RoomMate Version 5.5 - User Manual




1. Getting started 2. Reservations
3. Booking chart 4. Confirming a booking
5. Deleting a booking 6. Registering a guest
7. Checking out a guest 8. Adding a charge to a guest’s account
9. Crediting and debiting accounts            10. Receiving advance payments for confirmed bookings
11. Interim payments 12. Setting up and removing accounts
13. Room maintenance 14. Backing up data
15. Reports 16. Rounding off the cost of stay
17. Exporting reports 18. Cancelling a registration
19. Cancelling a check out 20. Networking RoomMate
21. The WebLink module 22. Employees
23. Exporting email addresses 24. Printing invoices
25. Printing account statements 26. SMS text messaging
27. Reminders 28. Saving invoices



1. Getting started

Click on the RoomMate shortcut on your desktop to start the program. When the opening dialog box appears, click on Evaluate.

The first time you run RoomMate it will lead you through the setup process. If you don’t have all the information at hand, you may leave the setup process at any time and when you run RoomMate again it will begin where you left off. If you make a mistake during the setup process you can correct it after setup is complete by selecting the appropriate item from the Setup menu.

1.1 Hotel name and contact details
Enter the name of the hotel and the contact details for the hotel.

1.2 Date format
Select a date format, either dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy.

1.3 Currency symbol
Enter your currency symbol such as $ or £.

1.4 Taxes
Specify how many taxes apply to your rates. If taxes are included in your prices, check the box (percentage taxes only). For each type of tax enter a description of the tax and the percentage rate or the flat rate per night.

1.5 High seasons
If your hotel has high seasons at certain times of the year set them up here. Select the number of high seasons and then enter the start and end dates for the high seasons.

1.6 Meal plans
If you have different meal plans such as room only, room with breakfast, room with full board you can set them up here. Enter the number of types of meal plans that you offer and then the name of the plans, such as room only.

1.7 Types of room
If your hotel has different types of room such as single, double, bridal suite you can set them up here. Enter the number of types of room that you offer then the description of the type of room, such as double. Enter the normal occupancy, such as two for a double room, and check the appropriate boxes if no extra adults or no extra children are allowed in the room.

1.8 Rates for the different types of rooms and meal plans.
Enter the low season rates (if there is a low season) and the high season rates. You should enter the nightly rate, the weekly rate, the monthly rate and the rate for an extra night. (Supposing somebody stays eight days, the extra night is for the one night over the week.) If extra adults are allowed or extra children are allowed, enter the additional charge for the extra adult or the extra child. If you have weekend rates, check the box and the weekend rates screen will appear. Enter the weekend rates for the low and high season and also the rates for extra persons if they are allowed. You also need to specify how a guest qualifies for a weekend rate by choosing the check in day, which could be Friday or Saturday and the check out day which could be Sunday or Monday.

1.9 Room details
Now that you have setup the rates for the different types of room you have to specify what type of room each room is. Enter the room name or number and select the type of room from the drop list. Room names could be a descriptive text - perhaps you are using the name of flowers or birds to specify your rooms - or the room number can just be a number such as 1, 2, 3 etc.

1.10 Deposits
Specify the number of nights deposits required for the low season or the percentage deposit required. Repeat this for the high season.

1.11 Service charge
Enter the rate of service charge that applies to your rates, as a percentage.

1.12 Email configuration
You should configure your email if you are going to use RoomMate to send emails. You may leave this until later if you wish. The port defaults to 25, you should not need to change this.

1.13 Setup password
Enter the setup password which you will use to access the setup commands (this must be a maximum of 8 characters). After you have entered the password, re-enter it for confirmation. Make a note of this password so that you do not forget it.

1.14 Networking
Finally you will be asked to specify whether RoomMate will be run on more than one computer on a network. You can change this at a later date by selecting Networking from the Setup menu.

TOP

2. Reservations

To make a new booking, click on New from the Bookings menu, press F1 or click on the calendar icon on the toolbar. The required fields in the booking dialogue box are the last name of the guest, the arrival date and the departure date. You also need to specify the number of rooms required by the guest and the meal plan.

You may attach documents to the booking by clicking on the Documents button (eg a scan of the guest's passport).

After you have clicked on OK you will be asked to specify the type of room required for each room and whether there will be any extra adults or extra children. Then the dialog box with the cost of the room(s) will appear. The cost of the stay will be calculated by RoomMate, but you can override that if you wish. You can also enter a discount at this stage.

