Based on data from its sister company’s directory (Destination Nexus) Reservation Nexus bills itself as the most popular and most used all-in-one reservation system for US bed and breakfasts and inns. With all due respect, data from a sister company (only), and excluding data from much larger directories, makes that conclusion just a little suspicious. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that ResNexus is one of the top reservation systems, both in popularity and in features.

Because of its popularity, the apparently large set of features, and its effort to position itself as the top reservation system available, we were eager to give it a try at our Freeport Maine Bed & Breakfast. Since one of the claims made by ResNexus amounts to a claim that you will get more online bookings than with other systems, we decided to go ahead with a full month’s trial, rather than just a brief demo of the product. That also allowed us to more fully explore its features, and to take advantage of its advertised “Red Carpet Service.”

Overview

Like many modern reservation systems, ResNexus is a web-based system. Most of these fall short, either because they don’t attempt to be a full-fledged property management system, or because they have not implemented a full-feature set as is found on more complete systems. That is not the case with ResNexus. Virtually every feature provided by the best systems has been implemented in ResNexus, and new features continue to be added. That said, there are still occasional perplexing design choices that make you wonder what the developers were thinking, and the pricing structure leaves something to be desired.

User Interface

Most of the user interface (web pages) seems to have a logical flow, and is relatively easy to navigate, so while the comments may seem negative, it is because most of the user interaction is so good that the rough spots are particularly jarring. In evaluating the user interface, we consider the layout of the screens (here, web pages), ease of navigating the program, ease of entering or modifying guest information and reservations, the usability of “snapshot” or calendar views of bookings, and the availability of sorted and filtered lists of guests (for marketing purposes).

The “go to” page is the calendar view, which is accessed in ResNexus by clicking on the Reservations menu item. By default the calendar displays 45 days, but can be configured to show 30, 45, 60 or 90 days. To move forward or back, you click on the month (or year) you want to view.

One curious design issue arises near the end of each month. In the default (45 day) view, with about 5 days or fewer left in the month, you see the last few days of the month, the next full month, and the first few days of the following month. However, if you need to see an entry from just a few days earlier (where, for example, the date is the 28th, you see the 28th through 31st, all of next month, and the first several days of the following month, but you want to see something from the 25th of the current month), it is not as easy as you might think. If you click the current month, you get the same view you have before clicking. If you click the earlier month, you’ll see all of that month, plus the first few (perhaps 15) days of the current month, but you can not view the 25th. The solution is to change the display to show 60 days, but that is hardly a rational approach. If a 45 day view is an option, the system should work properly without changing the settings. You can also check to box marked “Show all days”, but again, this is not intuitive.

The calendar nicely displays single letter day-of-the-week designations, and marks minimum stay requirements by putting the minimum number of days in red above and below the days of the month to which they apply. Color-coded marks show the status of a room, though we had trouble finding a legend to explain them. Orange “X” marks indicate blocked rooms, a green “+” is booked offline (entered by the innkeeper) and a blue “+” is an online booking. An arrow pointing down indicates a checked-in guest, pointing up it means a checked-out guest, and a $ indicates payment. A great feature is that the checkbox for the room and date is highlighted in pink if an online guest is in the process of booking that room and night. This is a great way to help avoid double bookings!

ResNexus allows you to import a spreadsheet of guest information, so you can have some historical data, though, like most such systems, the import ability is limited to names and contact info, without historical reservation data. You can create guest lists, for mailing, email, or informational purposes, though it may take some trial-and-error to get the information you want.

Rate Capabilities

Booking systems should allow for different rates for each room, seasonal rates, specials or discounts, packages, additional items to add to a reservation, and have a way of handling bookings for multiple rooms, such as a group booking. If larger properties are also to use the booking system, the group booking capability becomes even more significant, and there should also be the ability to create rates by room type.

ResNexus provides for setting up individual rooms, and most settings seem geared to that model. However, you can also set up “Classes” of rooms, so that all rooms of a particular class can be viewed together.

ResNexus also allows for adding packages (from the website, it appears that this may be only a feature of the “Auto-Pilot” version, rather than the “Classic” version) as well as upselling items (items are all designated as “Retail”). One problem we encountered was that our packages usually involve booking multiple nights in particular rooms, plus several add-on (Retail) items, with some rates adjusted so that the package price is predefined. Currently ResNexus can only do parts of this setup. We could set up a package so that all rooms could be booked, with appropriate add-ons and number of nights, but then the price is the same across all rooms, unless you use the default room rate. An alternative was to price each room individually for the package, but then we could no longer enforce a multiple night stay for the package.

Guest Communications

Modern booking systems allow for a number of guest communications to be sent from within the system – usually as emails. The most common are confirmation emails, cancellation confirmations, reminder and follow-up emails, invoices, and marketing emails. We feel that all these items, with the possible exception of marketing emails (due to the common use of stand-alone email marketing programs, such as Constant Contact and others), are sufficiently important that they should be included in the booking system.

ResNexus offers a Classic package, and, for an additional monthly fee, an Auto-Pilot package. Manual emails (which are customizable) are available with the Classic package, while automated emails are available only with Auto-Pilot.

While we understand there is some additional cost in handling the automated emails, most of the products which compete with ResNexus offer at least automated reminder and follow-up emails at a lower price than ResNexus. ResNexus (Auto-Pilot) also offers marketing emails based around birthdays and anniversaries, monthly newsletters, etc.

Reports

To evaluate performance, properly report taxes, and track marketing results, reports are a key source of information for the innkeeper. Different booking systems provide for different numbers and types of reports. Of course, if the system doesn’t capture the information in the first instance, it will never be able to report on it. At a minimum, a booking system should be able to generate reports of reservations for the coming month/day/week/year, revenue for specified periods of time, occupancy (total and by room) for specific periods of time, and revenue by date (and by room). Many innkeepers also require reports of gift certificates sold or redeemed, housekeeping issues, and additional financial reports, such as taxes collected.

