Clock PMS+ (15 Dec 2020)

Payments Autopilot with Six Payments and Elavon

A new level of automation of payments and pre-authorizations for bookings. We have redesigned our infrastructure for credit cards and payment providers to offer you a next generation instrument - Payments Autopilot. It is an instrument through which you can fully automate each process related to credit cards:

• Automatic payments of deposits in one or more steps;
• Automatic payment of a bill before departure;
• Automatic payment of a cancellation penalty;
• Automatic pre-authorizations of booking or damage deposit amounts.

You can use the Payments Autopilot with the two newly integrated payment providers: Six Payments and Elavon. We are in a process of developing a completely new interface to Adyen to be used in our new functionality. The new Adyen interface will be released in 2021. Let’s dive deeper in the functionality of Six Payments and Elavon.

Tasks

You can set multiple Tasks, as each set task automatically watches for which bookings and when certain actions to be taken. Once set and activated, the task functions independently without your intervention. Before setting and activating an automatic task, you may preview what actions will be taken for the task-related bookings, i.e. for which booking what amount will be charged or pre-authorized. See more details below.

You may add new tasks or edit existing ones by going to Settings - Payments Autopilot. Each task has the following settings:

Active

It determines if the task will automatically be performed. For a task to be automatically performed, it must be set to Active. Before making a given task Active, please carefully check all its settings and which bookings fall in its next cycle, as well as what amounts will be charged. For more, see Test.

When?

From this section, you can set when a task to be automatically activated depending on the booking. Here are your options:

• After Booking Creation
• Before and Till Booking Arrival
• After Booking Cancellation
• Before Booking Departure
• After Booking Departure

Additionally, you can also set "Offset hours" to move the execution of the task by the selected amount of hours. You should pay attention to the fact that the After triggers use the exact time of occurrence of a given event - Creation, Arrival or Departure. In contrast, the Before triggers use as their starting point 12 noon on the respective day - 12 noon on the date of arrival or 12 noon on the date of departure. You can use Offset hours to move the time of execution of the tasks to better match your needs.

Which bookings to process?

Use this section to specify to which bookings the task applies. If nothing is selected for a given filter, this filter is not taken into account, i.e. if you don’t choose anything in this section, the task will apply to all bookings. Here are the filters you can use:

• Guarantee status. Leave it blank or select the guarantee status the task applies to (Guaranteed, Awaiting guarantee, Expired or Non-Guaranteed). We would like to remind you that the second and third statuses depend on the "Guarantee Period" setting in the Guarantee Policy.
• Guarantee Policy. For bookings with certain guarantee policies - one or more.
• OTA booking. If bookings are from the channel manager or not.
• Credit Cards in Booking. You can process only bookings containing certain credit cards. The options are:
  • No Cards. In the booking, there are no credit cards. There is  no way to charge such a booking, but this filter can be used in combination with the  following operation: Execute 'On Success' actions only in the "What to do?" section. See more info below.
  • Guest Only. In the booking, there is one or more cards, but all marked as Guest cards, and none as ОТА cards.
  • ОТА Only. In the Booking, there is one or more cards, but all marked as ОТА (virtual) cards.
  • Guest and OTA. In the booking, there is a Guest card and an OTA one.
  • Included Companies, Excluded Companies, Included Agents, Excluded Agents. You can select among multiple companies and agents for each of these filters. Please don’t forget to click the Add button when you have selected the company or or the agent.

What to do?

In this section, you can specify what is to be performed by a given task.

• Payment. The amount is charged to the credit card.
• Pre-Authorization. The amount is only authorized (blocked) on the credit card. You can appropriate this amount later on or release it. The pre-authorized amounts are only kept for a certain period of time (usually 14 days), as this period depends on the payment provider, acquirer and credit card type.
• Execute 'On Success' actions only. This option is a little bit peculiar. With it, no payment or pre-authorization will be executed, instead the task will proceed with the actions described below in the  'On Success' section. There, If you have set a To-Do to be created, the calculated amount from the next section will be added to the To-Do. This way, you can also use the task  for the organisation of tasks to be manually performed by you on the basis of the created To-Dos or other automations you need. See the On Success do section for more info.

Through the "Use" field you can specify which card (in case there is more than one) to be used for the payment or the pre-authorization. The possible options are:

• Last credit card - the latest credit card in the booking;
• Last OTA credit card - the latest credit card, but among the ones marked as ОТА;
• Last GUEST credit card - the latest credit card, but among the ones marked as GUEST.

Please note that in the previous section, the choice of the OTA/Guest card refers to the filtering, i.e. to which bookings the task applies to, and here the choice refers to which of the cards the task is to be used. If you apply contradicting settings, the task may not be performed ever.

For what Amount?