Select whether the taxes apply to this booking and also select whether the deposit has been paid and the booking confirmed. If the booking has been prepaid, click on Prepaid and confirmed and enter the name of the person who has paid. If the booking has been referred, select the name of the referrer from the list. If this is a new referrer, type in the name of the referrer and the percentage commission they are entitled to and click on the Add button.

After you have clicked on OK, the booking chart for the appropriate month will appear on the screen and you will be asked to select the room(s) allocated to the guest by clicking on the appropriate row(s) in the display. Unconfirmed bookings will be shown in light green and confirmed bookings in dark green.

TOP

3. Booking chart

To display the booking chart, select Display month from the Bookings menu, press the F7 key or click on the booking chart icon on the tool bar. You will be asked to specify the start date of the 30 day period which you wish to display, which defaults to the current date. Unconfirmed bookings will be shown in light green; confirmed bookings in dark green; guests who are currently in the hotel will be shown in red and guests who have left the hotel will be shown in dark grey.

You can move the chart forwards or backwards a month or a day by clicking on the red arrows on the toolbar.

You can choose whether to show the guest’s last name or the transaction number on the booking chart by selecting Display from the Setup menu.

You can resize the booking chart by clicking on the zoom icon on the toolbar, and also adjust the size by selecting Resize from the View menu.

TOP

4. Deleting a booking or modifying its details

One way to display the details of a booking is to click on the appropriate booking from the monthly chart. The other way is to select Search from the Bookings menu, press the F5 key, or click the binoculars icon on the toolbar. Then you should either enter the transaction number, the last name of the guest or the date of arrival. Bookings which match the details will be displayed.

Once a bookings detail dialogue box is displayed, you can change the details of the booking or you can delete the booking. You can also use this dialogue box to confirm an unconfirmed booking; to register a guest who has a confirmed booking, or to check out a guest who is already registered. (Please see the appropriate section of this manual).

TOP

5. Confirming a booking

To confirm a provisional booking click on the booking on the booking chart. Unconfirmed bookings are shown in light green. The details of the booking will be shown. At this stage you can change the arrival or departure dates or the meal plan. If you wish to change the rooms, click on the Change rooms button and select the new rooms. Then to confirm the booking, click on Confirm booking, and click on Save changes.

The cost of the booking and the deposit required will be shown. You should select the method of payment for the deposit from the drop list. If you wish to send a confirmation letter to file so you can print it out later, check the box. If you wish to send a confirmation email to the guest ,check the box. If you wish to send a confirmation letter to the printer, check the box. If you are using headed stationary or wish to print the hotel logo select Logo/headed paper from the Print options submenu of the Setup menu.

TOP

6. Registering a guest

6.1 Guests with confirmed bookings
If the guest already has a confirmed booking you can click on that booking from the bookings chart to display the booking details. Alternatively you can click on Search from the Bookings menu, press F5, or click on the binoculars icon on the toolbar. Once the details of the confirmed bookings are displayed, click on Register to register the guest and then click on Save changes. The deposit paid, the cost of the stay and the balance due will be displayed. The cost of the stay is calculated from the room rates but you can overwrite this value if you wish. If the guest is paying for the stay at registration, check the appropriate box and select the method of payment.

If you wish to print the registration form, check the appropriate box. If you wish to add a message to the registration form (for example outlining the conditions of stay) you can set up the message by selecting Registration text from the Print options submenu of the Setup menu.

If you wish to print on headed paper or print the hotel logo, select Logo/headed paper from the Print options submenu of the Setup menu.

6.2 Guests without bookings
If you wish to register a guest who does not have a booking, you can click on Register guest from the Bookings menu, press the F2 key, or click the pen icon on the tool bar. Enter the details of the guest. The required fields are the last name, the date of arrival (which defaults to the current date) and the date of departure. You must also indicate the number of rooms required and the meal plan.

The next step is the select the type(s) of room required and to indicate whether any extra adults or extra children will be staying in the room(s). The cost of the stay will be displayed. If the guest is not paying for the rooms at registration, enter the amount paid on registration as zero. You can enter a discount at this stage or override the cost of the stay.

If the amount paid at registration is not zero, select whether it is being paid by the guest or posted to an account holder’s account. If it is being paid by the guest, select the method of payment. If it is being posted to an account, select the account holder from the drop list. You should also indicate whether the taxes and service charge apply to the stay. If the guest is being referred, select the referrer from the drop list, or if it is a new referrer, enter the name of the referrer and the commission paid to the referrer and click on the Add button.