ResNexus offers a large array of reports, covering most areas an innkeeper would expect or desire. Sometimes the data presented is not intuitive from the names, so exploring the reports is definitely recommended, but you are very likely to find what you are seeking. We would like to see the reports, especially the financial reports, be exportable to a spreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org’s Calc), so you can do your own analysis on the figures, but many innkeepers would be quite happy with the default reports.

Accounting

Most booking systems provide some way to use the revenue data in an accounting or bookkeeping system, such as Quickbooks or Peachtree. In a few cases, the revenue data is directly linked to the bookkeeping product, but most booking systems export the data to a file, which can be imported into the bookkeeping software.

ResNexus says that their financial data can be posted automatically to Quickbooks if you use Authorize.net to accept online credit card payments, and if the processor will provide the Quickbooks integration. That’s a fancy way of saying that your bank or credit card processor may provide the integration, but ResNexus doesn’t provide it from within the reservation system. There also does not appear to be a way to export the data from ResNexus to be used either in Quickbooks or in a spreadsheet.

Online Booking

Modern web-based booking systems generally provide their own online booking interface, and rarely interact with other online booking systems (such as Webervations or Availability Online). By contrast, most stand-alone guest management systems will interact with third-party online booking systems, even if they provide their own online booking module as an option. A significant drawback to not interacting with other systems is that the property is precluded from taking advantage of group booking and availability opportunities, unless they pay an additional fee for a second system.

The default setup for ResNexus is to place a booking button on your website, linking to pages on the ResNexus site, which have been colored to follow the colors of your website. While the colors are true to your site, the look and feel is quite different. Nevertheless, these pages are very useful, showing photos of each room (whether available or not, designating the occupied rooms for the date selected as “Occupied!”). While ResNexus feels that linking to booking button to their pages is the most effective way to use the system, it is possible to set up a JavaScript calendar on your page and pass the date information to ResNexus.

The online booking aspect of ResNexus creates only a confirmed booking, so some innkeepers may be disappointed if they would prefer a request for a reservation, instead.

Pricing

ResNexus pricing is based on the number of rooms, per month, with a discount for annual prepayment, and they do offer discounts for referring other customers. For the Classic edition, a 7 room B&B would pay $85 per month, or $850 per year. If you need automated reminder and thank-you emails (and the other automated marketing emails) that come with the Auto-Pilot edition, a 7 room B&B must add another $40 per month or $400 per year, for a total of $125 per month or $1250 per year (based on the prices on the ResNexus website at the time of this writing).

Additional Features

One of ResNexus’ distinctives is their Red Carpet Service. They aren’t kidding. They helped with a walkthrough of major features, they set up the look and feel of the online booking pages, they set up most of the room information and pictures, and more. This really jump-starts the transition process for an innkeeper. As time went on, they called regularly to teach, give advice, answer questions, and just to see that the system was working for us. Frankly, they spent so much time with us that we had to wonder how they will handle it if they continue to grow, as they will clearly need more well-trained staff to handle the volume of support and setup duties.

ResNexus offers a return on investment guarantee, that you will receive enough reservations between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. (your time) to pay for itself each year. That’s an impressive guarantee. While ResNexus doesn’t say this directly, the implication is that you’ll get more online reservations with ResNexus than you were getting with something else. We put the ResNexus booking button on our site, but also left another link to our old online booking engine, just as a comparison. We did receive a good number of bookings from the ResNexus button, but we received just as many from our old system during the same time. Most likely those would have used the ResNexus booking button if there had only been one choice. During the month of our test, we received more bookings than the previous year, but we also had more site visitors than the previous year. The increase in bookings was in proportion to the increase in visitors, so while we do not mean to say that the ResNexus guarantee isn’t valuable – it looks like it is very valuable – don’t expect miracles, either.

ResNexus also provides “True Seamless GDS” for those who want GDS connectivity. Rates are competitive, with a setup fee, monthly fees, but no commission payable to ResNexus other than a flat $15. Reservations made through third parties (like travel agents) who charge a commission, also result in commission charges.

Final Thoughts

Most all of our impressions of ResNexus are positive. It is a very comprehensive product, but not without a few speedbumps in the useability area. For the most part, it offers everything an innkeeper needs, and more. Our biggest stumbling block is the price. While ResNexus is far more expensive than less complete products, such as those that provide online booking only, because of adding almost 50% to the cost just for automated emails, it is also more expensive than competitive products like RezOvation GT, which provides comparable features.

If you can live without Quickbooks integration, or if your bank or credit card processor provides it, this is an excellent system, although we think it would be a better value if the reminder and thank you emails were automated and included in the Classic edition at the current price.

There is no question that, when it comes to managing guest reservations and bookings, one size does not fit all. Most systems provide an evaluation copy of the software, or a free trial account. We strongly urge anyone considering purchasing a booking system to evaluate several different products before making a decision.

Book At Once provides a powerful and innovative approach to their software for managing bed and breakfasts and other small lodging properties. For many, their power and innovation will be very attractive – especially in the free version. For others, it just may not be their cup of tea.

Overview

Book at Once is a German booking system, reaching out to become a worldwide provider, and particularly to reach the American, market. Book at Once has also become a vendor member of PAII, as part of its efforts to reach out to the US and international innkeeping market.

One of the most interesting aspects of their product is that it is priced according to the features you select. The basic system is free, and that could be powerful enough for some properties. If not, additional feature bundles can be added for a monthly fee per room, or Book at Once can tailor a bundle to your needs and price it according to the features selected. Pricing for the product is given in Euros per room per month (easily converted to US Dollars or other currency), on the basis of a two year contract. We were given a full system for the review, so if you were to purchase a different option, your features may be different.

