TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Search availability
- Create a booking
- Apply a promotion
- Confirm a reservation by storing credit card details
- Send a confirmation email
- Print a booking confirmation
- Search for bookings
- Edit a booking
- Reschedule a booking
- Cancel a booking
- Split a booking
- Link bookings using a customer file
- Charter bookings
- Copy bookings (series bookings)
- Check-in bookings
- End of day processes
Search availability
- Open the Departures screen under the Reservations menu. The Availability tab shows by default.
- Filter for the Operator, then select a date and click Refresh. If you want to view multiple days, enter a number beside the date field before you click Refresh.
- You can filter results in the Product droplist. Any groupings you have configured in the Group 2 field of the Operator product screen will appear at the top of the droplist results.
- Select a departure by double-clicking anywhere on the departure row to open the Booking screen.
If you have a multi-component product and want to see the availability of all services contained in a product, highlight the departure row to display the Build note at the bottom of the screen.
Create a booking
- The Booking screen opens after a departure is selected from the Availability tab (process described above).
- Choose the agent you are making the booking for, the sale type will update to the default.
- Enter the customer’s name and voucher reference if this is an agent booking.
- Select a pickup, and add any voucher (appear on confirmation) or operator notes (appear on the manifest.
- Add the units to the booking for each option required component (a fill down function will auto-select units on subsequent components if a matching option is found).
- Click Save when you are finished.
- You may be prompted to enter the optional marketing details. Fill these out if you are.
- The confirmation popup will summarise the booking details so you can repeat these back to the customer/agent to ensure they are correct.
Apply a promotion
- Save your booking before applying a promotion.
- Click Functions button in the bottom right of the Booking screen, then select Apply promotion.
- Choose your promotion from the list of valid promotions for the product.
- To remove a promotion, click Remove promotion from the Apply promotion screen.
Do not remove promotions by removing the units from the promotion item on the booking screen. If a booking is edited AFTER a promotion is applied, remove and reapply the promotion to recalculate.
Confirm a reservation by storing credit card details
Storing a credit card is useful if your bookings are weather-dependent and have a high risk of cancelling. You can store a credit card to confirm a booking without charging the card.
- Open the Customer screen under the Reservation tab, then click Add customer.
- Enter the customer's first and last name and email address. If they have booked with you before, select the customer from the list.
- Once your customer is added, click New booking.
- Select your departure and when prompted to add the booking to your customer, click Ok.
- Enter the units and save the booking as normal.
- Click back on the Customer screen, then click Credit card store and enter the customer's credit card details.
Send a confirmation email
- Click the Functions button in the bottom left corner of the Booking screen
- Select Email, then Confirmation email
- If an email address doesn't already exist for the customer you will be prompted to enter it, then click OK.
- The Emailer popup will list your confirmation email templates in the left-hand panel
- Select and preview the correct template, then click Send
- The status message in the bottom left will confirm when the email has been sent. Click Close when finished.
Print a booking confirmation
- If you have a thermal printer click Ticket from the bottom of the Booking screen to print a confirmation.
- For A4 printing, print the confirmation email. Follow the steps in the section above, then click Print (sends to your default printer) or click the arrow to select a different printer.
Search for bookings
- If you know the Booking ID, enter this directly in the Booking screen. If not, you can find bookings under the Search tab in the Departure screen.
- Select the date and enter any search criteria such as agent, voucher or name
- Click refresh to search.
- Open a booking by clicking the booking ID link or double-click anywhere on the row.
Edit a booking
You can edit the details of the booking by reopening the reservation as follows:
- Open the booking you want to edit in the Booking screen.
- Click the Edit button at the bottom of the screen.
- Save all changes. All edits are recorded in the booking history tab.
Reschedule a booking
- Open the booking as explained above.
- Click the Edit button, then click the Availability button.
- Select the new date/departure time for your product.
- You will be prompted to reschedule the current booking, double click the reschedule box, then press OK.
- If there is any difference in rates or options the booking will display ??? to ensure you check the balance carefully.
- Update any units, then click Save when finished.
- Process payments for any outstanding balance as usual. ou see question marks appear, it means there has been a change to more than just the date/time. The product and/or pricing may be different from the original.
