Extra Costs in HotelDruid

Extra Costs Description

  Extra costs are added to base rate and can be used for various purposes, as for example for the expenses calculation and management of rooms cleaning, for adding beds or for special offers, making the rates system of hoteldruid very flexible.
  They are divided in two categories: single costs, that are applied only once for the whole length of the reservation, and daily (or weekly if you use weekly periods) costs, that can be applied for a choosen number of days inside the reservation. Each of these two categories is divided respectively in two more categories, the fixed costs one, that is with prefixed price, and the percentage costs one, with price calculated as a percentage of the rate. Besides the belonging to these categories a cost is characterized by:

Days in which it is applied (if daily). You can choose between applying it to all the days of the reservation, all minus one, alternate days, only in selected week days, or you can choose the days each time that the cost is inserted. Number by which it is multiplied. You can choose to multiply the cost by the numer of people of the reservation or by a number choosen each time that the cost is inserted. Periods in which insertion is permitted. You can choose to make possible the insertion of the cost only in selected periods. Application as extra bed. If a cost is considered as extra bed it will increase the number of people of the reservation, making it possible to insert reservations with a number of people bigger than the maximum capacity of the room. Maximum number of contemporaneous costs. You can choose to put a limit to the number of times that a cost can appear in the same period. Incompatible rates. You can prevent the insertion of the cost if associated to a selected rate. Incompatible rooms. The reservation to which the cost is assigned can not occupy the selected rooms. Inventory items to be eliminated. You can choose to delete some items from the inventory of the occupied room or of a stockroom at the moment when the cost is selected.

  To add a cost to a reservation you can select it manually when inserting or modifying the reservation, or you can make it automatically insert itself when a rate to which it is associated is selected. The cost can be associated to the rate also taking into account the duration of the reservation, considering if it is bigger or smaller than a predefined value, or considering the number of days remaining to the beginning of the reservation or the number of reservations inserted contemporaneously.
  The daily cost can be associated to specific days of the reservation, this way you can see to which days it is applied from the table with all the reservations or from the reservation modification page.
  As said before combining the characteristics of a cost you can use it to manage various demands of an hotel or residence administration, some examples are shown below.

Rooms Cleaning

 Through the rooms inventory it is possible to manage rooms cleaning. It will suffice to insert in the inventory of each room an item called "cleaning" and to create an ad hoc extra cost called "cleaning", even with a price of zero, that when inserted will delete the "cleaning" item from the room inventory.
 To the cleaning staff it will suffice to check the rooms where the "cleaning" item is missing to know which ones have to be cleaned, and they will be able to restore it once they have finished. Through the hoteldruid privileges system you can create users that are allowed to see and modify only the quantity of the "cleaning" item in rooms inventory.
 If registering of check-in and check-out is enabled in "configure and customize" then, when adding the "cleaning" item to a room inventory, you will be able to select the option "item needed for check-in". This way, when you register the check-in of a reservation, it will be moved to a room that has already been cleaned. After check-in you can add the "cleaning" extra cost to the reservation each time you want to consider the occupied room as no longer clean.

  If the cleaning is not done everyday it will be useful to use a daily cost associated to specific days of the reservation, this way when from the table with all the reservations we ask a report of the reservations present in one day, the cost will appear in its own column only if it is associated to that day. You can also multiply the cost by the number of people so you know how many sheets you have to change. If for example we have a 2 days reservation in which the "cleaning" cost is associated only to the first day, selecting the first day (from 1 to 2 of April 2005) from the table with all reservations will show us:

  Meanwhile selecting the second day (from 2 to 3 of April 2005) will show us that the cost is not present anymore:

  To have a table like this one with only surname, starting and ending day, and cleaning you can create a user with disabled login called "cleaning" and set in his preferences only the cleaning cost column for the table with all the reservations. This way in this table the administrator user will be able to choose the cleaning profile and see only desired columns.
  If in the price of total rate you don't calculate cleaning costs you can still insert a cleaning cost with zero as its price.

Special Offers

  For example if you want to insert a discount for reservations taking the entire August month you can insert a cost with negative value (also as percentage) and associate it, when possible, to desired rates applying it only to reservations of 30 or more days. After you set only the August month in the permitted periods of the cost. You can even give the discount only to the first reservations setting a limit for the number of contemporaneous costs.
  Discounts can be offered also to last minute or early reservations, thanks to the extra costs ability to be associated depending on the number of days left to the beginning of the reservation when it is inserted. Finally dicounts for groups can also be added, taking advantage of the possibility to associate a cost depending on the number of reservations being inserted contemporaneously.

Taxes Calculation

  You can use a single cost that is calculated as percentage of total price of the reservation, that is the price that comprehends the base rate plus the other extra costs and eventual discounts. If in the cost options you select to keep the percentage value, its value will change each time that the total price changes when modifying the reservation.

Minimum stay

  To enforce a minumum stay for a rate it will suffice to associate an extra cost to this rate, even with a value of zero, that is applied always with a minimum number of days. This way you will get an error message every time you try to insert a reservation with this rate and a number of days below the minimum. It is also possible to enforce a minimum stay only in selected periods by using the option "always in peritted periods" when the cost is associated to the rate.