The technical design of Book at Once makes it an enormously powerful system – so much so that as you use the system you are left with the feeling that it can do even more than you can see. That leaves great possibilities for future growth.

User Interface

Book At Once Dashboard

In evaluating the user interface, we consider the layout of the screens (or web pages), ease of navigating the program, ease of entering (or changing) booking or guest information, the usability of “snapshot” or calendar views of bookings, and availability of sorted and filtered guest lists (for marketing purposes).

Book at Once opens from a web page with a dashboard that opens in a new window (above). There are icons to take you directly to the Reservation Board, to make a Reservation Request, etc., or you can click on the Book at Once start button (at the lower left corner of the dashboard) to find a more complete menu of available tasks.

The simplest way to create a booking is to click the Reservation Request icon from the dashboard. The process is a bit different than other systems, as you first select dates for the booking, then search for availability. The results show room types available, rather than rooms.

We should note that the setup, which is done via a wizard, prompts you to create room types (such as Standard Room, Suite, etc.), then to create individual rooms, assigning them to room types. If you want to create separate rates for each room, you simply create each room as a room type, then each type would have only one room. This would then allow availability to show the specific rooms available.

The consequence of using rate types rather than room types is particularly significant in Book at Once. If generic rate types are used, when a reservation is created, the room is selected by the system – the user selects the rate type, and any available room in that rate type is selected by Book at Once. Again, if you want to be able to select rooms individually, we would suggest creating a rate type for each room.

Next you select the available rate type and click “Book”. While it isn’t entirely clear on first glance, if you enter a name, city, or Customer ID, Book at Once will search for an existing guest to apply to the booking. If you are creating a new guest record, click the “Continue with New Customer” button.

A new window pops up (left), asking for the name and a few bits of information about the guest, then “OK” closes that window and opens a window (below right) where the rest of the guest information can be entered. We found the information to include items not commonly used in American B&B’s, such as passport information, and we thought it was not intuitive to have the contact info (phone numbers, email, etc.) on a separate tab from the name and address fields. When the required and optional information has been added, clicking on OK returns you to the screen where the rate type was selected, and the buttons say “Book” or “Cancel”. Since we weren’t sure whether the booking was complete at this point, we clicked Book, which put us back to the dates screen, then the rate types, guest information, etc. The result was a double booking.

Once the user becomes familiar with the sequence of entering information, this will probably not be a problem. Yet it seems like an unnecessary point of confusion for the new user, or a user who is interrupted while completing the reservation.

Book At Once Reservation Board

Reservations can be most easily edited by double-clicking on the reservation from the Reservation Board. This brings up the same screens as during the creation of a new reservation, where the information can be changed. If the optional Reservation Board Deluxe module is purchased, changes to the date of a booking can be made by dragging the reservation to a new date. Similarly, rooms may be changed in the same way.
Rate Capabilities

Booking systems should allow for different rates for each room, seasonal rates, specials or discounts, packages, additional items to add to a reservation, and have a way of handling bookings for multiple rooms, such as a group booking. If larger properties are also to use the booking system, the group booking capability becomes even more significant, and there should also be the ability to create rates by room type.

As has already been discussed, Book at Once is based on rate types or room types, rather than on individual rooms with their own rates. Setting up each room as a room type and rate type may be a bit more cumbersome at the setup time, but it will pay off with the desired flexibility for those who want individual room rates and availability.

Guest Communications

Modern booking systems allow for a number of guest communications to be sent from within the system – usually as emails. The most common are confirmation emails, cancellation confirmations, reminder and follow-up emails, invoices, and marketing emails. We feel that all these items, with the possible exception of marketing emails (due to the common use of stand-alone email marketing programs, such as Constant Contact and others), are sufficiently important that they should be included in the booking system.

Book at Once does not include all these types of guest communications, but they do provide a template editor for confirmation emails and for invoices. To their credit, Book at Once includes these in the cost of the product.

Because of its international flavor, Book at Once also provides these documents in various languages, and you can create your own custom templates, as well. While there is a Reservation Confirmation button at the bottom of the screen for editing a reservation, when you click on it, it brings up a screen allowing you to select a template, and a delivery method (email, PDF or OpenOffice document – at least on our computer). Presumably you could define templates for other purposes, such as reminder or follow-up emails, cancellation emails, etc., and they could be sent merely by selecting the corresponding template.

Reports

To evaluate performance, properly report taxes, and track marketing results, reports are a key source of information for the innkeeper. Different booking systems provide for different numbers and types of reports. Of course, if the system doesn’t capture the information in the first instance, it will never be able to report on it. At a minimum, a booking system should be able to generate reports of reservations for the coming month/day/week/year, revenue for specified periods of time, occupancy (total and by room) for specific periods of time, and revenue by date (and by room). Many innkeepers also require reports of gift certificates sold or redeemed, housekeeping issues, and additional financial reports, such as taxes collected.

Book at Once offers reports based on Nationality, Revenue, Cash on Hand, Invoices, Payments and the ability to export a Customer List. The Customer List is exported as a comma separated file, suitable to be imported to a spreadsheet, with the ability to filter the search so that only specified customers are included. The other reports are created as PDF files.

Book At Once Financial Report

When we exported PDF reports we experienced mixed results. In the Revenue report (right) we saw the title of “Forecast”, with no data for Sales Tax. In the Invoices report, individual entries were for “External Tax” but there was no relation of the taxes to the invoices.

