Newsletter 21/2/2011

Major upgrade

Today your booking service was upgraded and now has additional features.  Some more new features are still in the works and will be installed soon.  Here is what is new today:

• Journal entries.  Admin can now create a journal in the transaction system.  This is limited to transfering funds from one booking to another, for one member.  This feature is most useful for lodges that allow deposits and therefore track outstanding balances on individual bookings.
• You can obtain a report, for each season, on the occupancy rate of both rooms and beds.  You find this under “tariffs” -> “season periods”.  At the bottom of the screen is a button “show occupancy report”.  There is a total for the season and subtotals for each month.
• When you send subscription invoices, the year is recorded in the site configuration.  If you try to send them again (by accident) the system will refuse.  You can override this by editing the year recorded on the same screen that you use to send the invoices.

• Our multi-lodge customers can now book some lodges by bed and some by room, all shown together on the opening page – the “booking matrix”.  Booking by bed is a system that only shows the total number of available beds, and bookings are made without allocating specific beds.  It is also possible to book by bed with allocation, we do this by treating each bed as a (very small) room.
• There is now a separate option in the menu for “Cancellation policy”.  You can put your text there, possibly by cutting and pasting from the existing “Booking rules” page.  You can edit these in Site Config -> Booking Details.
• Members can now download their transaction history in spreadsheet format.  Find this on “Manage account” -> “View my transactions”.
• Members can see a list of their bookings under “Manage a booking” -> “View my bookings”.  The display now also includes a link to all transactions that relate to this booking, and for clubs that allow deposits, the amount owing is also shown.  This list will not include payment of balance in full if this is done separately from making the booking.
• When sending bulk emails to guests (non members) you choose a date range which selects guests according to when they made their booking (e.g.  1/1/2010 -> 31/12/2010).  Now in addition you can instead select according to when they stayed.  Soon we will also add an individual email sent x days after a booking finishes, useful for soliciting feedback.
• There are now two sets of transactions shown when admin is in the “manage booking” screen -> the member’s last 5 transactions, and all transactions for that booking.
• One of our lodges is automating the heating so that electricity isn’t wasted when the lodge is empty.  We provided a robot that the lodge’s computer can call to decide each day whether to turn on the heating or not.  Ask us if you want to use this service.