Select the required room(s) by clicking on the appropriate row(s) on the booking chart. At this stage you can also print a registration form.

TOP

7. Checking out a guest

You can identify the guest by selecting Search from the Bookings menu, by pressing the F5 key, or by clicking on the binoculars icon on the toolbar, or you can display the monthly booking chart and click on the booking from the chart. To check out the guest, click on the Check out button and then Save changes. You can also change the departure date or any other details of the booking at this stage (apart from the arrival date).

The final account for the guest will appear and if there is payment to be made, a screen will pop up asking you which payment method to use. If you choose to post the payment to an account, you will be asked to select the account holder. If this is a new account holder you should enter the account holder’s name and click on the Add button, then select the account holder from the list. You can print out the final account by clicking on the printer icon on the tool bar. After the guest has checked out you can still print the final account by searching for the booking from the Bookings menu, pressing the F6 key or by displaying the booking chart and clicking on the booking. Click on the Print bill button to display the final account, then click on the printer icon on the toolbar to print the bill. If you wish to add text at the bottom of the printed bill, or print on headed paper, select Billing text from the Print options submenu of the Setup menu.

TOP

8. Adding a charge to a guest’s account

To add a charge to a guest account (such as a bar or restaurant bill) click on Add guest charge from the Accounts menu, press the F3 key or click on the bill icon on the toolbar. The Add charge dialogue box will appear. The guest must be registered in the hotel to add a charge to their account. You should select the date that the charge is being made (which defaults to today’s date), the room name or number, the amount of the charge, and select the type of charge then choose whether to add tax to the charge. If the type of charge that you wish to make does not appear in the drop list, you can add a new charge by entering the name of the charge and clicking on the Add button.

To cancel a charge, select Cancel guest charge from the Accounts menu. Enter the name or number of the room in which the guest is staying. Select the charge from the list and click on the Cancel charge button.

TOP

9. Crediting and debiting accounts

When an account holder makes a payment to pay off a part of all of their account, you should click on Credit account from the Accounts menu or on the dollar sign on the tool bar. The receive payment dialogue box will appear and you should select the account holder from the list. The list shows the name of the account holder and the amount of money owed. Enter the amount being paid and select the payment method. Confirm the payment.

To debit an account, select Debit account from the Accounts menu. Select the account holder from the list, enter the amount being paid and select the payment method.

TOP

10. Receiving advance payments for confirmed bookings

When a guest has a confirmed room booking but has not paid a deposit at the time of the booking, you may accept an advance payment by selecting Receive advance payment from the Accounts menu.

Identify the booking by entering the transaction number.

Enter the amount paid (which defaults to the cost of the room(s) less any payments already received), the payment date (which defaults to the current date) and select the method of payment.

Confirm that you wish to receive the payment.

TOP

11. Interim payments

A guest may wish to pay off part of their account during the period of their stay. Click on the credit card icon on the tool bar, select Interim guest payment from the Accounts menu or press the F4 key. You will be asked to enter the date when the payment was made, (which defaults to the current date), the room number, the amount paid and the payment method.

To cancel an interim payment, select Cancel interim payment from the Accounts menu. Enter the name or number of the room in which the guest is staying. Select the payment from the list and click on the Cancel payment button.

TOP

12. Setting up and removing accounts

To set up a new account, click on Add account from the Accounts submenu of the Setup menu. Enter the name of the account holder, the contact details and their opening balance (which defaults to zero).

To delete an account, select Remove account from the Accounts submenu of the Setup menu. Select the account holder from the list. Confirm that you wish to delete the account. You will be informed if there is an existing account balance.

To edit an account, select Modify account from the Accounts submenu of the Setup menu.

TOP

13. Room maintenance

There may be periods when one or more of your rooms may be unavailable due to maintenance. To avoid bookings being made for these periods click on Book maintenance from the Maintenance sub menu of the Bookings menu or click on the hammer icon on the tool bar.

Enter the room name or number which is undergoing maintenance, the date that the maintenance starts and the date that the room becomes available again. Rooms that are undergoing maintenance will be shown in white on the bookings chart.

To cancel a period of room maintenance, select Release room from the Maintenance submenu of the bookings menu. Enter the room number and the start date of the maintenance period.

TOP

14. Backing up data

RoomMate allows you to back up your data files so that if there is a problem such as hard drive failure you can reinstall the program and restore the data.