How the amount for the respective operation should be calculated. You may select among:

• Folio BALANCE based. It uses the folio balance. You can add or subtract (through a negative value) an amount from  it as a percentage or fixed sum. For example, you may not enter anything in the “%” field to get the whole balance amount of the folio, or, alternatively, you can enter -50% to calculate a half of the balance.
• Folio CHARGES based. This method is similar to the model of determining the deposit amount. You can select the charges of which revenue groups to be included in the calculation. The obtained amount can be modified by entering a percentage of it or a number of nights (the average price per night is used for the calculation). There is an additional fixed amount which you can add or subtract. Here is an example: Enter 100% in the “%” field to get the whole amount of the charges OR 50% for a half of the amount of the charges of the selected revenue groups.
• Booking required deposit based. It uses the amount due of the required booking deposit. It is the amount calculated as a deposit by the Guarantee policy minus all received payments so far. You can add or subtract (if a negative value entered) a percentage or fixed amount from it. Here is an example: Don’t enter anything in the “%” field to get the whole deposit due OR enter -50% to calculate a half of the deposit due.

On Success do / On Fail do

Through the above settings, you can define the payment or the pre-authorization task. In these two sections, on the other hand, you can set what to happen, if the payment/pre-authorization are successful (On Success do) or not (On Fail do). You can choose among the following options:

• Send Booking email - select an email template to be sent to the booking. You can create different email templates containing various texts or instructions.
• Close folio with - select if the folio is to be closed. For example, in case of an automatic payment of the whole balance amount before departure.
• Set folio visibility on the Self Service Portal - change the folio flag specifying if the folio is to be visible on the Self Service Portal or not.
• Set Guarantee status - On a successful operation, for example, you can make the booking guaranteed or vice versa..
• Create a To-Do - If you wish to create a To-Do for the booking - enter some text. To the text, the calculated amount from the For what Amount? section will be added.

Limitations

Despite being  flexible, the system has its limitations. Automatic Tasks can work only if the booking contains only one open folio. It can contain other closed folios, but there should be only one open folio in the booking on which the task actions to be performed. If the booking has more than one open folio, the task is not executed, and a To-Do about it is created.

Test

Before making a task active, we strongly advise you to check if what this task will do with next cycle is the result expected by you. To preview the list of bookings or calculated amounts to be captured or pre-authorized, select "Test" from the task list.

Report

We have added a new report through which you can check the created tasks (all or referring to a specific booking) and the status of each of them. Go to "Control" -  "Booking Capture Transactions".

Six Payments and Elavon

We have added two new omni-channel payment providers. Both have similar features, namely:

• Support for e-commerce transactions and PED terminals;
• Tokenization with a card validity check for both online transactions and card present transactions at the terminal;
• Omni-channel transactions - a terminal-tokenized card can be used for an online transaction;
• Online and terminal payment and pre-authorization; 
• Capture and release of online or terminal pre-authorizations;
• Automatic tokenization - each payment or pre-authorization with card details creates a tokenized card that can be reused;
• Strong Customer Authentication (3D) for online transactions. Only for Six Payment!
• Tip processing at the terminal;
• Support for partial payments;

Here are some specifics:

• Elavon does not support Strong Customer Authentication (3D).
• Elavon terminals require IoT devices. Six Payment terminals don’t require such;
• Local bank methods (zofort, etc.) are not supported by Elavon. Six Payments are in a process of developing such support.

POS - Floor Plan

We have added a new POS feature letting you create one or more floor plans of the tables in your restaurant. This way you can much more intuitively connect the table numbers with their actual location in your restaurant. Here is a brief description of the new feature options:

• Save the current table list. If you add one or several floor plans, they will appear as tabs on the Main screen from where you can change them or open the old table list. If your restaurant has more tables and they cannot fit in one floor plan, you can add separate floor plans for the different sectors or parts of it, e.g. "Main", "Bar", "Scene", etc.
• To add floor plans, go to Management - Floor Plan.
• Click Add and fill in a short name for the floor plan, an order number (in the tab), as well as if it is active (visible).
• To edit the floor plan, select the “SVG Editor” from the list. Please note that this editor may not work properly on mobile devices. Use a laptop or desktop computer to prepare the floor plan. Thus created, the floor plan is supported by mobile devices, as well as it supports zоом-in/out and pan gestures.

Here is how you can use the floor plan editor:

• First, select the floor plan size. You can test several sizes and select the one that is most convenient for the devices you use. Also, you can create different floor plans for different devices. It’s all up to you. To change the floor plan size, go to the SVG Edit in the top left corner - Document Properties. Enter the size and or choose one from "Select Predefined". Click OK to save.
• You can use drawing tools (rectangular and other shapes) to draw walls or other static elements. You can also add a big rectangular as a background, if you wish.
• If you have a ready-to-use image of your floor plan, you can use it directly. This way, your floor plan will be much more precise and you won’t need to draw anything.
  • If you use an image for your floor plan, it must be uploaded on the internet. If you don’t have where to upload it, you can use the Image Library of your Clock PMS+ account for this purpose (In your PMS account, go to Settings - Logos / Image Library). Upon uploading it, click the blue button and copy the Image URL field.
  • In the floor plan editor, from the toolbar on the left, select the "Image Tool" icon and click on the plan. In the URL field, enter the already copied URL.
  • Resize the image and adjust it through the mouse.

