Bookings

Bookings is the front desk's home screen. A booking records who is staying, in which room type (and, once assigned, which room), for which nights, at what rate and from which source. Its status drives the rest of the house: confirming it may raise a deposit invoice, checking in opens the folio and marks the room occupied, checking out closes the folio and drops a cleaning task on the housekeeping board.

• Receptionists create bookings, confirm, check in and out, and mark cancellations and no-shows (Bookings = Full by default).
• Hotel Managers do the same and may also check a guest out with a balance still owed (that needs Payments = Full).
• Accountants, Housekeeping Managers, Restaurant Managers and Security see the board and list read-only.

The three views

• Pipeline: six columns: New Requests, Confirmed, Arriving Today, In-House Guests, Checked Out, Cancelled. It shows a working set: every booking whose stay touches the seven days either side of today, plus everyone in-house. This is also the snapshot the app keeps for offline use.
• List: the full archive, one page at a time from the server. Search box (“Search booking, guest, phone, room…”), Status and Source dropdowns, and a “Showing / total” count. Columns: Booking, Guest, Room, Dates, Status, Amount, Source. Newest arrival date first; the filters and page live in the address bar (/bookings?view=list&status=confirmed&page=2).
• Calendar: a Monday-first month grid. Each day lists up to three arrivals (“+N more arriving” beyond that), a “N in-house” count for stays spanning the day and “N departing”. Use the arrows or Today to move months; on a phone it becomes an agenda of active days only.

Filters opens the “Filter bookings” dialog: Status, Source, Stay from and Stay until, with Clear and Show results. On the Pipeline the filters narrow the board and the KPI tiles; on the List they are written to the URL so the page can be bookmarked or shared.

1. 1
   Click New booking

   The “New booking” dialog opens on “Step 1 of 2: stay details & availability”.
2. 2
   Enter the stay

   Check-in (today or later), Check-out (at least one night), Room type, Guests (1–6 pax), Source (Booking.com, Direct, Expedia, Walk-in, Travel Agent, Corporate) and, if the hotel has any, a Rate plan. The BAR plan is preselected; only plans that apply to the chosen room type are listed.
3. 3
   Read the quote

   A grey box shows “N nights · room charge …” for the chosen plan. It is the room charge before tax; the final total is computed from the hotel's service charge, VAT and levy settings when you save.
4. 4
   Click Check availability

   The wizard asks the server which rooms of that type are free for those nights (maintenance and out-of-service rooms are never offered) and moves to “Step 2 of 2: room & guest”.
5. 5
   Pick a room, or Assign later

   Room chips read “204 · Fl 2”. If none are free you see “No {type} rooms free for those dates. The booking can still be saved without a room and assigned later.”: the capacity guard still checks that the type is not oversold.
6. 6
   Choose the guest

   Existing guest: type at least two characters of a name, code, phone or email and pick from the list. New guest: Full name (required), Phone, Email, the profile is created with the booking.
7. 7
   Add Special requests (optional) and click Create booking

   The booking is saved as Confirmed, a “Booking BK-… created” toast appears and the board refreshes.

1. 1
   Open the booking

   Click the card in Arriving Today (or Confirmed for an early arrival, which will be refused, see below), or find it in the List and click the row.
2. 2
   Click Check in in the drawer footer

   You can also drag the card into In-House Guests, or pick Checked In in the Status select.
3. 3
   Assign a room if there is none yet

   The drawer shows “Assign a room to check in · N free” with a chip per room that is free for the stay, of the booked type, not cleaning, with no open housekeeping task and no guest still inside. Click a chip to check in to it. If the list is empty you see “No free {type} rooms for those dates”.
4. 4
   Done

   A toast reads “BK-… → Checked In”. The room turns Occupied, the folio opens with the room nights and tax lines, and a “Guest checked in: Room N” alert is posted.

The rules the server enforces

• Arrival day: the hotel-local date of the action must not be before the booking's check-in date. Late arrivals are fine; an early arrival must have its dates moved first so the folio charges the nights actually slept.
• A room must be assigned: either earlier on the booking or from the chips at check-in.
• Type must match: a room picked at the desk must be of the booked room type. A room assigned earlier on the booking stands even if it is a different type (an upgrade).
• Room must be ready: not out of service or under maintenance, not in Cleaning, and with no open housekeeping task.
• Nobody still inside: a same-day turnover is a legal reservation, but the physical check-in waits until the outgoing guest has checked out. The room row is locked so two desks cannot both pass the check.

