RezOvation Web: the most powerful and easy to use for Innkeepers!

At the last PAII conference in Las Vegas we showcased the new and exciting RezOvation Web, the most powerful web-based property management software ever built for Innkeepers. We received overwhelming positive feedback from hundreds of Innkeepers regarding this new product! We left the conference with a lot of great input from customers and prospects on the final tweaks needed to make this product perfect for Innkeepers. We are towards the end of incorporating many of these ideas before a general release.

We are now very excited to announce that we will begin installing RezOvation Web in the next 60 days!

We are in the process of finalizing the training curriculum to facilitate an easy transition for those of you who want to migrate from your current software to RezOvation Web. We will be contacting you via email when we are ready to start taking appointments for migration and training. 

As a reminder, there is no charge for GTO or GT Booking Engine customers who want to switch to RezOvation Web. The transition is straightforward for you as there is no data entry. All you will need is some training to get used to a simplified user interface and some cool new features. Training and installations will be limited to a small group of users per week to ensure a quality experience for everyone.

To learn more about RezOvation Web, click here.

Another exciting announcement... RezOvation Mobile Booking Engine!

We are looking for RezOvation Web, GTO, or GT Booking Engine customers who are interested in trying the first version of our mobile booking engine.  Industry statistics indicate traveler booking dollars via mobile devices will more than triple from 2011 to 2013*.  Provide potential guests who are using their smartphone a seamless, quick, and easy way to book a reservation - whether you have a mobile website or not.  The process is safe and secure, and your data is updated as if you made the reservation yourself! 

Learn more here and be one of the first customers to try it out and provide feedback.

*PhoCusWright January 2012

PAII Key Leader Retreat 
April 15 to 18, 2013

Innkeeping Leadership Week brings together B&B association leaders from across the country together to identify common concerns and opportunities to drive industry success. 

Click here for details.

We're happy to announce that the latest version of RezOvation GT is now available.  For more information including detailed release notes and download links, please click here.

Here are the highlights:

Booking Engine

• We now have a Facebook application! This app is available free of charge for all RezOvation Booking Engine users. For details on how to set up and use the Facebook application, please click here.
• We've added a "Notes" field to the Booking Engine checkout. You can enable the notes field via the Booking Engine settings, and label the field however you wish. For example you may prefer to label it "Special Requests". The field will then display on the last step of the checkout, and any information entered into this field will be displayed in the "Guest Notes" field on the reservation.
• We added a feature to auto set the arrival and departure dates when linking to the Booking Engine date search page. This can be useful if you have a third party application which needs to pass through arrival & departure dates. The parameters expected are: &chkin=mm/dd/yyyy and &chkout=mm/dd/yyyy. For example:
  
  http://secure.rezovation.com/Reservations/CheckAvailability.aspx?
  _0U2FEGQFMG2P2M&chkin=01/05/2012&chkout=01/07/2012

Reports, Letters, & Email

• Payments Detail | We added a new tag for sCreditCardTime. This tag is for users of Intuit Payments, and will show the time that a payment was processed on the Intuit system. This tag can be used to better match RezOvation reports to Intuit reports.
• Payments Detail | We added a newgrouping for "None".
• Daily Summary | We added new tags for Payments by Invoice Status. The new tags are: In house reservations [rPmtInHouse], Future reservations [rPmtFuture], Past due reservations [rPmtPastDue], Retail sales [rPmtRetailSale]

Misc

• We changed the menu item for "Sign Out" to read "Switch User" to better describe how this feature works.

Bug fixes

• See the release notes for details.

We're excited to announce a preview release of the latest version of RezOvation GT.  To get the update, download it here: http://downloads.rezovation.com/preview/rezovationgt_update.exe.   After downloading the update file, open it and follow the instructions.

Here are some of the new features -

Booking Engine

Please note: Booking Engine updates will be released soon.  Please check back for details.

• We added a "Close window" link to the photo gallery pop-up.
• The Country selection on the Complete Order page will now default to whatever your country is set to for your property in RezOvation GT (e.g. USA).
• Reservation notification emails will now include the amount of any deposit due, if you are not using the real-time credit card processing.