Here is how you can add dynamic elements to the floor plan:

• You can add three different types of dynamic elements to the floor plan: Table name, Table amount, Colour overlay (red one, if the bill is not settled);
• Table name. Select the text element icon (left menu) and click on the floor plan. Type '#' and then the table name, e.g. "#10", "#bar1", "#sc25", etc. This name will appear on the floor plan without the '#' sign and you will be able to click it to open the table. You can change the font colour and size to make it more visible;
• Table amount. Same as above, instead of the '#' sign, you can type the '$' sign and the table number, e.g. "$10", "$bar1", "$sc25", etc.
• Colour overlay. You can add a figure to be coloured in red, if the table has an order. Add a circle or rectangular by choosing the respective icon from the left toolbar. Then click the selection icon (the topmost one in the left toolbar) and click on the shape. Colour it in the colour denoting an empty table (e.g. green, white or another colour). To bind it to the actual table, in the "id" field (in the middle of the upper toolbar), enter "_" and then the number of the table. Here are examples: "_10", "_bar1", "_sc25", etc. To save the entered value, press Enter.
• Click the Save button to save the floor plan (in the upper right corner of the screen). If “Active” is selected for the floor plan, it will appear on the Main screen. Click the respective table (Table name, Table amount or Overlay) to open a new or existing bill.
• On the Main screen of the POS, at the bottom, you can select which floor plan (including the old table list) to be the default one for the device.

Other Improvements

• Companies - automatic data retrieval by VAT number. We have added an option which, after entering the VAT number of the given company, retrieves the rest of the company data from the VAT register of the European Union. You can find this feature on the Company screen where next to the VAT number field there is a small search button. Additionally, this feature is also available on the Self Service Portal, the Kiosk and the self check-in when entering the company data in the folio.
• Event - the edit of the event period also automatically moves the block to the new dates. The move of the block is made relatively to the new arrival, making it possible for the block to practically move together with the event. If the event period is shortened, on the other hand, the days dropping from the event also drop from the block.
• Agent column in booking searches - Arrivals, In Hotel, Departures and Search.
• On some screens containing larger data tables, we have fixed the position of the table header to make it visible when scrolling the page down, also implemented on the following screens: Occupancy Forecast, Guest/Company/Deposit Ledgers and Capacity counters by date.
• Channel Managers - now the Commission recipient is also entered depending on the Company/Agent mapping.
• We have added an option to delete all Screen Help boxes entered on the booking screen, the account’s home screen and the reports page. As in the screen help boxes, you can enter pure HTML, this may break the page if you enter invalid HTML. In such a case, you can use the new feature to restore the page functioning.
• POS - the terminal payment button now works without being necessary to go through a screen, i.e. after pressing this button, the terminal is immediately activated. If you wish to pay through the terminal an amount that is different from the folio balance one or when you need to use a different terminal instead of the one set by default, you can access the old screen by clicking the small button next to the terminal payment button.
• POS - we have improved the “Transfer to room” screen to make the whole process faster. The redesigned screen allows you when selecting a booking to use of one of these three options:
  • Room. This option is similar to the old approach - the selected booking is saved in the bill and you can continue working.
  • Transfer Now. This option makes the transfer to the booking and closes the bill. This way, you save a few clicks and the transfer happens faster.
  • Custom View. This option saves the booking in the bill and immediately opens the Client View screen, and you can pass a mobile device to the client. Under the Client View mode, the client can preview the bill, sign and leave a tip which will be transferred as an amount due to the hotel room folio. The return to the system occurs after the waiter enters a password which automatically redirects the user to the transfer confirmation screen.
• In the Occupancy and Charges Report, the Capacity and OOS data are now in separate columns.

Integrations

• Slovenian Fiscal Interface - Bug fixes
• API enhancements:
  • occupancy_forecasts
  • person_titles
  • block_pickups
  • booking_charges_by_source
  • door_keys
• Zapier integration enhancement:
• The following details are now included in the booking details available with Booking Create and Booking Update triggers:
  • Guest_title;
  • Marketing_segment;
  • Accept_marketing_emails.

Fixes

• Adyen - a change made for more precise submission of delivery_date data
• Booking’s main guest passport images - they used to disappear on closing the booking document;
• Virtual rooms with different room type components - incorrect calculations of the nights and bednights in Bednights, Occupancy and Charges и Occupancy and Charges DMY reports. The logic accounts for the nights and bednights for the booked room, i.e. for the virtual room.
• Occupancy/Revenue Forecast and Pace Report - used to show wrong number of bookings when virtual rooms used;
• Function sheet - the descriptions for the staff didn’t visualise if the there was nothing entered in the other field - Description;
• A fixed bug with the log of the deleted rates when their names were too long. This caused errors on deletion;
• With no languages defined in the system, the attempt to create a Visual Builder template resulted in an error message;