Booking Processes

Bookings

Leads or enquiries can come in from various sources including telephone, emails and website. The broker will then convert the lead into a booking in Augtool.

If you already have a client registered in your system you can search for that client and continue with a booking. If there's a new client you can quickly create the client in Organizations. 

Start with filling out each section. Explain how you can popup a customer to search, that the contact person should pull through, then next section - below

Header Details

1. Customer:

When you create a booking you need to select a Customer. You can do this by either typing in a few letters of the name and the system will display a list based on the letters being typed or you can also search for a customer by clicking on the popup icon in the customer box. This allows you to type a name or code and it will search for it or type a few letters and it will display all options relating to it or display the full list of customers. The popup also allows you to search by Accommodation, Bookable Extra and Booking Number.

Contact Person: When you create a booking and select a customer, the booking will be populated with the Contact persons details that was setup for that customer. If there is more than one contact person you can search for them by clicking on the Contact Person icon. 

2. Salesperson: 

If the salesperson was linked to a User on setup then when a booking is created by the user the booking will default to the linked salesperson. You can also change the salesperson on the booking should you need to.

3. Booking Type: 

The Booking Type must be selected from the drop down box and it will pull through the linked Booking Form Contents to the Booking Confirmation. If the Booking Type is changed it will then pull through different types of terms according to the booking type. 

4. Agency Name:

You can either select the agency by clicking on the popup or you can start typing in the name and it will display options. Once you select an agency, the agency details will pull through to the booking. You can however also change the agency details for the selected agency on the booking.

Booking Details

6. Add Accommodation, Add Party and Add Pet:

To search for accommodation availability it is best to set the start and end dates first as the Accommodation Search popup will then be able to show all accommodation available for the dates selected. You can also type in a specific accommodation and the Availability Calendar popup will display the Availability Calendar which shows available dates, confirmed bookings and provisional bookings for that accommodation. Once you set the start and end dates of your stay Augtool will calculate the number of nights based on this information. It will calculate the amount based on the no. of nights and the rate of the accommodation. The rates on a booking form are calculated based on the rates that you have setup in Accommodation Rates. However if a rate has not been setup you will be able to manually enter it. You will be able to type the total amount under the Price(Ex) or Price(Inc) column.

There are 3 parts regarding the accommodation i.e the Accommodation, Unit Type and Unit. The Property allows you to select a property while the Unit Type allows you to select the unit types offered by that specific property such as Entire House or Single Sleeper etc. You will then be able to select a Unit from the Unit type selected.

Party Details: Once you type in the number of adults and children this section will add the same number of lines to this section. The ages of the children need to be entered into the Ages box with a comma separating the ages. This is shown as 3,6 in our example below. The age of the children should also be selected in the drop down box in the Party Details. The guest will be able to fill in the names when the booking form is sent to the guest. If you decrease the number of adults and children it will not automatically decrease the number of lines already added to the Party Details. However you can manually decrease the number of lines by clicking on the bin icon at the end of the line.

Add Pet: If you set up the accommodation as Pet Friendly in the Accommodation Rules then this section will be displayed when creating the booking and you will be able to select the number of pets by clicking Add Pet. The guests can fill in the details of the pets when the booking form is emailed to them.

7. Addons:

The Addon function can be used by clicking on the + sign on the right hand side of the property line item. This will then display the Addon box where you can type in your information. Addons are used for any services that are provided by the property owner but it is in addition to the rental cost of the property. Addons can be services such as cleaning and internet.

You will need to select the service you require and then input the number of days in the unit column that you require the service for. The rate for the service will pull through from the rates that were setup in Addons under Properties. However you will also be able to type in a daily rate here. The total in the Price column of the Addon will be added together with the total in Price(Inc) column of the Property and will reflect as a collective total in the Amount column in Property.

8. Add Extra

The Add Extra button can be used for a service that is not provided by the Property but by another supplier, such as catering.

Here again you select the start and end date for which you require the service and Augtool will calculate the number of nights. Click on the little house under Bookable Extra to search for and add the service you require. Input the number of days you require the service for in the Unit column and input the price per day and Augtool will calculate the total amount for Bookable Extras. The supplier of the service will pull through however you will be able to change the supplier on by clicking on the icon in the supplier box.

Extras can be on one day and on the booking form it will only print one day. Explain the popup of the bookable extra. 

9. Price:

The rate that was setup on the accommodation will pull through to the booking however if you do not have a rate setup or if you want to change the rate you will be able to type it in. For the Accommodation, the total price including vat for the total stay must be entered in the Price (Inc). The Price (Ex) column is greyed out and will calculate the amount taking the vat code into account. The Amount column equals Accommodation Price(incl) plus Addon Price.

Party Details: 

Once you select the number of adults and children it will add the same number of rows under Party Details. This is to input the details of all the guests such as names and addresses. In the future this could also be used as a way to collect information about your guests for marketing purposes. You will then need them to confirm that they want to receive marketing messages. 