Occupancy Map

• The row heights (rooms) and column widths (dates) can now be resized.  It works just like Microsoft Excel - simply hover your mouse over the line between your room names, or the line between the dates on the date header, and you will see a bi-directional arrow.  Click and drag up/down to shrink/grow the room heights, or click and drag left/right to shrink/grow the date widths.   See the wiki for more details.
• Rates on the occupancy map now only show whole numbers to save space (numbers after the decimal point will no longer appear), and the rate will disappear if you shrink the date widths below a certain point to ensure readability.  To enable / disable rates on the occupancy map, go to the Configuration section and click the link for "Lists, Occupancy Map ..."
• We added a new "Clean / Dirty" feature for the Occupancy Map.  To turn on this feature, go to the Configuration section, and click the link for "Custom Colors". There is a check box to turn on the clean/dirty color, and you can also configure the color used for the dirty status.  When enabled, the room title on the occupancy map will be overlayed with the dirty color, if the room is dirty.  To learn more about this feature, please visit the wiki.

Reports, Letters, & Email

• We added a "cancel" button to the "generating report" window that appears when you run a report.  
• We added a "from" name in the email settings, so that you can configure how your emails are titled.  e.g. you can enter "From The Hill Country Inn" to further customize the "from" field for any emails that are sent.  This is set from the Configuration section, under "Email".
• We added a new code to Group Folios for Average Rate. The code is: [sAvgRate] .  This will display the average rate for all rooms in the group.
• We added a report timeout setting, which can be useful if you have a large amount of data or you are running a report for a long period and sometimes experience errors.  To change the report timeout, go to the Configuration section and click the link for "Reports".
• You can now choose whether reports / letters are opened in the foreground or in the background.  To change this setting go to the Configuration section and click the link for "Reports".
• We added a setting which allows you to record BedandBreakfast.com direct deposit payments either on arrival date, or departure date. To change this setting go to the Configuration section and click the link for "Reports".
• We added a new Accounts Payable report, which will show the detail of any Payables outstanding.
• You can now generate the Accounts Receivable and Payable reports for a single day.  This allows you to see a "snapshot" of activity for a single day, instead of seeing all the historical activity through the date of the report.
• You can now generate the Advance Deposits report for a single day.  This allows you to see a "snapshot" of activity for a single day, instead of seeing all the historical activity through the date of the report.

Guests & Reservations

• Guests that are assigned to a room in a reservation, but which are not the "Primary" guest on the reservation, are now linked to the reservation.  What this means is that when you assign a guest to a room in a reservation you can now see the reservation in their Guest record from the Guests/Customers list.
• We now show the room abbreviation on the Edit Room and Edit Reservation screen, if your system is configured to use Room Types (RMO2 or RMO3).

Misc

• Database indexes can now be auto-rebuilt, to ensure peak database performance.  Please contact support for details and to enable this feature.
• If you are using BedandBreakfast.com Online Reservations, and you modify your Rack rate, you will now get a warning reminding you to update your BedandBreakfast.com rate.  You can hide this warning at any time, or re-enable it via the Configuration section (click the link for "Lists, Occupancy Map ...")

As always, we welcome your feedback.  

Thanks for using RezOvation GT, and we hope you enjoy the new features!

- The RezOvation Team

We're excited to announce a preview release of the latest version of RezOvation GT.  To get the update, download it here: http://downloads.rezovation.com/rezovationgt_update.exe.   After downloading the update file, open it and follow the instructions.

Here are some of the new features -

Booking Engine

• Added support for the Google Asynchronous Tracking script. See the wiki for details on how to set this up.
• We now show the "please select" error message at bottom of checkout below submit button instead of on top, to make it easier for the guest to see if they made a mistake during the checkout.
• We reworked the charge & payment breakdown on the Complete Order & Confirmation page for clarity.
• The Rooms title is now customizable (e.g. to read "Units", "Cabins", etc.), and can be configured from the Booking Engine settings.
• We now default # of guests on the check availability step to the lowest base capacity for configured rooms.
• We added a setting to date BB.com Direct Deposits on check in date OR check out date. This setting can be changed under the Reports configuration. Note that this setting will only change new reservations - reservations that have already been booked must be updated by RezOvation Support, so please contact us if you need this done.
• Error messages displayed at the "Review your Reservation Details" form are now more user friendly.
• We now hide CVV (credit card security code) field if Intuit real-time deposits are not enabled.

