I am currently trying to install SambaPos in my small Hotel with Bar and Restaurant facilities in Sri Lanka. The system provides me a great low cost alternative to duplicate books and handwritten KOT/BOT.
I am fairly computer literate and am ready to start the data inputting and configuration however there is one element that is pretty fundamental to my system that I cannot see a solution to. It may be my lack of understanding of terminology for POS systems so please be gentle with me if I am being dumb.
As my restaurant and bar are fundamentally linked to my Hotel operation, hotel guests are given the option to sign for their bills and pay at the completion of their holiday. As we are a pretty small hotel is is fairly easy for my staff to know what room number each guest is in so this can be input at time of ordering.
I would need to have the guest bill printed with a signature section (this is pretty easy in printer configuration) but i need to collate all the signed bills into a end of work period report which is then incorporated into the room billing system (currently manual).
My other issue is that certain meals are included in the guests booking eg. Breakfast for all guests and specific menu items for guests booking on Half Board. Is the voucher process the way to approach this?
I am hoping there is a good solution as I like the software a great deal and it will help my business tremendously.
It is possible to build a nice hospitality system with SambaPOS. State logging, Room Accounts, Free Breakfast is all possible but the issue is not many people have shown interest in this so nobody has attempted to build it. I have the knowledge to build it but it would be a very complex setup and require a lot of time. I personally do not have extra time to spend building tutorials for something this complex considering I would never use it.
Your best bet is to spend some time studying it and learn how it works, specifically States, State Logging, and the Accounting and how it works with Customer Accounts etc. You should also study the Entities and how they interact with the system.
I wont lie it will probably be impossible for you to build this right now with your current knowledge and I really wish i could help you with some tutorials. If you want to start learning feel free to jump in with various tutorials even if you feel you may not use them, they may give you understanding of how the advanced setups work. If you get stuck you can ask here and we can assist you.
PS. I see potential for a VERY powerful hospitality system using SambaPOS and I really hope some day someone sees it as well and has the understanding to build it. Its something I have tried to make time to do but its just too involved atm with my current schedule.
Few possible examples could be Room Entities with State Logging to track the check in and check out, Room Accounts to attach to the Entities for billing various things to room, Restaurant integration with the Room Entities… these are all possible.
PS2. We use State Logging for the various Time Clock tutorials those may give you idea of how to use it. State logging is definitely not restricted to just time clock implementations.
I agree developing a complete hospitality system is a big stretch and something time is not available for (skills permitting)
I plan to introduce a stand alone Restaurant and Bar POS and extract the pertinent information in a report at end of days transactions. Suffice it to say I still need a solution for deferred payments. I was thinking to create 15 customers named Room 1, Room 2 etc. and provide a credit payment facility for them. At the end of each work period I could take a report of Credit payments through the day and feed that information to my accounts staff who can apply this to the relevant room bills. Is this a practical solution to provide deferred payment?
I can approach breakfasts the same way and at least have a breakfast inventory being tracked but a null cost applied to room guests bills.
If there is a tutorial for adding credit type payments can you please point me to it. If not a liitle guidance to get me started would be a great help.