This brings up another concern about the way taxes are handled in Book at Once. Although the setup allows you to create your own taxes, which can be independent or cumulative, nowhere in the pricing, room definition or tax screens are you able to associate the tax with the product sold. The same applies for extras that may be sold as add-on items. In most American regions, there will at least be tax associated with the room, and perhaps another for additional items sold. In many cases there are additional layers of state, county and/or city taxes, which would be different for lodging than for other goods sold.

The object-oriented design of Book at Once makes it likely that it can be enhanced to provide very robust reporting, so, while the current reports are fairly superficial, we would hope that this will be an area slated for improvement.

Accounting

Most booking systems provide some way to use the revenue data in an accounting or bookkeeping system, such as Quickbooks or Peachtree. In a few cases, the revenue data is directly linked to the bookkeeping product, but most booking systems export the data to a file, which can be imported into the bookkeeping software.

We were not able to locate any means of exporting financial data for import into an accounting program. It may be possible to devise a search filter on the customer list export, so that the correct data is exported there. If so, with some additional data manipulation it may be possible to import that information into an accounting program. Data can be imported (with the correct modules installed) for use in a spreadsheet.

Online Booking

Modern web-based booking systems generally provide their own online booking interface, and rarely interact with other online booking systems (such as Webervations or Availability Online). By contrast, most stand-alone guest management systems will interact with third-party online booking systems, even if they provide their own online booking module as an option. A significant drawback to not interacting with other systems is that the property is precluded from taking advantage of group booking and availability opportunities, unless they pay an additional fee for a second system.

For example, BBOnline.com shows availability (using Webervations) for all properties in a locality who use Webervations. If a property uses another system, their availability will not appear on BBOnline.com unless they purchase a subscription to Webervations, and keep it up-to-date, as well as their own booking system.

Book At Once Online Booking Widget

Like most web-based booking systems, Book at Once has its own online booking widget (in fact, when we first tested it, it had three varieties of widgets – as of this writing we were not able to verify whether or not this was still the case), that can be embedded in the property’s web pages. From the administrative pages, the system provides code that can be cut and pasted into a web page, creating a booking request widget.

We walked through the Booking Widget to get a feel for the process. Like many, the widget itself asks the date and number of nights, then pops up a new screen where additional information is requested to complete the booking.

The new screen provides a list of available room types and rates, and the user clicks the “Book” button next to the one they want. This must be confirmed twice, then personal contact information is to be supplied. Finally credit card information is requested. In the set up process, this can be made mandatory.

While a few systems allow for the submission from the web to create a request for a booking, allowing the innkeeper to decide whether they want to accept the request, most create a confirmed booking. Book at Once follows the majority, in creating a confirmed reservation.

Book at Once also offers a separate Online Booking Wizard, which can be incorporated into a web site, or even into a Facebook page. The charge for this wizard is by transaction, at 0.95 Euros per transaction.

Additional Features

Book At Once iPhone app

Book At Once is also keenly aware of the power of social media and mobile applications. Consequently, they not only have an active Facebook page and Twitter account, but they also provide a Facebook app that allows you to take reservations from your Facebook page. They also have an iPhone app that allows you to manage your bookings, and indeed your Book At Once system, from the palm of your hand. The iPhone app is available via the iTunes store for US $9.99.

Pricing

Somewhat unusual for online booking systems, Book at Once offers a free basic system. Using only the free components would leave you with online availability, but only email requests for reservations can be accepted. There are also limits on how the program works, limits on some of the pricing capabilities, invoicing capabilities, and reporting capabilities. Each of these (and a few others) can be added as individual modules, each priced on a per month, per room, basis.

Your preferences will dictate the package you would purchase. Book at Once says their Plus package is the most popular, while we feel most properties would want either the Plus or the Premium package. If a seven room B&B was to purchase the Plus package, the price would be 2.50 Euros per room per month (about $23.07 per month or $277 per year, at current exchange rates). The Premium package would be 3.50 Euros per room per month (about $32.30 per month or $388 per year).

Final Thoughts

While using Book at Once we were continuously conscious of a feeling that this should be easier to use than it seemed. We read through much of the help documentation (the Book at Once folks have done a great job of translating the program and the documentation into English – while there are occasional locations where German can be glimpsed, for the most part the entire site appears to have been translated), but still found several things that were not explained. These include items discussed above, such as applying taxes to room rates and different tax rates to add-on items, setting up individual room rates, etc., and whether or not emails can be sent automatically, or whether they can only be sent manually.

The features and prices for Book at Once are not out of line with competing products. However, we have some concern about the way some aspects of the program are currently implemented. We would like to see a smoother flow of data entry in creating a new booking, and much more robust reporting. We also think that some capabilities, like sending emails beyond the simple confirmation email should be simpler to set up and implement. Some properties may also want to see the ability to export financial data for commonly used accounting programs.

There is no question that, when it comes to managing guest reservations and bookings, one size does not fit all. Most systems provide an evaluation copy of the software, or a free trial account. We strongly urge anyone considering purchasing a booking system to evaluate several different products before making a decision.

A few months ago we wrote about the importance of tracking the sources of reservations, and mentioned that we would be testing the Intell-A-Keeper software available from Acorn Internet Services. While the high season bookings will get busier in the coming weeks, we thought it was time for an update on that process.

Our Prior Tracking Method

Before using IAK we would track our reservations by asking guests (via an online form for online bookings, or directly if over the phone) where they had located Brewster House Bed & Breakfast. We tracked those results in a spreadsheet each year, so we could compare year-over-year changes. We also used Google Analytics to determine hits on our website, and the sources of the traffic, and configured Goals so we could attempt to track the source of bookings.