Occupancy Map

• We now display tooltips for a longer period of time.
• Rack rates can now be display in unbooked cells - to turn on this setting go to the Lists & Occupancy Map settings screen under Configuration.

Reports & Letters

• Advance Deposit Detail: Added codes for check in date and check out date (sChkInDt, sChkOtDt)
• Advance Deposit Detail: Added code for Deposit Unused (sDepUnUsed, sDepUnUsedSbTot, sDepUnUsedTot)
• Advance Deposit Detail: Added code for Deposit Used (sDepUsed, sDepUsedSbTot, sDepUsedTot)
• Advance Deposit Detail: Add code for Balance Due (sDue, sDueSbTot, sDueTot)
• Group Reservations: Added code for sAvgRate
• Reservation Balance: Added codes for Amount Due (sDue, sDueSbTot, sDueTot). These show whether a reservation has an unused balance, and can be negative.
• House Gift Certificates: Added a column for GC Liability
• Added a new Accounts Receivable report
• Reports: Added a new Daily summary report
• Reports: Add a new Pending Cashflow report. This report can be accessed by downloading this template, and then uploading it under Reservation Balance. Note that typically this report is filtered for Future reservations only (Status = Future). In this case, it will show all future reservations after the end date of the report.
• Payment detail: We now show transaction type (e.g. payment/refund/void) in Payment Details section for Intuit payments
• Add option to date BB.com direct deposits on either check in date or check out date.
• Letters > Reservations: Add code for Deposit Due (sDep).

Payments

• Custom batch ID (if custom batches are used with Intuit) are now display on the transaction detail within the reservation
• We added a tree view for credit card payments, so that history can be seen e.g. when a payment is voided, refunded, captured, etc.
• We now send confirmation number and reservation arrival / depart dates in the Comments field for Intuit transactions so that transactions on the Intuit Merchant Center can be more easily tied back to RezOvation GT

Misc

• Microsoft .NET 4 is now installed by default with updates and new installs.
• Microsoft SQL Server memory utiilization is now set to "no limit" by default. Microsoft SQL Express will use a maximum of 1 GB of memory.

For more information about this update include bug fix information, please visit the release notes.

As always, we welcome your feedback.  

Thanks for using RezOvation GT, and we hope you enjoy the new features!

- The RezOvation Team

We're excited to announce the latest version of RezOvation GT, which is now available for all customers and has been automatically downloaded for you.  To install the update, simply restart RezOvation GT or select Help > Install Update.  If you don't see the update, go to the Configuration screen and make sure that the "Auto Updates" link is enabled.

Here are some of the new features -

Discounts & Promotions

We added a brand-new discount & promotions system. This system allows you to:

• Create discounts of any amount including % or fixed discount on a room rate, free night, free extra, free package, and more.
• Apply any number of restrictions to a discount including blackout dates, min # nights, max # nights, repeat guest only, day of week, last minute, and more.
• Create special coupon / promotion codes and provide those to specific customers, or use them for a marketing campaign. These coupons can then be redeemed through the RezOvation Booking Engine or directly in the software for guests booking over the phone / checking in.
• Set up an automatic discount for the Booking Engine or for phone reservations. An automatic discount will then show up when the guest meets the necessary criteria - incenting them to book.
• Visit the user guide for more information.

Reservations & Customers

• We added a "Possible duplicates" filter to the Customer list to help you more easily identify duplicate customer records. You can then click and select any duplicates (click & drag, or CTRL click), and click the Merge button in the menu to merge them together.
• The Reservation referral source is now auto-populated with the Customer referral source, if the Customer has a referral source entered.
• Customer "Other Names" are now displayed in the contact info on the reservation.

