A detail of transaction code postings by selected date(s). 12

13 Date Range on Reports (cont.) Transaction Balance Report: Displays transactions in groups by payment and revenue categories. This will help you determine the ending balance. 13

14 Future Availability Sell Preview Screen One of the most common requests we have received from users, is to make the future availability screen more functional. The Future Availability screen provides hotels an at-a-glance view of room availability for the next seven days, or a specified set of dates of up to seven consecutive days. As a result of receiving your feedback, sell preview functionality has been added. This feature enhances your ability to view specific details about room types listed on the days you select in future availability. The following features are included: When the date is clicked, the following information displays. Restrictions active on the date (either room type or property restrictions, whichever is most restrictive) The 1 person BAR rate for the date Number of arrivals for the date Number of departures for the date 14

15 Future Availability Sell Preview Screen (cont.) By clicking today s date, you have the option to create either a reservation or perform a walk-in. You can now select multiple dates when creating a reservation by clicking on a date and dragging it to another date that covers the duration of the stay. The date range will highlight and a reservation can be made. By choosing the option to create a reservation: The user will be taken to Step 3 of the Create Reservation process, with the room type and dates filled in. With this new version, you will no longer need to re-type this information. The system will now automatically fill it in for you! Changes can be made by going back to a previous step. 15

16 AR Tax Invoice Defaults to Direct Bill Company In the past, when ing the AR Tax Invoice, you had to ask the guest for the address, or you had to leave the page and go back to the company information page to write down that information and type it all back in again. This enhancement allows the hotel to the Accounts Receivable Tax Invoice to the address associated to that AR account. This allows the quick receipt of the AR tax invoice by the responsible party. The address used when selecting tax invoice will default to the direct bill company address when an AR tax invoice is created. This address can be found and edited from the Find > Direct Bill Account options located on the toolbar. The Direct Bill Accounts Active screen will display, and list your active accounts. When you the AR Tax Invoice, the account listed in the company profile will be used first. If there is no address listed in the company profile, the account listed on the guest account will be used. If there is no account listed, the field will be blank and can be filled in manually. 16

17 Additional Items Addressed in this Release Able to correct transactions after the tax invoice is created. For international hotels, after a tax invoice was created, the user was able to correct transactions. This has now been disabled, and users can adjust transactions only after a tax invoice has been generated. Reservation: search company profile area; it does not auto populate the company information. If you are using a company name that contains a symbol as the second character (such as H&C) the Company field did not auto-complete the company name. This has been resolved. The filter for Payment Method was not working in Guest History Master List Report. The Guest History Master List will now filter correctly when filtering by payment method. Previously the report would show all results, regardless of the payment methods selected in the filter. Cannot check in guest with Direct Bill when it contains special character such as brackets [ ]. Guests with a company profile name containing a special character, such as brackets [ ], can now be checked in. Sort options on the In-House, Arrival, Departure List not fully functioning for all columns. Certain columns on the In-house, Arrival and Departure lists, were not sorting when clicked. They are now all working properly. Tax invoice prints transactions twice. Tax invoices were duplicating transactions intermittently when printing. This has been resolved. 17

18 Additional Items Addressed in this Release (cont.) Future Reservations report: Not showing the rate plan code, but showing the full description and restrictions. The Future Reservations report was previously showing the description of the rate plan on the filter page. This has been corrected to show the name of the rate plan. Guest account - invalid characters entered into Notes (Comments) field prevents the reservation from being updated in any way. If a user entered invalid characters into the Notes field, it made the reservation unusable. This has been resolved. Hotel Journal Detail - Inclusive column inconsistent. For hotels with inclusive taxes, the Hotel Journal Detail report was showing inconsistent tax values. This has been resolved to display correct tax values. Invoices: payment posts twice when paying multiple invoices. There was an issue when paying multiple invoices where payments would double post intermittently. This will no longer occur. Minimum Revenue synchronization - non Rates Center properties receive error: PROPERTY DATE IS LESS THAN CRS DATE. Non-Rates Center properties can now run a minimum revenue sync from choiceadvantage without receiving an error message. Per Person tax calculations on Folios. Per Person taxes were being doubled on shared folios. This has been resolved to split the per person taxes appropriately. Reports: Gross Room Revenue Summary - comp rooms aren't included in the Total Occupied Rooms. The Gross Room Revenue Summary report will now display comp rooms in the Total Occupied Rooms. 18

19 Additional Items Addressed in this Release (cont.) Reservation: unmasking the credit card number during Walk-In results in "Account type doesn't correspond to the Account Number" error. Users will no longer receive an invalid error message when unmasking a credit card number on the Voice Authorization page for walk-in reservations. Reservation: duplicating reservation - ACCOUNT TYPE DOESN'T CORRESPOND TO THE ACCOUNT NUMBER error is displayed when unmasking a card number from a duplicated reservation. Users will no longer receive an invalid error message when unmasking the credit card number on the Guarantee information page of a duplicated reservation. Reservation: View Changes does not show all of the guest changes. The View Changes page was losing historical information when more than eight (8) changes were made in a short timeframe. This has been resolved. Reservation: Voice Authorization Center - when Shift4 is down, Voice Authorization Center screen loops when Save Changes is clicked. When the Shift4 service was down the Voice Authorization page would continuously display after clicking the Save button. This will no longer occur. Reservations - Folio - changing Company Profile on a reservation, the old Company Profile still shows on folio printout. When changing the Company Profile on a reservation to a new company, the previous company would display on the printed folio. This has been resolved. Reservations - Folio: folio view / payment can get unmapped when in non-room package resulting in NULL pointer when accessing the folio. This resolves an issue that occurred with non-room packages that would prevent guests from being checked out. Reservations - Group Reservations: error generated when trying to extend a guest reservation that is part of an in-house group. Users will no longer receive an invalid error when trying to extend a guest reservation that is part of an in-house group. 19

20 Additional Items Addressed in this Release (cont.) Reservations: Company Profile Name doesn't auto complete if the Company Profile Name starts with numbers. If using a company name that starts with a number (such as 3M) the Company field did not auto-complete the company name, this has been resolved. 20