Hi, Is there an easy way to assign takeaway, restaurant and bar tickets (all departments) to a room, so that the user can settle their whole hotel bill on checkout?
I figured the easiest way to do it was to give each room a customer account and this could be then used to attach all charges to - which can then be settled on checkout. Not sure if there is a better way though?
We still need to be able to use work periods and cash tills as normal at the end of the day, so the charges need to be held until settled (2 weeks in some cases).
No need to mix Room Entities and Accounts with Customer Accounts. But yes, a Room Entity Type with linked Room Account Type is a good way to do this, since you can Settle their charges to the Room Account, then have the guest make a payment upon checkout that is applied directly to the Room Account.
The setup is identical to Customer Entity/Account. But I would suggest creating new Room Entity Type and Account Type. It gives more flexibility in the end, and Reporting can easily be segregated.
Great thanks - getting a bit complicated here but I can link the 2? For example on check-in we create a customer account (so we capture customer inf) and link that in some way to the room? So customer x is in room x?
EDIT: Or better still I can just a link a room entity to a customer account I guess?
Yes, you can assign multiple Entity Types to a single Ticket, just like you could have a Customer Entity and a Table Entity assigned to the same Ticket.
Really, you can do just about anything you want, but I personally would keep the Entity Types and Account Types separate. But if it works for you, yes, you could link a Room Entity to a Customer Account.
Keep in mind, an Entity can only have a single Account Type and Account. So if you set the Room Entity to use Customer Account Type, then you are done. And once that Entity has a linked Account, you wonāt be able to change it, short of going in via management or some funky SQL in Scriptsā¦
So I would keep it simple. Keep everything separate. In fact, you might also consider creating a different Customer Type like āGuestsā to keep them separate from your āregularā Customers. Then make a Custom Data Field in the Room Entity that you can populate with the Guest Entity Name.
Cant find the post where I did something very similar.
That was before the account statement template was improved so because having a room account would make it hard to print checkout statement/bills showing only transaction for one guest I made a booking entity which was a RANDOM generated entity number (booking number) which allowed an account per booking.
Cant remember exactly how I did it but I saved the booking number (entity) as a custom value on the room entity which then allowed a clean room entity grid but the account charge option was to charge to the booking entity account.
I think I achieved it by adding a rule to also add the booking entity to the ticket when the room was selected by using an update entity action where the entity name was {ENTITY DATA:Rooms:Booking Number}, or something along those lines.
Im pretty sure I have a backup of the database somewhere I can double check the way I did it is this is something that sounds like what your trying to achive.
How many rooms do you have?
As I have mentioned before I have felt with several hotels of varying sizes and if your talking about 10+ rooms you might be better looking at a PMS system for bookings as this gives many other advantages when it comes to selling more rooms through booking channels etc and look to integrate Samba with it like I did with NewBook PMS but if its a low number of rooms and you can manage this manually then save some money and work it out with samba.
If your interested in what I did above I will dig out the database and upload some screenshots. Or if you look at a PMS have a read of my PMS integration thread.
Only 20 rooms - 3* inner town hotel typically charging 55-75 a night - but the owner is on a budget, as always! Bookings are currently managed via a system called QBook as this has LateRooms etc integration, a basic web booking component and is very cheap. There is a bar and a Thai Restaurant/Takeaway - sometimes rooms include a free meal and guests regularly charge bar bills to the room. Currently on their existing till they just print out tabs on cashup and move them to reception in the paper file - these regularly get lost though so my thoughts were to put all charges on Samba at checkin/out so that this is the sole entity for managing all charges. Bookings can still be done via QBook, which controls availability on the web, but once the customer walks in then I thought we can handle all transactions via Samba (will look at NewBook though). What you did sounds great though, any info you can offer would be great!
Is that queensbrough group?
They did the hotel website before I took over their IT. They are very cheap from what I remember.
20 rooms is a fair amount, take a look at NewBook, donāt expect they are anything like as cheep as queensbrough but very feature rich.