Reports

• We added a new Comparison report, which allows you to compare Unit Revenue from one period to the next. This is similar to the "Unit Revenue Comparison" report in RezOvation Desktop, and gives you the ability to see how you are "pacing" from one year to the next. For example, you can compare how many reservations were booked as of July last year for last year's fall season, to how many reservations were booked as of July this year, for this fall.
• The Housekeeping report can now be grouped by housekeeper name. To create housekeeper names, first add the housekeeper(s) as a User under Configuration > Users.
• We added a report timeout setting, which allows you to increase the time that reports can run before timing out. This is useful if you have a larger database or many reservations and find that some of your reports fail to run.

Booking Engine

• If you don't use Intuit Payments / QBMS to automatically take deposits, but you'd still like the RezOvation Booking Engine to indicate that a deposit is due, you can now configure the Booking Engine to display a deposit due / to be billed and then manually charge the deposit after the booking is made.
• If you have less than 10 rooms, we are now showing larger thumbnails for your rooms on the rooms list display. If you have 10 or more rooms, you can enable this setting from within Configuration > Booking Engine Settings.
• You can now sell room packages when using the Availability Calendar. Once a room is selected from the Availability Calendar, if a room package is available for the selected room, it will appear in the next step of the checkout.
• Online Gift Certificate sales delivery option can now be restricted to "ship only" or "email only".

Credit Card Processing

• You can now customize the batch close time for Intuit / QBMS credit card processing to whatever time you choose. This setting can be found under Configuration > Credit Card Settings.
• When entering a new connection ticket, RezOvation GT will verify that it is entered correctly before saving it.

Packages

• We added a new "must arrive on day" restriction to the packages configuration.
• You can now duplicate packages by clicking the Copy button from within the package configuration screen.

Misc

• You can now sign off from RezOvation GT without closing the application - just click File > Sign Off.

For more information about this update include bug fix information, please visit the release notes.

As always, we welcome your feedback.  

Thanks for using RezOvation GT, and we hope you enjoy the new features!

- The RezOvation Team

We have an update for you today to the preview release, which can be downloaded here: http://downloads.rezovation.com/preview/rezovationgt_update.exe.  The new version is 5.8.1.162.

This update includes the following fixes & enhancements:

• Added a new room / room type restriction to the Discounts configuration.
• Added a revenue account field to the Discounts configuration.  NOTE: if you have already created discounts, you will need to edit those discounts and set a revenue account, in order to ensure that your revenue reports correctly reflect any discounts given.
• Discount amounts are now properly displayed with tax adjustments on the Edit Reservation screen.
• The occupancy map is now correctly showing previous days when you click the "Show Today" button.
• # Used count (displayed on reports and in the discount configuration) is now properly decremented when a discount is deleted.
• The QBMS / Intuit Payment batch close time is now properly stored in UTC.
• Some discount template codes which were not working have been fixed.
• Fixed a bug which would prevent certain invoices from being edited when the same customer existed twice in the database.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when generating the Housekeeping report.
• Fixed a bug with the Confirmation letters which was displaying the reservation dates in the room name field.
• Fixed an issue which would cause the QuickBooking screen to crash.
• All missing Help topics have been added.

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the preview and provided feedback!  Keep it coming!

All the best -

The RezOvation Team

We're excited to announce the latest version of RezOvation GT, which is now available for any innkeepers who would like to try the new features before they are officially released.  This version is stable, but is still undergoing internal testing.  Please feel free to install and give us your feedback!

Click here to download the preview release of the RezOvation GT Summer 2010 update. Once you downloaded the update file, launch it and follow the prompts.  Next, select Help > Install Updates, or simply start RezOvation GT and you will be prompted to install the update.  The new version will be 5.8.

Here are some of the new features -

Discounts & Promotions

We added a brand-new discount & promotions system. This system allows you to:

• Create discounts of any amount including % or fixed discount on a room rate, free night, free extra, free package, and more.
• Apply any number of restrictions to a discount including blackout dates, min # nights, max # nights, repeat guest only, day of week, last minute, and more.
• Create special coupon / promotion codes and provide those to specific customers, or use them for a marketing campaign. These coupons can then be redeemed through the RezOvation Booking Engine or directly in the software for guests booking over the phone / checking in.
• Set up an automatic discount for the Booking Engine or for phone reservations. An automatic discount will then show up when the guest meets the necessary criteria - incenting them to book.
• Visit the user guide for more information.