1. 1
   Settle the folio

   Open the invoice on the Payments screen and use Record payment until the balance is zero (see the Payments chapter).
2. 2
   Click Check out in the booking drawer

   Or drag the card from In-House Guests to Checked Out, or pick Checked Out in the Status select.
3. 3
   If a balance remains

   The server refuses with “INV-… still owes UGX …. Collect it before check-out, or a Payments manager can check out and bill later”. A user with Payments = Full is asked “Check out anyway and bill later? The folio stays open on Payments.”: confirming checks out with the balance outstanding and writes an audit entry.
4. 4
   What happens next

   The open folio is closed to new charges, a High-priority checkout-clean housekeeping task due in two hours is created for the room, the room turns Cleaning, and a “Guest checked out: room to cleaning” alert is posted.

• Confirm (New → Confirmed), drawer button Confirm, or drag the card from New Requests to Confirmed. Posts the deposit hold and sends the confirmation email as described above.
• Cancel booking (New or Confirmed → Cancelled), opens “Cancel BK-…?” / “{guest}'s stay will be cancelled and the room released.” Confirm with Cancel booking. A cancellation fee of the hotel's cancel percentage of the stay total is posted if that percentage is above zero (default 0%).
• No-show (Confirmed → No Show), opens “Mark BK-… as a no-show?” / “{guest} did not arrive. The room is released. A no-show fee may post to the folio.” Confirm with Mark no-show. The fee is the hotel's no-show percentage of one night (default 100%).

Fees and deposits land on the booking's open pre-arrival invoice (one is opened if needed) as a line such as “No-show fee · BK-1042 (100% of one night)”. A fee posted onto an invoice that was already paid reopens it.

1. 1
   Click New group

   The “New group” dialog: “Allot rooms under one lead guest, assign room numbers later”.
2. 2
   Fill in the block

   Group name (tour operator, wedding, conference…), Check-in and Check-out, the Lead guest (search an existing profile) and an Allotment count per room type (0–40 each, up to eight types, 80 rooms in total).
3. 3
   Click Create group

   The server checks capacity for each type over the whole block, then creates one Confirmed booking per room, unassigned, 1 pax, source Direct, all under the lead guest, and gives the group a GRP-… code. Toast: “Group GRP-… · N rooms”.

Group bookings appear on the board as ordinary cards carrying the group code tag. Assign rooms and check each one in exactly like a single booking. The wizard's validation messages are “Give the group a name”, “Pick the lead guest” and “Allot at least one room”.

Every room type has a base rate. A rate plan is one of three kinds, BAR (rack), Weekend, Promo , and can be limited to one room type, to certain days of the week, and to a valid-from / valid-to window. Inactive plans are never offered.

• For each night of the stay: if the plan is inactive, outside its dates or not on its days, the base rate applies. Otherwise a fixed plan amount wins; failing that the base rate is adjusted by the plan's percentage (for example −15%).
• The booking keeps rate = the average of the nightly rates and amount = the subtotal with service charge, VAT and levy applied in that order. The folio opened at check-in uses the same figures, so quote and folio always agree.
• Changing a room type's base rate or a plan later affects new quotes only. Existing bookings keep the rate they were sold at.

Plans are managed in Settings → Hotel → Rate plans (Settings = Edit): each row shows the name, code and kind with an editable percentage and a Save button. The BAR plan is what the wizard preselects.

• New Reservation: a request that holds inventory but has not been confirmed. The drawer offers Confirm and Cancel booking. (The server also accepts a direct check-in of a New booking; the drawer only offers Check in on Confirmed ones.)
• Confirmed: holds the room type (and room, if assigned). Deposit and confirmation email have gone out.
• Checked In: guest in-house; folio open; room Occupied.
• Checked Out, Cancelled, No Show: final. Read-only from here; the room is released.

Board columns are derived

The column a card sits in is computed from its status and the hotel's date, by the same function on the server and in the browser:

• New Reservation → New Requests
• Confirmed with check-in after today → Confirmed; check-in today or earlier → Arriving Today
• Checked In → In-House Guests; Checked Out → Checked Out
• Cancelled and No Show → Cancelled

So you cannot drop a card into Arriving Today, the toast says “Arriving Today is based on the check-in date. Confirm the booking if it is still a request.” Any other move the lifecycle does not allow answers “That column isn't a valid next step for this booking”.

A booking's history (every status change, who made it and when) is stored and shown by the API; the drawer's Status select offers only the moves drawn above (“Only valid transitions are offered; check-in asks for a room, check-out closes the folio.”).

• Bookings = View: Pipeline, List, Calendar, the booking drawer, rate plans and the availability search (the wizard's room list also needs Rooms = View to load room types).
• Bookings = Edit: New booking, New group, Confirm, Cancel booking, No-show, Check in, Check out, drag-and-drop on the board.
• Payments = Full: the “Check out anyway and bill later?” override when a folio still has a balance.
• Settings = Edit: create or change rate plans.