To back up your data files click on Back up data files from the File menu. Select the folder where you want to store the back up files and click on the Save button.

We recommend backing up to a flash drive. DO NOT back up the files if you think there may be a problem with them, you might overwrite good files.

If you wish to restore your back up files, run the RoomMate installation program if necessary then copy the back up files into your RoomMate folder. Alternatively you can run the program Restore.exe which you will find in your RoomMate folder and select the folder containing the backup files.

TOP

15. Reports

Account holders: details
Lists all transactions for a specified account holder. Select the account holder from the list.

Account holders: summary
Displays the names and balances of all account holders.

All previous guests
Lists all guests who have stayed in the hotel since a specified date. If a guest has stayed on several occasions they will be listed only once.

Audit of rooms
Reports on the status of occupied rooms, showing the cost to date, the amount paid, the balance, and the name of the guest.

Arrivals
Displays all the guests who are due to arrive during a specified period. Enter the start date and the end date of the period.

Bookings & current guests (csv)
Provides details of all bookings and current guests. A csv (comma separated variables) file, guests.csv, is generated and saved in your My Documents folder. The report is not displayed on the screen.

Cancellations
Displays all the cancellations with an arrival date within a specified period. Enter the start date and the end date of the period.

Current guests
Displays the room number, transaction number, arrival date, departure date, name and comments for all guests who are currently registered in the hotel.

Departures
Displays all guests due to depart during a specified period. Enter the start date and the end date of the period.

Guests by address
Displays the details of guests whose address matches a search string. Enter the search string, and the start date and end date for the report.

Interim account
Shows the current account for a guest who is registered in the hotel. Enter the name or number of the room that the guest is staying in.

Miscellaneous earnings
Displays receipts from the various categories such as rooms, laundry, phone, restaurant, bar etc, for a specified period. Enter the start date and end date of the period to be displayed.

Occupancy
Daily summary - Shows the number of guests in each room for a specified date. Select the date for the report.

Monthly - Displays the statistics on occupancy for a specified month. Enter the month for the report.

Annual - Displays the statistics on occupancy for a full year. Enter the year for the report.

Overstays
Reports on current guests who should already have checked out.

Pre-payments
Displays a list of pre-payments received during a specified period. Enter the start date and the end date for the report.

Projected revenue
Displays the report on projected revenue for a specified period. This is the revenue from room rates only. Enter the start and end date of the report.

Receipts
Displays the report on receipts for a specified period. Enter the start date and the end date for the report.

Referrals
Displays a report on monies owing to the agents or referrers. Enter the start date and end date for the report.

Unpaid bookings
Displays a list of bookings where no payment has been received. Confirmed bookings are identified with an asterisk.

TOP

16. Rounding off the cost of stay

If your room rates including tax and service charge should be whole numbers of dollars (or whatever currency unit you are using) and the inclusion of tax and service charge make the cost of the stay out by a few cents, you can round off the cost by selecting Rounding off from the rates submenu of the Setup menu.

Enter the amount of rounding off that is allowed (maximum 50 cents). To disable this option, leave the field blank.

TOP

17. Exporting reports

Many of the RoomMate reports can be exported as csv (comma separated variables) files, so that they can be opened in Excel. To set up this option, select Export reports from the Setup menu. The exported file is named report.csv and will be found in your my Documents folder.

TOP

18. Cancelling a registration

To cancel the registration of a guest, select Cancel registration from the Bookings menu. Enter the transaction number and confirm that you wish to cancel the registration. The registration will revert to a confirmed booking.

You should not cancel registration for bookings that were made with RoomMate versions prior to version 4.5 as any payments will not be cancelled.

TOP

19. Cancelling a checkout

To cancel the check out of a guest, select Cancel check out from the Bookings menu. Enter the transaction number and confirm that you wish to cancel the check out. The checked out guest will revert to a registered guest.

You should not cancel registration for bookings that were made with RoomMate versions prior to version 4.5 as any payments will not be cancelled.