Reservations & Customers

• We added a "Possible duplicates" filter to the Customer list to help you more easily identify duplicate customer records. You can then click and select any duplicates (click & drag, or CTRL click), and click the Merge button in the menu to merge them together.
• The Reservation referral source is now auto-populated with the Customer referral source, if the Customer has a referral source entered.
• Customer "Other Names" are now displayed in the contact info on the reservation.

Reports

• We added a new Comparison report, which allows you to compare Unit Revenue from one period to the next. This is similar to the "Unit Revenue Comparison" report in RezOvation Desktop, and gives you the ability to see how you are "pacing" from one year to the next. For example, you can compare how many reservations were booked as of July last year for last year's fall season, to how many reservations were booked as of July this year, for this fall.
• The Housekeeping report can now be grouped by housekeeper name. To create housekeeper names, first add the housekeeper(s) as a User under Configuration > Users.
• We added a report timeout setting, which allows you to increase the time that reports can run before timing out. This is useful if you have a larger database or many reservations and find that some of your reports fail to run.

Booking Engine

• If you don't use Intuit Payments / QBMS to automatically take deposits, but you'd still like the RezOvation Booking Engine to indicate that a deposit is due, you can now configure the Booking Engine to display a deposit due / to be billed and then manually charge the deposit after the booking is made.
• If you have less than 10 rooms, we are now showing larger thumbnails for your rooms on the rooms list display. If you have 10 or more rooms, you can enable this setting from within Configuration > Booking Engine Settings.
• You can now sell room packages when using the Availability Calendar. Once a room is selected from the Availability Calendar, if a room package is available for the selected room, it will appear in the next step of the checkout.
• Online Gift Certificate sales delivery option can now be restricted to "ship only" or "email only".

Credit Card Processing

• You can now customize the batch close time for Intuit / QBMS credit card processing to whatever time you choose. This setting can be found under Configuration > Credit Card Settings.
• When entering a new connection ticket, RezOvation GT will verify that it is entered correctly before saving it.

Packages

• We added a new "must arrive on day" restriction to the packages configuration.
• You can now duplicate packages by clicking the Copy button from within the package configuration screen.

Misc

• You can now sign off from RezOvation GT without closing the application - just click File > Sign Off.

As always, we welcome your feedback.  

Thanks for using RezOvation GT, and we hope you enjoy the new features!

- The RezOvation Team

We're proud to the announce the newest addition to the RezOvation family - the RezOvation iPhone app! You can now look up guests, check availability, book reservations, take payments, and more - all from your iPhone.  The app is completely FREE for customers who already have a Basic Service or Booking Engine package, and streams data in real-time from our online data portal - so you're always up to date wherever you are!

Some requirements:
- RezOvation GT or RezOvation GTO software with Basic Service or Booking Engine package
- iPhone 3G or 3GS, or iPod Touch
- Wifi or 3G data connection (EDGE not supported)

Once you have downloaded and installed the application, please contact support@rezovation.com to receive your username and password.

If you need help using the app, a user guide can be found here: http://www.rezovationwiki.com/index.php?title=IPhone_Application_for_RezOvation_GT

Check it out and let us know what you think!  We hope you enjoy it.

-The RezOvation Team

Hello everyone,

We launched the latest version of RezOvation GT to everyone last week. Read on for details!

iPhone

We're currently beta testing an iPhone application that allows you to check availability, book rooms, lookup guests, and more. Click here for more information.

Occupancy Map

• Colors, colors, everywhere!  We added custom colors to the occupancy map for special dates, weekends, wait listed reservations, online bookings, and more.  You can set up custom colors by going to the Configuration section and selecting Custom Colors.
• Reservations with a credit card authorization can now be displayed with a unique color.
• We improved the wait list.  The wait list will now pop up if you cancel a reservation for a wait listed date.  You can also open it any time by going to View > Wait List from the menu, and search / view any wait listed reservations.
• When a reservation is moved to a room with different rates, there is now an option to keep the rate or recalculate it.