If you increase the number of adults or children it will increase the number of rows however if you decrease the number of adults or children it will not decrease the number of rows. This is so that you don't lose the party details incase you decreased the number of guests in error. 

Once you type in the number of adults and children and it adds the rows, all the rows under the Age column in Party Details will default to adult. So for the children, you will need to click on the drop down box that says 'Adult' and select the age of the child. You do not have to do this actually because the Guest should be filling that out on the booking form but the Agent can do that before or after if the Guest does nto fill it in. 

Provisional Booking:

Once all of the above details are captured the form can be saved as Provisional. (Not the case anymore) The Availability aspect in Augtool is still being developed to either put an availability block or allow guests to view/be notified of provisional bookings. This will be to prevent double bookings. 

On the saved booking form you will see a little "i" icon next to the property line item. By clicking on this you will be able to view the booking terms, per our screenshot below. Here our terms are, 50% due now and 50% due 30 days before arrival. Augtool will then calculate the deposit amount, deposit due date, balance amount and balance due date, based on the booking terms. It also displays the tax code, security deposit, commission, commission percentage and addons. There are 2 amounts at the bottom of this pop up, one for the vat inclusive amount per night excl addons and the other for the total vat inclusive amount per night incl addons. This paragraph is good but it is in the edit mode and has nothing to do with Provisional booking saving. Show this above when adding a property. 

Invoicing

Completed Bookings

You are confusing Completed booking forms with Confirmed bookings. Once the booking is completed the form shows  as completed but the booking is only confirmed manually or after deposit received and booking form completed. 

If a booking is in a confirmed status, the other blue buttons appear which can do XYZ...

Once the client has submitted the booking form the broker will receive an email notifying them of the booking confirmation and providing a link to the booking on Augtool. The broker can then click the booking form icon and this will show the status as "completed." The broker will also be able to view completed booking forms by going to Bookings and selecting "completed" on the booking form drop down box as well as selecting the salesperson. This will then show all completed bookings. The broker will also be able to view completed bookings that have not yet been invoiced for deposit by further selecting "none" on the State-Deposit drop down box. 

I would explain all the status fields of the booking list view after completing all the steps. 

Should any changes need to be made to the form such as number of nights stay etc, a new form would have to be generated from the booking form and sent to the client. The new form will need to be signed by the client and once the new completed form is received the old completed form will be deleted. 

If the client selected the EFT payment option and therefore was required to fill in their banking details on the booking form, the bank details under Organisation for that client will also automatically be updated with the banking details of the booking form once the completed booking form is received.

Does the contact also update if the Guest fills in new contact details? I am not sure

Invoice Commission / Guest / Owner

These functions pulls through information from the Booking Form and generates invoices that are populated with all the relevant information. It will still allow you to edit the invoices to make changes. Once the booking is confirmed you will be able to Invoice Commission, Invoice Guest and Invoice Owner. These options appear in the boxes below Party Details on the Booking Form. Once they are generated they will show up as linked invoices at the bottom of the Booking Form which you will be able to edit and post. Posted invoices will show a W, however this should be ignored and it will be removed in the future.

 a. Invoice Commission:

To invoice commission the broker simply needs to click on the Invoice Commission box. This will generate a Sales Invoice for the commission on the property, from the Finance or registered company to the owner. This is shown as Cape Villas - Finance in our screenshot below. 

Should there be commission earned on Bookable Extras then this will also generate Sales Invoices from the Bookings company to the companies that are providing the service/goods. This is shown in our screenshot below as, Cape Villas - Bookings to Delicious Catering. 

The broker will pay himself commission by making a transfer from the bank of the Booking Company to the bank of the Finance company. In the Finance company the broker will then allocate the commission payment to the Sales Invoices.

b. Invoice Owner: 

This will generate a Purchase Invoice from the Broker to the Owner for the portion of money that is payable to the owner for the booking. If there are Bookable Extras, the Purchase Invoices to the service providers are also generated by clicking the Invoice Owner button and selecting the Organization you want to invoice.

c. Invoice Guest:

This will generate a Sales Invoice from the Bookings company to the Guest. The invoice can then be emailed to the guest. 

On the booking screen a D will appear next to the booking. The D will be yellow to indicate that is has been invoiced and it will turn to green once the deposit has been received.

Payment due date on Invoices - allow in the past 

This is an enhancement that was done to allow for the due date to be set in the past for the Sales invoice and the Purchase Invoice.

If you create an invoice from a booking that has a due date in the past, it will automatically set the due date on the invoice to the current date. So if you want to make a booking with a due date in the past as well as invoice in the past, you will need to backdate the invoice. Any booking made with due date after the current date will be carried through normally.

Deposits

Booking Deposit: The client will make payment for the deposit which will show up on your bank statement. Once you import your bank statement into your bank you can allocate the client's deposit directly to the client's invoice in Augtool. This will then reduce the amount on the client's account by the amount paid.

Once the payment has been allocated to the invoice this will show on the Booking Form and Sales Invoice as "less Receipts" and will reduce the balance owing by the client. Augtool will look at the amount received and if it matches to the amount owing for the deposit it will show this as "Deposit: Received" on the Booking Form. 