TOP

20. Networking RoomMate

RoomMate is network ready. If you wish to run RoomMate on a network, follow the following steps:

  1. Run the RoomMate installation program on your server. Make the RoomMate folder a shared folder and be sure to check the box to allow other users to change files.
  2. Run the RoomMate installation program on each of your workstations (this will register some files with the Windows registry).
  3. Modify the RoomMate shortcut on each of your workstation desktops, so that the target is the RoomMate.exe file on your server and the “Start in” folder is the shared RoomMate folder on your server. An alternative to this is to delete the desktop shortcut. Then open the shared folder on the server from the workstation, right drag (holding the right mouse button down) the RoomMate.exe file onto the desktop on the workstation and select Create Shortcut Here.
  4. Make sure that you have specified that the program will be run on a network by selecting Networking from the Setup menu.
Please note that if you change the RoomMate setup on any of your computers you must restart RoomMate on the other computers for the changes to take effect.

TOP

21. The WebLink module

The WebLink module allows customers to check the availability of rooms online and make a reservation or request a quotation.

Your Web site should show the types of rooms which you offer, together with the rates. You should link the existing pages to the reservations page which is uploaded by RoomMate using the WebLink. The name of the file which starts the reservations process is step_1.php.

To set up the WebLink, select WebLink from the Setup menu. The required fields are:

If you check the box to automatically upload files the WebLink will connect each time there is a significant change to your data (particularly room availability). This is not recommended if you are running RoomMate on a network or you do not have a fast Internet connection. Instead you can connect manually by selecting Upload WebLink files from the File menu, clicking on the two computers icon on the toolbar or pressing Ctrl + U.

You may also change the appearance of the php generated Web pages by clicking on the Web page options button. Here you can change the font, the text colour, the page background colour and the table background colour. If these options are not flexible enough and you are familiar with HTML and PHP you can edit the php files which are uploaded by RoomMate. These are step_1.php, step_2.php, step_3.php and step_4.php.

To enable the ftp transfer check the Enable connection box.

When bookings have been made online you can import them into RoomMate by clicking on Booking from WebLink from the Bookings menu. This menu item is disabled when there are no online bookings to import.

You may link images of the types of room to the online reservations. For example if you have a type of room called "Double" you should place an image file called double.gif of double.jpg (all lower case) in the same folder on your server as the PHP files. The images will not appear if the potential guest selects more than one type of room.

TOP

22. Employees

RoomMate allows you to set up employees so that you can track which employee made a reservation, registered and checked out a guest, accepted payments, etc. To set up Employees select Add employee from the Employees submenu of the Setup menu. To change an employee's password select Change password. To remove an employee from the system select Remove employee.

You may choose the functions which are protected by the employee passwords by selecting Rules for use of password from the Employees submenu of the Setup menu. It is recommended that you leave all the functions checked.

Ater you have set up employees, when you display a booking's details you can view the history of the booking (which employee made the reservation, registered the guest, etc) by clicking on the History button. When a bookings is cancelled you can see who cancelled it by running the cancellations report. You can also run the report on Receipts for each employee.

TOP

23. Exporting email addresses

To export guests' email addresses select Export email addresses from the Bookings menu. You have the choice of exporting all email addresses, those for unconfirmed bookings, those for confirmed bookings or those for past bookings.

The email addresses will be copied to the clipboard so that you can paste them into the BCC field or the CC field of your email client.

TOP

24. Printing invoices

You can print an invoice for a guest or an account holder by selecting Print invoice from the Accounts menu. Enter the transaction number for the invoice.

TOP

25. Printing account statements

To print an account statement select Print account statement from the Accounts menu. Select the account holder and identify the start and end dates for the statement.

TOP

26. SMS text messaging

RoomMate allows you to send SMS text messages to clients. To use this feature you must set up an account with CDyne (www.cdyne.com) and they will provide you with a licence key.

Select SMS text messaging from the Setup menu and enter the licence key. Enter your country code if required. For example if you were in the UK you would enter the country code 44 and check the box to remove the leading zero from phone numbers.

TOP

27. Reminders

You can set up a reminder by selecting Add reminder from the Reminders menu or by clicking on the light bulb icon on the toolbar. Select the date and time when you wish to be reminded and enter the action required.

When the date and time has been reached the reminder will be displayed. You may choose to repeat the reminder after a specified number of hours, days or weeks. Otherwise the reminder will be removed from the system.

You may edit or delete a reminder by selecting Edit reminder from the Reminders menu.

TOP

28. Saving invoices

RoomMate allows you to save invoices in a csv (comma separated variables) file which you may be able to import into your accounting software.

The invoice is saved each time a guest is checked out.

A file called invoice.csv is appended and saved in your RoomMate folder.

TOP




© GrenSoft, 2001 - 2017
Email: info@grensoft.com