In general, we knew that guest responses were not reliable, but without a better tracking mechanism, were not able to determine which were valid. Using Google Analytics only partially helped in this regard, as we could get a booking, then not be able to determine how the guest came to our site. This is largely because Google Analytics tracks only the last referer (yes, the correct spelling is misspelled – go figure) – the last source before coming to our site.

To attempt to do better, we talked with Acorn and installed Intell-A-Keeper.

Setting up Intell-A-Keeper

Set up is not difficult. You must have access to your web pages via an FTP account (unless you host your site with Acorn), and they will also need access to your Pay Per Click accounts, if you have any. For anything else you want to track, such as your online booking system (of course!) and any online directories to which you subscribe, Acorn will need login information so they can update the link to your website, and, in the case of your booking system, they will add some tracking code so that bookings and their sources will be properly tracked.

Once the setup is completed, bookings will be tracked in the IAK system (in addition to anything else you may be using).

What happens when you get a booking

After IAK is installed, when you get an online booking you receive an email from Acorn, showing the various places the guest visited in searching for your property. Often the results will show that they visited several sites – from search engines to directories – before booking with you. This is one of the great strengths of IAK – you know more than just the last place they visited before booking with you.

What about bookings over the telephone? There is a clever solution to that problem, and one that usually results in good information to verify (or correct) the information provided by the guest. When you take a booking over the telephone, if you send an email confirmation, you put a link in the email to a special page on your website, asking the guest to click the link to confirm their receipt of the confirmation. When they click the link, the same browsing information is transmitted as when they book online, and the property receives an email detailing the guest’s searches before the booking.

Analyzing the information

Because most guests visit several sites before committing to a booking, IAK gives a portion of the credit to each site that led to the booking. This usually results in a much better understanding of which referral sources are actually sending guests your way.

After signing up for IAK, you have a login to a reporting page at intellakeeper.com, where you can select reports on referrals, search terms, entry pages, reservation types (email confirmation, online booking or website confirmation button), history (bookings by date and time), unknown visitors and query strings (the queries used to locate your property and book – including your own tracking query strings).

The Referrals report (left) shows the referring sites, the number of bookings the site participated in sending, and the percent of the total bookings that represents. You can drill down to see the search terms used from that site, the entry page to your site, and other details from that site.

You’ll notice that the bookings are fractions, such as google.com being responsible for 16.68 bookings. This means that, to some degree, google.com participated in 16.68 bookings, but it was not the sole referer in all of them (or else there would be no fractional amount).

The History report also allows you to obtain the details of an individual booking. This is, in a slightly easier-to-read format, the same information that comes in the email after a booking.

Comparing the IAK results to Google Analytics in determining the source of bookings hardly seems fair. With Google Analytics, if you examine the reports shortly after a booking, and if your Goals are properly configured and your online booking system is configured to properly report on bookings, you may be able to determine the source of the booking. If many bookings have occurred, or much time has elapsed, finding only the last source to refer the visitor is an educated guess, at best. IAK not only shows several sources (we have seen as many as 23 referral sources, but the average seems to be between 2 and 5 sources), but you can verify a specific source for an individual booking.

IAK isn’t always able to identify all possible sources, but it is far more accurate than either guest information or Google Analytics. One area where IAK can not provide accurate information are where the booking occurs more than 30 days after the search for lodging. In that case the “cookie” file that IAK relies upon may have expired and been deleted, so any sources prior to that time will not be recorded. Another problem occurs when the guest calls to book, but confirms the reservation by clicking on the email link from a different computer (such as a work computer), so that the cookie information simply isn’t present. Even with these limitations, the ability, in the significant majority of cases, to supply detailed information on multiple referral sources makes it a very valuable tool, indeed.

Final thoughts

One thing we want to make very clear is that we are not suggesting dropping Google Analytics for IAK. Google Analytics provides a huge amount of valuable information. However, it is not really adequate for determining the sources of bookings. Neither its Goals nor its e-commerce settings adequately give credit to the various sources of a booking. IAK beats it in that department, hands down.

In order to accurately determine ROI for your referral sources (such as directories, etc.), you must be able to pinpoint where your bookings come from. While IAK isn’t perfect, it provides great detail on the sources of bookings, and arms the innkeeper to make a much better decision than relying on guest information or Google Analytics for booking source information.

Some innkeepers frequently question the value of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, as being too time-consuming, all entertainment, annoying, or simply not producing any return on the time invested. We recently came across an idea from a large hotel chain that many bed and breakfasts can put to work immediately.

A hotel marketing newsletter mentioned recently that a large chain had added booking capability to its Facebook fan page. That triggered a memory that we had seen articles on customizing your Facebook fan page, but had never really pursued it, as the changes we were thinking about would have taken more time than we were willing to devote to the effort. Digging up the article, we put together the idea, and with a bit of cut-and-paste, had a working booking and availability app on our Facebook fan page in under 30 minutes. If your online booking source allows you to integrate the availability form into web pages, you can have on on your Facebook fan page, too. We’ll show you the step-by-step process, no programming needed!

The ‘How To’ Section

First of all, this will work with any online booking system that allows you to embed a form into a web page for checking availability and booking. Webervations is an example of one that does allow this, and we will use it as the example, since that’s what we used to create ours. If you’re not sure if you online booking service allows that, check their website (the internal site, where you go after logging in) or contact their support. In the case of Webervations (we’re not promoting Webervations, or anyone else, but since they do allow you to embed the form in web pages, it works for this purpose), the have a page with the exact code to cut and paste, located at Configuration -> Web Page Setup, then click on the link that says “To add a search form to webpages…”.

A word of caution – you can only add this type of custom application to Facebook fan pages (i.e., business pages). If you created a personal page for your business (you do know that violates Facebook’s Terms of Service, don’t you?), you will not be able to do this.

