How to Pick the Best Hotel Reservation Software

Reservations Software

In this installment of Reservation Software Tips, I want to go over PLANNING. If you skip this first step, you are certainly going to run into problems later on.

You have your budget variety all the up to 4 stars. The higher the price, the more features. Naturally, if you're running a bargain basement spot, you probably don't need much, if you need software at all. But if you're the creme de la creme...you want to plan...big time.

Well, for starters, there are the rooms and other services available.} Your better class of hotel will probably have most, if not all of the following:

Studio

One Bedroom

Two Bedroom

Executive Suite

For both single and double occupancy.

So the first thing you will have to do with your software is make sure that all the rooms are setup. You don't want a potential customer asking for a room and finding that particular type isn't in your inventory even though the room itself actually physically exists.

This is a complete embarrassment for both you and the customer.

These to be put into the reservation software system as well.

You'll also want to enter any packages that you offer into the system. Most professional reservation software will allow for packages.

Next, you need to enter in all the different payment types that you accept such as cash, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and so on. The last thing you want is to have somebody hand you a credit card type that you accept, but it isn't in the system.

If you work with travel agents, you're going to want to make a list of them and put them in the system as well. Many hotels have special arrangements with travel agents and you want the correct one to get credit for each booking.

One thing that a lot of people neglect is their system preferences. For example...

> Do you want to auto generate a guest code for each guest or put one in manually?

> Do you want to make a guest name be required? Some people want their privacy and wouldn't appreciate this option.

And so many other things that you REALLY should decide BEFORE you setup your software.

By planning all this out ahead of time, you make the actual setup and running of your reservations software a piece of cake.

For a top rated reservation software, check out Reservation Master, which you can actually try FREE for 30 days.