It might be worth asking them if they have any form of API.
If it is queensbrough I might be interested in developing something if they have an api having felt with them before.
Indeed 
In fairness whilst limited is a great system and easy to use, perfect for what the hotel use it or and very user friendly. Not sure what deal hotel gets but from what I can see their list price is Ā£199+VAT, commission free, very much doubt the hotel pays close to that though. If I recall from when I first did their website (years ago now) there was an API but it was chargeable. Iāll make some calls tomorrow and find out. 
Will let you know
If I remember right there website service was something like Ā£59 a month plus or something like that which included updates etc but when I took over IT we switched to in-house management of the site.
NewBook costs the hotel here something in the region of Ā£180 plus vat per month billed quarterly which I think is for the base package to cover our 35 rooms.
They have many many addons like sms integration etc.
The channel manager/online booking is something like Ā£1 per booking capped at Ā£100 per month which wasnāt a selling point but is completely automated and a good system.
Annoyingly they donāt offer a huge amount of direct channel links so we opted to couple it with site minder which if your not familiar is another good service. Believe they also offer a booking system and have a very nice online booking engine. Think there package is around Ā£149 a month with chanel and booking engine but we just use the chanel manager which is something like Ā£80p/m.
Its a shame to pay for both but site minder like to pretty much every booking channel but we wanted to try the PMS own booking engine for our website to take advantage of the booking add ons like champagne in room etc to upsell and other features.
Few features we plan to utilise in netbook (only been running a month mow);
Company/Agent login to make bookings online with their own corporate rates. (they can also check and update bookings they have made.
Upgrade emails which promote upgrade option to new bookings (i.e. they reply to email āYes Pleaseā and it upgrades them automatically.
Automatic confirmations and pre arrival emails inc online checkin
Tablet/Paperless checkin with tablets
Gift voucher system
These are just a few features which have caught my eye to setup when get time.
If you did look into them let me know, bit cheeky but would like to see if can swindle a referral reward from them LOL
Just to clarify I DO NOT WORK FOR THEMā¦ LOL
Just been using the last month and so far very happy and impressed.
Also they have an extensive API
The next project is Caller ID on samba server on phone system so house keeping phone the extension and with a samba script update the room status via API to clean 
Sounds like youāre miles ahead of where we want to be! The owner isnāt adverse to change and if it benefits the bottom line and isnāt too much of an added expense then Iām sure theyāll consider a change, particularly with a free integration chucked in - but I canāt imagine theyād pay much more than they currently are as generally the hotel is well booked (particularly with contractors working locally). The website is self managed (me again) and just has the QBook code dumped in on a iframe for online booking, which QBook process. New website is on the list to do after the PoS is sorted :-).Iāll check on the API and channel expansion opportunities with QBook and check with the owner if he minds me investigating alternatives - of course if he opts for an alternative Iāll let you know beforehand in case theres a referral to be had Iāll come back later this afternoon and let you know the outcome 
Thanks for your advice so far though, really appreciate it
The netbook system is allot more advanced than our previous local system and the advantages of reduced maintenance (just have to ensure good internet connection) but that would be the same as qbook I guess.
The housekeeping thing is a big thing for us with a very spread out layout of the hotel with annexes to the rear.
I would see if qbook has an API first and if they do let me know as would like to expand my epos systems more into hotels offering complete setups and obviously the time to do the integration is obviously worth while if you can sell it to multiple places rather than just do a single one off.
If they do have an API you should have a good headstart from my netbook integration as have dumped 99% of the code I used on the topic on the forum. It should just be a case of twerking the output of the posts for their API.
@JTRTech Checked with Queensborough Group and no API unfortunately. Will see based on your costings though if the hotel would consider an alternative longer term. In the meantime though if you can share any info on your room setup (minus a PMS integration) then that would be really appreciated
@1bigwink apologies, had an all nighter at the hotel doing some network rewiring as only doable at night when bar is closed so as not to cut out the tills 
Anyway I will try and dig out the backup tonight.