The broker will also be able to view which clients paid their deposit on the booking screen by selecting "Received" on the State - Deposit drop down box and selecting other applicable info such as Salespersons. The "D" next to the line will be green indicating that the deposit has been fully received.

Security Deposit: This deposit was retained as a breakage deposit and is fully refundable to the client. As soon as the deposit becomes refundable to the client the "O" in the booking screen will change to green indicating to the broker that the security deposit needs to be paid to the client. This change occurs a day after the end date of the booking. The amount to be refunded appears as a negative amount in the balance column of the Bookings List View. Once the client has been refunded this can be allocated to the client from the bank and that concludes the booking.

Booking Status change to completed 

Previously the status of a booking used to change to "Completed" on the day after checkout. The system has now been enhanced to allow for a certain number of days after checkout to pass before changing the status to completed.

There is a function that runs daily at 00:30am to change the status of a booking. This has been changed to accommodate the delayed completed date. This used to affect all bookings from all businessunits in the same way, but now does each BU separately.

A Setting has been added to set a time delay for a booking to be checked for its status to be changed to completed.

e.g. if you set the setting = -7 and Booking End Date is the 10/06/24 then the booking will show as completed after 7 days after the end date. So in this example it will show as completed at 00:30am on 18/06/2024. The status will remain as "confirmed" before the 18/06/2024.

Auto Availability Refresh

I would put availability stuff up at the top when putting in a property, not at the end. Read through the doc again and order the topics from top to bottom as if you are filling out the form. What do you do? What do you click on in order and what do you look at. Ill leave it for now until those updates are done.
It looks good. It can fit better. 

When creating a booking for a property that has Availability type - Externally Managed, you will be able to view the information from the external calendar by clicking 'Availability Refresh' on the booking. This will update with the latest information from the external calendar. However the system has a timestamp and has an Auto Availability built into it to automatically refresh every 15 minutes. So if you have not refreshed in the last 15 minutes the system will do so and pull through the external calendar information automatically.

Availability Override

Should there be instances where the owner had a booking on the external calendar but the salesperson responsible for that same booking wants to create the booking on the system but he cannot create the booking as those dates have now been blocked by the owner, Augtool allows the sales agent to override that block and create the booking on the system. 

The override will only be allowed if the sales agent is making a booking for the exact dates as the owner block and a reason is provided for the override. The override, the reason for the override and the person who made the override will be logged in the Document Audit Log. If the dates does not match exactly then it will not let you save as Provisional and it will force it back to Draft with an error message. The error message is to stop the below sequence:

If you did not have the Exact dates and forced the Availability and saved as Provisional, the dates would then fail to match and it would not let you Confirm. This then would force you to Rollback to Draft. 

Once the booking is saved as Provisional you will be able to Confirm the booking without having to first Refresh Availability. 

Bookings with External Agencies

On the booking, first select the agency under Agency Name and this will pull through the commission types that was setup under Agencies. Then select the Commission Type applicable to the booking and this will bring up the commission percentage and contact. If you change the Commission Type the commission percentage that is pulled through will change accordingly.

 1) Commission Type - Invoice Agency

In the example below the commission on the booking is split 50% with the external agency. The commission on the booking is R1000 which is split R500 with the broker which deals with bookings on behalf of the owner and the external agency that carried out the booking process on behalf of the broker. The breakdown can be seen in the table below the totals under the columns Commission and Agency. Commission shows the commission for the broker. Agency shows the commission for the external agency.

1a) Invoice Client: 

Here although it says "invoice client" the client in this case is not the guest but the external agency so the sales invoice is made out to the external agency for the full value of the booking. The external agency would have invoiced the guest directly and received the payment from the guest who will then pass this payment onto the broker after retaining his portion of the commission. 

1b) Invoice Agency:

This is a purchase invoice from the Bookings company to the external agency for the Commission that was payable to and retained by the external agency.

c) Invoice Commission:

This is the Sales Invoice from the Finance company to the owner for the Commission portion that is remaining after the external agency has retained it's portion.

1d) Invoice Owner:

This is the purchase invoice to the owner for the full amount of the booking excluding the security deposit.

2) Commission Type - Invoice Client

In the example below the external agency is receiving 10% of the brokers commission as a finders fee for sourcing the client. The whole booking process is dealt with by the broker. The broker has earned R1000 commission on the booking. He then pays 10% of this which is R100 to the external agency.

All the invoices are the same as Invoice Agency except for Invoice Client. Here the broker is dealing with the full booking process so the Sales invoice is made out directly to the guest.

Duplicate Booking Function into Draft. 

This was an enhancement done that allows you to duplicate a booking into draft. You will then be able to edit the draft booking and post. The duplicate can be deleted if it is in draft.

9. Price: 

The rate setup on the Accommodation will pull through to the booking. However if no rate has been setup or you want to change the rate you 

This should be above: The Addon total will also be added to the Amount on the property line.