Reservations & Customers

• Last used filters are now remembered, so you don't have to reselect your filters even time you move between screens.
• We added a Cancellations filter to the Reservation List.
• You can now require a referral source before booking a reservation. To enable this setting, go to Configuration and click the link on the right for "Lists, Occupancy Map, Reservations & Customers".
• We added a blank option to the customer prefix field.

Reports

• You can now compare many of the reports year over year or for whatever date range you choose. This feature is available for all revenue, reservation, occupancy, and summary reports.
• We improved the tax reports to show non-taxable & tax-exempt sales, as well as gross sales.
• Added a code for room extension to the Reservation & Housekeeping reports, as well as confirmation letter, registration card, and all other reservation letters.

Rates & Availability

• Packages can now be restricted to max future days (e.g. no more than 1 year in the future)
• The rate seasons & adjustments screen now displays occupancy % numbers for the entire month, and each day.

Booking Engine

• You can now opt to receive online booking notifications via text message (SMS). To add your mobile #, go to the Configuration section, and click the link under Online Reservations for "Common Settings". Enter your mobile # in the field provided.
• There is now a “email link” button in the Booking Engine Settings to make it easier for you to send your webmaster your online booking links.
• We added more colors for the Booking Engine buttons - about 10 more color options.

A lot more!  Read the release notes for more details.

As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas.   Visit our feedback forum to share your ideas and see what other innkeepers have to say!

All the best,

The RezOvation Team

We're excited to announce the latest version of RezOvation GT, which is now available for any innkeepers who would like to try the new features before they are officially released.  This version is stable, but is still undergoing internal testing.  Please feel free to install and give us your feedback!

Click here to download the preview release of the RezOvation GT March update.

What's new?  Read on ...

iPhone

We're currently beta testing an iPhone application, the first of it's kind!  Our new app allows you to check availability, book rooms, lookup guests, and more. Click here for more information and to sign up for the beta.

Occupancy Map

• Colors, colors, everywhere!  We added custom colors to the occupancy map for special dates, weekends, wait listed reservations, online bookings, and more.  You can set up custom colors by going to the Configuration section and selecting Custom Colors.
• Reservations with a credit card authorization can now be displayed with a unique color.
• We improved the wait list.  The wait list will now pop up if you cancel a reservation for a wait listed date.  You can also open it any time by going to View > Wait List from the menu, and search / view any wait listed reservations.
• When a reservation is moved to a room with different rates, there is now an option to keep the rate or recalculate it.

Reservations & Customers

• Last used filters are now remembered, so you don't have to reselect your filters even time you move between screens.
• We added a Cancellations filter to the Reservation List.
• You can now require a referral source before booking a reservation. To enable this setting, go to Configuration and click the link on the right for "Lists, Occupancy Map, Reservations & Customers".
• Added a blank option to the customer prefix field.

Reports

• You can now compare many of the reports year over year or for whatever date range you choose. This feature is available for all revenue, reservation, occupancy, and summary reports.
• Improved the tax reports to show non-taxable & tax-exempt sales, as well as gross sales.
• Added a code for room extension to the Reservation & Housekeeping reports, as well as confirmation letter, registration card, and all other reservation letters.

Rates & Availability

• Packages can now be restricted to max future days (e.g. no more than 1 year in the future).  This option is available in Configuration > Packages.
• The rate seasons & adjustments screen now displays occupancy % numbers for the entire month, and each day.

Booking Engine

• You can now opt to receive online booking notifications via text message (SMS). To add your mobile #, go to the Configuration section, and click the link under Online Reservations for "Common Settings". Enter your mobile # in the field provided.
• There is now a “email link” button in the Booking Engine Settings to make it easier for you to send your webmaster your online booking links.
• We added more colors for the Booking Engine buttons - about 10 more color options.

Misc

• There is now a “restart services” shortcut in the Start menu for troubleshooting purposes.
• We added a link to the Intuit Merchant Service website (QBMS website) from the View menu to make it easier for you access your credit card batch information and charge data.
• It is now possible to enter data further in the past when creating a new database. Just select the option when prompted as you are setting up RezOvation GT.

As always, we welcome your feedback.  

Thanks for using RezOvation GT, and we hope you enjoy the new features!

- The RezOvation Team