Now to create the custom app for your Facebook page…

1. On your Facebook fan page, click the Edit Page link, just below your large profile picture.

2. Under Applications, scroll down to More Applications, then click the Browse More link. In the Search Apps box, type “FBML” (without the quotes). Click Static FBML. On the next page click Add to My Page.

3. Go back to your fan page, and again click Edit Page.

4. Find the Static FBML application and click Edit.

5. Enter the name you want to appear in the Box Title field (we used “Book Your Visit” but you can call it anything you like).

6. Copy the code from your online booking form and paste it into the large FBML field. Just a suggestion: if the code from your online booking provider starts with “<form” you will probably want to add “<div>” before it starts and “</div>” (all without the quotes) at the very end.

Update: One other word of caution. The default code on the Webervations site includes a JavaScript that must be run when the page it is on first loads. That won’t work on Facebook pages, so if you’re copying and pasting, copy from <FORM all the way to </form>, then put <div style=”width:180px;”> before the <FORM and put </div> after the </form>. Don’t forget to change the “memberid” value to your member ID.

7. If you want the new custom app to appear in the left sidebar (the narrow left column) on your page, set the width to 180 pixels. To do that, where you have the “<div>” at the beginning of the FBML field, change it to read ‘<div style=”width:180px;”>’. In this example, the single quotes before <div and after > are not typed, the double quotes are mandatory.

8. When you have finished editing the FBML field, click Save Changes.

9. On your main Facebook fan page, click Edit Page (again!).

10. Find the new application – it will be called whatever you entered into the Box Title field plus FBML (ours is “Book Your Visit – FBML”). Click Application Settings.

11. Make sure “Box” is “Added” and “Tab” is “Added”, then click Okay.

12. On the Wall tab of your Facebook fan page, click on the Boxes tab. To add the new application to the left column of your page, find the new FBML box entry, and click the little pencil icon in the upper right corner. Then select “Move to Wall Tab”.

When you view your page now, you should see the new application in the left column. If you like, you can drag it to a new position, higher or lower than other items in that column (except for the items that Facebook won’t let you move).

Congratulations! Now Facebook can start helping you with your bookings!

After attending the PAII conference in Austin, Texas in early March, we’ve been on a long road trip to see family and take care of some personal issues. In the course of those travels an interesting lesson arose for all of us.

We were driving down the Interstate, with an approximate idea of our destination, and wanted to find a bed and breakfast for the night. However, our actual destination was a local attraction, with the area B&B’s scattered among a number of nearby small towns. Because this was short notice, we needed to find a B&B that would show its availability online, as it wasn’t feasible to drive from town to town, and sometimes in rural areas, just to see if we could find a room. An added problem was that, if we couldn’t find one, the hotels were all in the same small towns, or in a larger city about 20 miles away.

Searching for a B&B

Turning to our trusty smartphone, we searched for bed and breakfasts near the attraction. That brought up a list of properties and the usual collection of reviews, websites, photos and other information. Only a couple of the B&B’s looked inviting, so we selected the one that most appealed to us, and checked its website.

That’s when the fun began. The rates were reasonable, and the rooms attractive. However, there was no online availability or online booking. The only way to book a room was to call. In addition, the policies were contained in a pdf file, which my browser of choice doesn’t open nicely.  By comparison, the others had policies in web pages, but none that we were interested in had online availability or booking capability.

So what happened? We didn’t want to call the B&B during breakfast hours, of course, so we waited until we were farther down the road and it was later in the day. By then, we weren’t sure we’d be there by check-in time. Oh, yes, did I mention the check-in time? The policies (after I downloaded and opened the pdf file) included the statement (not listed on the website) that check-in time was at 4 p.m. Not from 4 until some later time, not starting at 4, but at 4 p.m. Eventually we realized that we wouldn’t make it until at least 6-7 p.m., and while the innkeepers indicated that you could arrange a late arrival (!), they suggested you not arrive after dark. Consequently, we found other accommodations, and the B&B lost a guest.

The Barriers to Booking

This property had put up at least two barriers to prevent a guest from staying with them, in addition to the “natural” barrier of being difficult to simply drive by when looking for a room. First, their lack of any online availability and booking information was probably enough to cost them the room. Had we been able to check availability we would have known if there was a room from the night before, and could have planned to arrive on time. Had there been online booking capability, we probably would have booked. Since those were not available, and our timing was not certain, this barrier prevented a room being sold.

The other barrier, in this case, was the check-in time. Perhaps the innkeepers didn’t intend for the check-in time to appear to be so limited, but that is how the policy was written. Putting the policy in a file that had to be downloaded to be viewed made it cumbersome, and if the policy is important, who could blame a guest for not knowing about it? But the real barrier was that the time appeared, at least, to be strictly limited to 4 p.m. When we realized we wouldn’t be there by that time, we simply made other arrangements.

All this has made us think, and I hope it does the same for you. Think about your policies and practices – not from your point of view, but from the point of view of someone trying to find a B&B. Have you created barriers to the guest’s ability to book a room? Have you made it more difficult for them to stay at your property? Is there anything you can do to remove the barriers (or relax the policies a bit) so the guest will find your property more appealing?

This week we attended the PAII Innkeeping Conference in Austin, Texas. Our first presentation was “How to Select Guest Management Software” on Tuesday afternoon (changed from its original time on Wednesday afternoon). Since it seemed that many were not aware of the schedule change, we wanted to make the slides available for viewing here.

During the presentation we also gave access to a Google Documents spreadsheet to help in comparing different Property Management Systems, and evaluating them according to your own priorities. The slide presentation explains how to use the spreadsheet, and we’ll describe it again, below the presentation, but if you only need the link to the spreadsheet to download it for your own use, you will find the Guest Management Software Comparison spreadsheet here.

