Newsletter 5/10/2010

I’m pleased to report that I spent a very active and enjoyable week at the Rover lodge, out the back of the Bogong High Plains this winter.  It was great to actually be out there, and not just hearing about the snow from all of you!

All lodges are by now familiar with the transaction system introduced at the start of this year.  Since then we have made more improvements, and are planning more again for next year.  If you have an issue that I haven’t listed below, please let us know.

We are also hearing about problems with allowing non-members to make bookings.  Local shires have rules and not-for-profit tax status is also an issue.  Some clubs may need to create a short-term membership category.  If you are considering this, please put your thoughts together and submit to us so we can design enhancements to make this work for you.  We will review these around the end of this year and make the enhancements early next year, if the need is there.

New features added this year, and plans for next year

• The next of kin section has been expanded to include spouse/co-member and children.  To make this really useful, we included it in the auto-complete so that when members are booking, these names will be suggested as you type.
• You can define tariff types that do not count as room occupants!  So if you charge for a baby in a cot, this one is for you.
• You can create different classes of member, each with a different annual subscription amount (can be zero).  These can be used to specify “can book” or which seasons can be booked.  The “description” field is added to subscription invoices.
• You can operate a waiting list.  To facilitate this, when a booking is cancelled it shows as “tentative” until admin changes it to cancelled.  We will introduce a “waiting list” option that you can select, to make this easier to use.
• Admin logins now have a “committee” level of access which you might use for only generating reports.  This is alongside the “staff” and “administrator” levels of access.
• If you make TENTATIVE bookings manually prior to bookings opening to members online, you can suppress the automated email to the member.  This is handy if you prefer to send just a single email when payments are processed.
• The login ID of the person making a booking is recorded with the booking.  You can use this to administer commission for a booking agency, for example.
• Reporting: spreadsheet download report 2 now has a cost per room, which is pro-rata based on an “admin cost” if this differs from the “calculated cost”.  This enables you to calculate revenue per room over any period.
• Clubs that allow members to make a deposit on a booking can now report bookings in this condition, by date range, so that outstanding amounts can be followed up.

New features planned for next season

• Cancellation rules.  You will be able to set two rules to control automated generation of a credit when a booking is cancelled online.  This will result in a +ve change to the member’s balance, so that subsequent bookings and payments will reflect this.  You can still issue credits manually at your discretion.
• Send email after bookings are completed, e.g.  exit survey.
• Currently you can send emails based on the date a booking was made.  This will expand to allow you to select bookings based on the date of the stay.
• Integrate emails to members and guests for more flexibility.
• Move instructions on how to pay offline to the screen after click on “pay later”.  This prevents people seeing a booking ID and sending a payment when they haven’t clicked on a button that actually creates the booking.
• If you use a “start/finish” control you will be able to make it different for members and guests.  This control is used to require both nights of a weekend, or other restrictions on booking periods.
• When a member or admin reviews a booking, the embedded list of transactions will include all transactions that relate to that booking (at the moment, just shows last 5 transactions for that member).
• Give members a download (spreadsheet format) of their transactions.
• When a member views their bookings online, show the balance owing for each booking in the summary list.  Also include a link to a screen showing all transactions for that booking.
• Journal entry.  This enables you to create two transactions with opposite amounts (so no change to member’s balance).  One transaction will debit a booking and the other will credit a different booking.  So for members with many bookings who want to pay for only some of them, but have credits from earlier bookings, this will enable the necessary transfers.  If your members only want to pay their total outstanding balance you will not need this one!
• Improve the room allocation report format when printed and include the “cot required” field.