Using the Hospitality pack beside booking sites
How the Hospitality pack works next to booking sites and a property system it does not connect to, without double entry or double booking.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Hospitality businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
A guesthouse in the Winelands, a lodge outside Nanyuki, a boutique hotel in Lekki: most of them take bookings from several directions at once. Some guests book through the big booking sites, some through the property's own website, some by phone or e-mail, and a few walk in. Behind the scenes there is often a property-management system holding the room calendar, and perhaps a channel manager pushing availability out to the sites.
The Hospitality pack in Achekam's Industry CRM is built to sit alongside that set-up, not replace it. This article explains what the pack does and does not do, how bookings from booking sites get into it, how to avoid entering things twice or selling a room twice, and a daily routine that keeps everything in step.
What the pack is, and what it is not
The Hospitality & hotels pack calls customers Guests and keeps Reservations, with their guests and stay dates, and Event enquiries. A reservation moves from Enquiry to Provisional, Confirmed, In house and Checked out, or is Cancelled with a reason.
Around those records, the pack sends a booking confirmation and a pre-arrival form, and can have booking terms signed electronically for groups and long stays. After check-out it settles the bill, sends a thank-you e-mail and a short feedback form, and notes the guest's preferences for the next stay.
What it is not matters just as much. The pack is not a property-management system or a channel manager. It does not check room availability, and bookings made on booking sites are entered by staff. Restaurant and bar sales are rung up at the till, not in the pack.
In short: the pack holds the relationship with each guest and the paperwork around their stay. Your room calendar stays where it is.
Getting booking-site reservations into the pack
Because nothing connects the pack to the booking sites, someone on the team enters each booking-site reservation by hand. Make that a defined job with a defined moment, not something done when there is a gap.
When entering one:
- Create or find the guest. Search first, so a returning guest is not created twice; their preferences from the last stay are on their record.
- Create the reservation with the guests and stay dates exactly as the site shows them.
- Set the stage. A booking-site reservation usually arrives already confirmed, so it goes straight to Confirmed rather than through Enquiry and Provisional.
- Record the site and its booking reference on the reservation, so anyone can find the original booking quickly.
The pack's confirmation and pre-arrival form follow from the reservation. Guests booked through a site will also receive the site's own messages, so word your confirmation so the two read well together, and so the pre-arrival form is clearly from the property itself.
Avoiding double entry and double booking
Two separate risks sit here, and they have different answers.
Double entry is the same booking entered twice, or entered in the pack and forgotten in the property system. The cure is one owner: one role enters booking-site reservations into the pack, from one list, at set times each day, and ticks each one off.
Double booking is the same room sold twice for the same night. The pack cannot prevent it, because it does not check availability. That protection stays with your property-management system or channel manager. So the rule for a direct booking taken by phone or e-mail is simple: check availability and block the room in the system that holds the calendar first, then create the reservation in the pack.
Cancellations and changes need the same care. When a site cancels or changes a booking, update the property system first, then move the reservation in the pack to Cancelled, with the reason, or amend its dates.
Where room availability lives
Room availability, rates by night and occupancy all live in your property-management system, channel manager or the booking sites' own extranets. Keep reporting on them there too. Investopedia's explanation of RevPAR shows how revenue per available room is calculated from average daily rate and occupancy, and how hotels use it to measure performance; those inputs come from the system that holds the calendar.
What the pack adds is the guest side: who is coming, what they have signed, what they told you before arrival and what they liked last time. Its home-page counts come from records, tasks or the ledger, and none is typed in by hand, so they reflect the reservations your team has actually entered.
A daily routine for reservations staff
| Time | Task |
|---|---|
| Start of day | Pull new and changed booking-site reservations; enter or amend them in the pack |
| Morning | Check today's arrivals have returned their pre-arrival forms |
| Arrivals | Move each arriving reservation to In house |
| Departures | Move to Checked out; the pack settles the bill and sends the thank-you e-mail and feedback form |
| End of day | Compare tomorrow's arrivals in the property system with the pack; resolve any gap |
A worked example in words: overnight, a booking site sends two new bookings and one cancellation. At the start of the day the reservations clerk checks the property system, which the channel manager has already updated, then enters the two bookings in the pack as Confirmed with their site references, and moves the cancelled one to Cancelled with the site's reason. Before going home she compares tomorrow's arrivals in both systems, and they match.
How a reservation moves from first enquiry to check-out is covered in the reservation pipeline, and the forms and terms sent before arrival in pre-arrival forms and group terms.
The pack works best when everyone knows which system answers which question. Let the property system own the rooms, let the pack own the guest relationship, and give one person the daily job of keeping the two in step.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
