How to get started with reservation manager and online booking system

Please note: Before you begin you will need to enable the reservation manager within your PromoteMyPlace account. You can do this by going to Section 11 - Reservations & Online Booking > Enable and checking the box next to Enable Reservation Management & Online Booking.

Our Reservation Manager and Online Booking System allows you to manage your reservations (add, edit, view and delete), plus send out emails to request payments from guests. You can enable online payments by connecting your account to Stripe and/or PayPal. A link contained within the payment request emails makes it possible for guests to pay securely online.

IMPORTANT: Please carry out a test run of a booking once you have completed the setup as per instructions below to ensure the booking validates and the correct rate is received. If any error occurs, please check the setup of each section - rate, availability calendar, changeover day, booking charges, etc. 

Follow these instructions to get started.

Set up:

1. Go to Section 1 - Website Basics > Properties

Set the number of bedrooms and maximum group size for your property/properties and save.

2. Go to Section 3 - Edit Website Content > Rates

Please note: If you are using the multi-property listing format, you will need to go to Edit Website Content > Properties and click Edit next to the relevant property. 

Then, simply scroll down to the Rates and Availability sections to complete steps 2 and 3 as follows. 

Ensure that all rates for each property have been entered correctly.

IMPORTANT: For booking costs to be calculated correctly your rental rate bands need to overlap by 1 day. The example below is correct.

3. Go to Section 3 - Edit Website Content > Availability Calendar

Set valid change over days and nightly break days.

Changeover days are only apply to weekly (or monthly stays). So simply set the preferred changeover day for those stay lengths.

Nightly Break Days are those days where you expect breaks of 1 night (they can be consecutive night stays). So if you were to specify that all days can be booked as nightly breaks and you set a minimum stay of say 3 nights the guest will be able to book any 3 nights.

If you want to restrict to specific days of the week where you allow a 3 or 4 night stay (for example), then you would need to set up custom breaks. 

4. Go to My Website > Section 11 - Reservations & Online Booking

Using the left-hand menu, work through each page of options and configure them to suit your preferences.

4a. Booking Form Options
Check the boxes to allow children, infants and pets (set the maximum number of pets) and to require customers to enter a telephone number when making a booking.

You can also enter a link to your Booking terms and conditions here and it will be shown on the payment page. To do this you first need to create a page on your website for the booking conditions or upload a PDF as an attachment (See How to attach documents). Once you have created your booking conditions you can copy and paste the URL of the page into the ‘Booking Conditions URL’ field.

The Advertising Sources field allows you to add the names of any advertising channels you are listed on such as HomeAway, AirBnB or TripAdvisor. These can be selected when making a reservation so that you can record where guests are coming from.

4b. Booking Charges
You can specify any deposit and security deposit charges here. You can choose whether these are automatically calculated as percentages of the total booking OR as a fixed fee.

You can also add any custom charges.

4c. Reservation Emails
When the status of a reservation is changed you will be asked if you would like to send an email to the guest. The system provides default emails for the different statuses, but you can override them with your own emails here.

Simply select which email template you wish to edit by choosing from the Reservation Status drop-down menu. Then make any changes you wish and click save.

You can also include a variety of replacement parameters that will automatically be replaced with the actual details relating to the customer’s booking.

4d. Payment Options
This section allows you to specify how you are going to take payments. You can choose whether to accept online payments here and you can enter payment instructions if you choose not to accept online payments.

If you choose to accept online payments, you can connect PayPal or Stripe here.

 

Now that you’ve successfully set up the reservation manager to suit your preferences you can start creating reservations by following these steps:

1.) Go to Reservations (Top Menu)

2.) Click Add Reservation

3.) Enter all the reservation details and click Save Reservation.

4.) (Optional) Send a confirmation email to your customer.

5.) Go back to the reservations overview by clicking Reservations in the top menu. Here you can view your reservations in a list or in a calendar view. Click the Actions drop-down next to each reservation to view or edit.

You can also create reservations from enquiries. To do this follow these steps:

• Go to Enquiries in the top menu of your PromoteMyPlace account.

• Open an enquiry by clicking the View button and then click on the Create Reservation.

• Complete the addition details and click Save Reservation.