Using the Spreadsheet

The first two columns breaks the features we will consider into several categories (User Interface, Online Bookings, Reports, etc.), and identifies the features within each category. The column titled “Importance” is a numeric value you define, setting a value from 1-10 (10 being highest) of the importance of the feature to YOU. The values in the spreadsheet are samples, only. Your values may differ. Also, you can add more features (or delete irrelevant features) by adding rows between two other rows (or deleting a row). However, if you make such changes, you may need to update the formulas which automatically calculate totals in various sections.

1. Read through all the features and edit the values in the Importance column to give relative importance of each feature to you.
2. Download a demo copy of the software you are considering (or sign up for an online evaluation of a web-based system), and try it out, paying specific attention to the features listed in your spreadsheet.
3. In the column under the product you are evaluating (next to the Importance column), enter a value from 0-10 representing your impression of the quality of the product’s implementation of that feature. Repeat for each feature.
4. If you are comparing more than one system, repeat steps 2 and 3 for each product.

In the top row of each feature category, there will be an automatically-calculated total for the product in that area. In the top row of the Score column will be a total for the entire product, across all feature areas.

The result will be a number you can use to compare one product against another (higher scores are better), using your own definitions of the importance of specific features. However, do not allow the appearance of objectivity in the numbers blind you to common sense. If your impression is that one product is better than another in a specific area, but the numbers do not bear this out, re-check your Importance entries, and your evaluation entries, as changes to either or both will greatly affect the calculation.

This spreadsheet is a tool, which we hope you find useful. However, it is no substitute for common sense and testing the systems for yourself.

If you try the spreadsheet, please let us know in the comments any feedback you have.

In our previous posts on this topic we discussed a basic approach to selecting guest management software and online booking software, and considerations affecting the choice of web-based systems versus locally installed systems. As promised, we’ll discuss some of the features you may want to consider, and ways of evaluating them.

Deciding what features you need

We’ll list a variety of features, grouped by category, but you should make your own list. Some of the features we think are important may not be important to your property, or you may have others that are very important, but that we haven’t considered. Just as properties differ, so do the features they want to see in the Property Management System.

If you click on the image of a spreadsheet at right, you’ll find a spreadsheet (in Google Documents) that you may view or download, with sample comparisons of a variety of features to consider. You’ll want to open a copy of the spreadsheet, either in your browser, or download it and open a local copy, so you can follow along (and make any changes you need).

We’ve separated the features into several categories, in an effort to reduce the effort at comparison. The categories we’ve selected are Rate Capabilities (types of rates, and rate attributes that you can set),  User Interface considerations, Guest Communications (confirmations, reminders, follow-up, etc.), Reports (pre-designed reports, custom reports, occupancy, financial, etc.), Accounting (export of accounting data, interface with accounting software), and Online Booking (whether incorporated into the Property Management System, or independent, whether it can be customized to fit with the property web site, update frequency, and items that can be displayed.

Within each category there are several features listed, most of which are commonly found in different Property Management Software. If there are any you feel are important, but are not listed in the spreadsheet, just add them in your own copy of the spreadsheet. The easiest way to do that will be to copy a row, then paste the copy below the original and make changes to the new row to represent the additional feature. You may need to check the cells where the totals are created, to be sure that they are including all the cells that are to be added.

Setting Priorities

The column called “Importance”  in the Google Docs version of the spreadsheet is a number between 0 and 10, where 0 would indicate that the feature is not needed at all, and 10 would be the highest importance.

Your first step should be to read down the list of features and adjust the numbers in the Importance column that are in the same row as the feature to a number representing that feature’s importance to your property and staff. NOTE: Do not change the numbers in the Importance column that are in the same row as the category name (for example, the Rate Capabilities category row has an entry in the Importance column – 460 in the default). That number is the total of the other entries in that category. As you make changes to the individual feature Importance values, the totals will change.

Comparing Apples to Apples

The spreadsheet has two sample (fictional, of course) PMS systems: Bubba’s Booking and Wanda’s Web Service. For each Property Management System you want to compare, you’ll add two columns, just like the samples. The left column is for the rating you will give that PMS for each feature, and the right column automatically multiplies that rating by the Importance factor to compute a score. The scores are added together for each category and the total score at the top is updated.

Repeat this for each PMS. That means, if you will be testing a lot of software, you’ll be tracking a lot of information!

Evaluating the Results

If all the copying and pasting has been successful, the spreadsheet will total everything up for you. The great temptation is to look at the numbers and let them make the decisions for you. However, the numbers are only as good as the values that you enter for Importance and for the scores. In other words, if you haven’t been realistic in setting Importance values, or if you have been biased in your scoring, the numbers will reflect these things, and you’ll get the results you would expect.

Consequently, it is up to you to set the Importance values and to score the features accurately. That way you’ll get the most realistic numerical totals, and can compare them.

As a practical matter, this tool, like any other, is only as good as the data put into it. If there are big differences between products, this will reveal them. If the differences are not so significant, however, judgment calls about the scoring and Importance factors will skew the results, so use them with a grain of salt!

In our previous article on selecting guest management software we talked about selecting online booking software, and how that choice can help to resolve questions about the property management software. This installment will talk more about the considerations in selecting the property management system, itself.

Since it is also possible that your consideration of online booking solutions has not narrowed the field for property managment software (perhaps because you are considering systems that “play nicely” with several online booking platforms), we will consider property management software regardless of the type of online booking software it supports. If your preferences have eliminated one or more of the options, you’ll be able to just skip along to the next section.

Online systems vs. installed systems

Speaking very broadly, property management systems for smaller properties fall into two camps: those installed on your computer, and those that exist on an internet server and are accessed via a web browser (usually Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or others).