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I did a sting of automation based on a custom entity screen;
Had a room entity grid and then a booking grid which was a custom entity screen which didnt select the entity but start a command flow starting with feeding the room name as command value;
(Had to scale to 60% even with my multiple virtical monitor screen setup LOL)
Will upload a video of the workflow in a minute
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These were the extra lines I put in the work period report for handling the room accounts side;
[Banking Details:2, 1]
Till Cash|{REPORT PAYMENT TOTAL:(PT=Cash)}
Rooms Cash|{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Cash Payment:Cash}
>>Total Cash|[=F({REPORT PAYMENT TOTAL:(PT=Cash)}+{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Cash Payment:Cash})]
Till Card|{REPORT PAYMENT TOTAL:(PT=Credit Card)}
Rooms Card|{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Credit Card Payment:Credit Card}
>>Total Card|[=F({REPORT PAYMENT TOTAL:(PT=Credit Card)}+{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Credit Card Payment:Credit Card})]
[Room Account Statement:1,2, 1]
>>Room|Balance
@{ENTITY LIST EXP:(ET=Rooms)}
@{REPORT ENTITY DETAILS:EC.Booking Number:(EN=$1)}
$1|$2 | {CALL:accountinfo.accountbalance('$2')}
>Total|{ACCOUNT TOTAL:Booking Accounts}
[Room Transactions:2, 1, 1]
>>Description|Debit|Credit
Room Transfers|{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Account Transaction:Booking Accounts}|
Cash Payments| |{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Cash Payment:Booking Accounts}
Card Payments| |{ACCOUNT TRANSACTION TOTAL:Booking Credit Card Payment:Card}
>Balance|{ACCOUNT TOTAL:Booking Accounts}
Given my increased reporting abilities now I would probably have done it a little different and added a account/ledger balance brough forward and carried forward.
@JTRTech This is better than I could have hoped for, really appreciate it thank you! Will this work cross department (e.g. restaurant and bar can add to room tab)? Iāll need to make some tweaks (e.g. we have 2 cash drawers so there are 2 CC accounts and 2 cash), but in the main this does everything we need.
[quote=āJTRTech, post:16, topic:9854ā]
I would probably have done it a little different and added a account/ledger balance brough forward and carried forward.
[/quote] What does this mean please mate?
Not sure, never used multiple departments but so long as entities are available to both then no reason I can see why not.
Well to account for the āledgerā/account movement on the overnight room accounts you need to know the carried forward figure from yesterday.
Balance BF Ā£300 (Room account total balance at EOD yesterday)
Sales Ā£200 (Sales through till)
Cash Payments Ā£100 (Cash/Card Payments for non room related sales)
Account Transfer/PostsĀ£100 (Sales paid for by posting to room account)
Account Payments Ā£80 (Payments made to room accounts)
Sales Ā£200
- Cash Payments Ā£100
- Account Charges Ā£100
Sales and payments balance (no bills left open on till)
Account Balance BF Ā£300
- Account Post/Transfers +Ā£100 (=Ā£400)
- Account Payments -Ā£80 (=Ā£320)
Balance CF Ā£320
Its just something you want to be able to fully reconcile all sales and payments as you are holding a ledger (room accounts) and so the movement/change in the balance would equate to difference between you over the counter sales/payments(money in drawer)
Hi Guys
I am trying to implement this excellent solution for assigning bar and restaurant tickets to specific Hotel Guest Rooms. This solution looks to tick all the boxes for me but my limited capabilities and understand of actions is causing me some problems in implementation.
I can get mot actions and rules clear in my head but I cannot create the following Actions listed as I am unsure what type of action they are
Update Room
Create Booking Entity
I think this is an excellent solution and getting past these (probably obvious) problems would help me a tremendous amount
Thanks
This isnt a built in feature as such, @JTRTech has heavily customised and designed a complex hotel system that is not ābuilt inā you would need to study his development if you want something like he has done
Im assuming its part of his setup you may have seen