Cancel a booking
A full cancellation means the entire booking is cancelled. You will be prompted to apply cancellation fees if you cancel the full booking. If you only want to cancel some people on a booking, use the split booking function.
- Open the booking and click Edit.
- In the Status drop-down, select Cancel, then Save the booking
- You will be prompted to choose a cancellation reason, fees are calculated based on reason.
- If a cancellation fee is applied, IBIS will work out the outstanding amount to refund the customer.
- If it is an agent booking and you are sending the customer back to the agent for their refund, then you need to Clear the posting under the Functions button.
A reservation that has no cancellation fee will go to status Cancelled, whereas a reservation that has a cancellation fee and therefore retains some financial value will go to status No service.
Split a booking
You can use the split booking function to manage scenarios where you want to partially cancel a booking, move some people to a different product or departure time or just move some customers to a different booking.
- Open the booking in the Booking screen
- Click Edit, then Functions and choose Split booking
- In the Split booking popup, enter the number of people to split in New units for all options listed, then click OK
- Click OK on the confirmation prompt and your new booking will be created.
Once a booking is split, you may need to transfer payments to the new booking. Choose a scenario that fits your situation:
Direct booking that has been paid |
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Agent booking posted to invoice |
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Link bookings using a customer file
- Open the customer's previous booking in the Booking screen.
- Click Edit, then click Availability.
- Choose the date and the product and click OK.
- When the Booking action window pops up as shown below, tick Add to current customer file.
- Click OK.
- The booking will now be one of several linked bookings and you can navigate through the customer's bookings by clicking the left and right green buttons. On the example below the booking is the first one of 24 within the customer file.
Charter bookings
- From the Departures screen, tick the Charters box on the availability tab. A list of charter products will show at the bottom of the other departures.
- Double-click the charter row to start the booking process
- When prompted, enter the date, time, places required and a note if required, then click Create charter service.
Set the number of places available for the charter to the max number of places available. This way, if your numbers fluctuate on the charter booking, you do not have to keep adjusting the max places on the charter service in Specific availability.
- Complete the booking as normal, selecting the appropriate options as required.
- Once created, the Charter service will show in the Specific availability screen – the note entered in the popup shows on the Service column as a flyover. Your Charter departure will also show in the Availability tab of the Departures screen so you can see on a specific day when a charter has been booked.
Copy bookings (series bookings)
You can copy an existing booking across a date range. This is useful to manage series tour bookings or even allocations if you combo your products with other operators.
- Create a booking that you wish to copy in the Booking screen.
- Open the Series booking screen and enter the Booking ID, then click Load.
- The booking information will appear on the screen. You can update any information you want to copy across to new bookings.
- Select from the available times and required days you want to copy too.
- Set the start and end date you wish to copy bookings from, then click Generate templates.
- The pending bookings will show at the bottom of the screen. Any bookings with the process box ticked (by default) will be generated into a booking when the Make bookings button is clicked.
Series bookings will retain the pricing from the original booking. To ensure pricing is correct, ensure series bookings are not copied across seasonal price changes.
Check-in bookings
The check-in process described below is referred to as "simple" check-in. If you want your customers to fill out and sign a waiver, please look at our Check-in module.
- Open the Departures screen and choose the Check-in tab
- Select the service you are checking in from the list of services (note the service must have the check-in tick box enabled to show in this list).
- A list of passengers awaiting check-in will show
- Select the customer row and click Check-in to update the booking status. If the booking has an outstanding balance, users will be prompted to go to POS to complete payment.
The auto settle function on the bottom of the Check-in tab will post 'agent all' bookings to invoice in bulk to clear outstanding balances. You can amend the values after check-in.
- Ensure all required fields are completed, then click Check-in.
- To make any changes to the booking, click Edit booking.
Not seeing your service in the Check-in list? Ensure you have the check-in setting enabled in the Services screen.
End of day processes
To ensure your reservation system is balancing, follow these steps:
- Check the Departures screen tab and search for any Outstanding bookings. All bookings should be posted to invoice or have payment processed through POS before the close of business unless there is a valid reason (e.g. waiting for a customer to come in for a refund). Ensure you have a private note on the booking to explain any outstanding bookings so your Accounts administrator is not left wondering.
- Follow the end of day cash up process outlined for Point of sale.
- It's good practice to print a copy of any manifests for the following day in case of a power outage in the morning.