It can be challenging to try to directly compare an online system with one installed on your PC, as there are some feature unique to one type, which the other doesn’t match well. On the other hand, there are features that should be available on either type.

Consequently, the first question to resolve is whether there is a reason to greatly prefer one type (online or installed) over the other. Stated in the negative, is there a valid reason to refuse to use one or the other?

The pros and cons are almost exactly opposite for the two types of systems. The benefits of the online systems are:

(a) they can be accessed from any location where you have an internet connection

(b) security of the data, and responsibility to backup the data, rests with the provider (not with the property owner)

(c) there is almost always a direct connection between the property management system and the online booking system, and

(d) there is rarely an up-front cost (sometimes there is a setup fee, but it is usually much less than the purchase fee of the installed software), but there are almost always significant monthly fees.

The disadvantages are:

(1) if you do not have an internet connection (for any reason at all), you can not view the bookings or availability information

(2) if the provider isn’t able to secure the system, or its backups fail, your data is lost (or worse, your guests’ data may be in the hands of a hacker), and

(3) you do not usually have a choice of online booking/availability systems.

For installed systems, the pros and cons are a mirror image of the online system. The benefits of the installed system are:

(a) you can view the bookings and availability even if your internet connection is unavailable (as long as your computer has power)

(b) you provide the security and backups for your guest data (for some innkeepers this is an advantage, while for others this would be a disadvantage), and

(c) you usually have a choice of online booking systems which will coordinate with your property management software, and

(d) there is often an up-front cost, and ongoing charges for support, but ordinarily no monthly fees (though some companies do have creative pricing strategies that bundle “free” software with monthly fees for additional products)

The disadvantages of the online system are:

(1) they can be difficult (or impossible) to access when you are away from your property (we’ll have more on how to make this work in another post)

(2) you must secure and backup the guest data, even if you aren’t comfortable with that responsibility, and

(3) many property management systems do not “play nicely” with all online booking systems.

In the past, most technical people, being comfortable with their own security and backup roles, would prefer to have an installed system. However, with the ability to access internet systems via mobile devices, including smart phones, an internet-based system becomes much more attractive. The biggest negative for those systems is the incompatibility with other online booking and/or availability systems.

This move to online systems is consistent with the push by Google, Microsoft, and others to what is known as “cloud computing” (storing documents and other data on remote servers, to make them accessible to other people and from remote locations). Like anything else, such technologies should not be blindly adopted because of their popularity, but only if they make sense for your business, considering security, convenience, guest privacy, legal restrictions, practical usage, and the way you conduct your business.

At least one installed system (RezOvation GT) performs remote backups of reservation data to its own remote server from your computer. They also seek to provide the best of both the installed and online systems, with a web-enabled version, as well as other means of providing remote access to your reservation system. This may be seen as an effort by an installed system vendor to avoid losing business to its online competition, or, as the company may say it, to offer properties more flexibility in managing reservations.

Unless you have a particular bias for — or against — either installed or online systems, you should consider the pros and cons of each, but withhold your decision until you consider the specific features (and costs) associated with particular products.

We’ll look at features and comparisons in the next installment.

Assuming you have decided to find a new Guest Management System, let’s look at the process of choosing from among the many products available.

The first step may not be the expected one, but looking at it first may save headaches later. Determine whether or not you will be using a third-party system for online bookings. That is, (a) will you accept online bookings, and (b) if so, (1) will you require that your Guest Management System provide built-in online booking capability, or do you want a third party online booking system, and then, (2) if appropriate, which third party system will you select.

Resolving these questions up front allows you to eliminate products which will not satisfy this requirement. Some guest management systems only work with their own integrated online booking module, while others interact with a variety of third-party systems. If you determine that you want an integrated system, you have effectively eliminated all products requiring a third party online interface. Conversely, if you require a third party online system, that eliminates systems using only integrated online capability.

The first question to resolve, then, is whether or not to accept online bookings. If you are one of the few for whom having online bookings and availability are not desirable, we’ll talk in the next article in this series about selecting the actual Guest Management Software. In view of the proliferation of internet-enabled devices, easy web access, and the increasing number of internet-generation inn-goers, for most of us, having real-time web availability and booking capability is essential.

Assuming that we do want online booking capability, then, we must determine if we want a guest management system providing integrated online bookings, or whether we want to use a third-party system for online availability and bookings. Considerations in making this choice revolve around whether an integrated system is so far superior to all of the third-party systems that you feel it is clearly the best choice, as opposed to keeping your options open to change Guest Management Systems, without being required to also change the online booking system.

Once again, the answers will differ for different owners, properties and areas. If all other things (features, reliability, support and reputation) are roughly equal, my personal preference is toward not being locked in to a single vendor and a single product. Consequently, unless a product with an integrated online booking and availability system is clearly superior, my preference would be to use a third-party for online availability and booking.

To determine which product best suits your needs, open up a spreadsheet, or grab a paper and pencil, and then visit the web sites of the different vendors of online booking products. List all the features of each (they may use different names for a feature, but you should consider that as only one feature) in one column, then make columns for each product, and make an entry indicating whatever is relevant for the feature from each product. Include a column for price, as well. If a product has different levels and prices, make a separate column for each. For example if we have 3 products, and one feature is “Reservation requests” (the booking isn’t final until confirmed – often requested by innkeepers who like to be sure a room hasn’t been booked over the phone before sending a confirmation to an online booking request), if only Product Number One has this, then it gets a “Yes” in that box.

Creating a listing of products under consideration and the features and cost of each will help you to determine which will best suit your needs, or perhaps, that more than one is a good fit for you. In addition, if you have some idea of which Guest Management System you plan to use, make sure one of the features for the online availability and booking system is compatibility with the Guest Management Systems you are considering.