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

We posted a number of how-to / training videos to help you get the most of out RezOvation GT.  Topics include:  

• Basic Configuration - how to set up RezOvation GT
• Rooms & Rates Configuration - how to set up rooms and rates
• Front Desk Training - basic use of RezOvation GT
• Advanced Training - more advanced features of RezOvation GT
• Booking a Reservation - how to create a reservation
• Group Reservations - how to create a group reservation
• Editing Documents - how to customize and edit letters & emails
• Automated Emails - how to set up automated emails
• Packages - how to set up room & add-on packages
• Custom Lists and Fields - how to set up custom fields for tracking and searching through data

Take a look here: http://www.rezovation.com/rezovationgt/training.html

We hope you enjoy them! If you would like to see other how-to videos, just post a comment below.

Hello everyone,

We're pleased to announce that the latest version of RezOvation GT is now available.  Updates are downloaded automatically,  so you should see it next time you restart RezOvation GT or if you select Help > Check for Updates from the menu.

New Features include:

Email

• You can now specify an email subject line for each individual document that you send. To do this, go to the Templates configuration, open the specific document you wish to edit (e.g. confirmation), and double-click on the document name. Enter whatever email subject you wish and click OK.

Reports

• Report windows now remember their last used settings, so you don't have to re-select dates or filters every time you want to generate a report.
• The Housekeeping report can now be grouped by Status (e.g. arrival, departure, stay over, change sheets, etc.)
• We added some additional data columns to the default Housekeeping report. The data columns are: arrival date, departure date, and # of guests. As always, you can modify the report to your specific needs.
• We added some additional codes for totals to the Housekeeping report. They are - Total Rooms, Total Nights, Total Guests, Total Adults, and Total Kids. You can view these codes in the in-program help document.
• We added some additional codes to the Occupancy report. They are - # Nights Out of Service, and # Nights Total (the total room nights available). These numbers should make it easier to understand what is being reported, and whether or not out of service units are affecting your overall occupancy numbers.
• We added some additional codes to the Guest Forecast report. They are - # Nights Booked, # Nights Out of Service, # Nights Total, Total Arrivals, Total Stay Overs, Total Departures, Total Guests, # Nights Booked Total, # Nights Out of Service Total, and # Nights Overall Total.

Reservations

• When adding or editing a room, you will now see a small checkmark for any selected room nights. If you edit an existing reservation and remove or add a room night, you will also receive a confirmation message asking if you meant to change the # of nights selected.
• It is now possible to have 0 adults assigned to a particular room. This is useful if you have a room which has children, but not adults.
• If you attempt to move a reservation on the Occupancy Map to a room that cannot accommodate the total number of guests, you will receive a warning message.
• We've reorganized the right-click menu on both the Occupancy Map and Reservations List to make the options more logical, and also added the ability to print and email from the Occupancy Map.

Rates & Availability

• We added a date selection to the Rate Seasons & Adjustments screen.

Configuration

• If you edit the default tax amount for any tax, you will now see a confirmation message that allows you to set what dates the change will affect. This allows you to decide whether or not editing the default tax amount should apply to past reservations, future reservations, or both.

Booking Engine

• The availability calendar navigation has been improved to make it easier for guests to book a room. When a room is selected, "Book" button will appear below the selection, and when the date selection is changed, the availability list is automatically refreshed. 

We hope you enjoy all the new features!

- The RezOvation Team 

P.S. To share your ideas, and to see what else we're working on, please visit the feedback forum.

We're proud to announce the latest update to RezOvation GT, which includes some significant new functionality based on feedback from our users.  The new version is 5.5.1, and these are just a few of the new features:

Windows 7 Compatibility: RezOvation GT is now certified as compatible with Wndows 7.

Group Reservation Enhancements:  We've added a new group reservation interface, which links together individual reservations within a group and allows you to easily manage payments and reservations for a particular group.  Enhancements include:

• Book a group quickly and easily, with individual reservations for each guest in the group
• Apply payments to the entire group, or a single payment to an individual reservation in the group
• Easily add a reservation to an existing group
• Print separate invoices for different guests on the same reservation (e.g. if you have a single reservation with multiple rooms / guests and don't want to put them under a group -- this is an easy way to split out charges / payments)
• Run reports on your group, see group revenue, etc.
• For a walk through of these new features, please click here.

Occupancy Map Improvements:

• The click & drag feature has been improved to allow for multiple selections without using the "CTRL" key. To make a selection on the occupancy map, simply click and drag the room / dates you wish. Make as many selections in different rooms / days as you wish, and then press ENTER on your keyboard, or right-click on a selection and click "Book".
• Out of service rooms can now be created by clicking and dragging on the occupancy map. Simply click and drag to select the rooms / days you wish to put out of service, and then right-click on the selection and click "Out of service".
• For a walk through of these improvements, please click here.
  

Improved Booking Process: We've made significant improvements to the process of selecting rooms, applying packages to rooms, applying discounts, editing room assignments, and managing multiple room reservations. For a walk through of these improvements, please click here.

Tax Effective Dates / Tax Scheduling: You can now schedule a tax change for a future date, and have the system automatically update future reservations to reflect the new tax rate.

QuickBooks Accounting Integration: We are now offering an open beta of this new feature, which allows you to synchronize your reservations and guests automatically to QuickBooks, and use the powerful automatic reconciliation features in QuickBooks. For more information or to sign up for the open beta, please contact beta@rezovation.com.

Booking Engine Improvements:

• Book packages only option. You can now set the Booking Engine to only allow room / lodging packages. To set this option, go to the Configuration screen, click the link on the right side for "Booking Engine", and check the box for "Book packages only".
• Compact availability calendar. We've added some settings under Configuration > Booking Engine which allows you to hide photos and minimum night stay information on your availability calendar. This is especially useful for properties with a large number of rooms
• Sort rooms & packages by price or name. You can now choose how your rooms and packages are sorted by going to Configuration > Booking Engine.
• Trip insurance. This feature was released in September, and allows guests to optionally purchase trip insurance while booking a room. You can read more about this feature here.

Email Improvements:

• Preview any emails and letters right from the template configuration screen. Just click the "preview" link, and you'll see a sample of the template with real data.
  
• Follow up and reminder emails can be configured to ignore the "Marketing OK" flag, so your follow up and reminder emails will always be sent.
  
• Marketing OK enabled by default setting. Set the "Marketing OK" flag to "on" by default from the Configuration section, from the "General Settings" link on the right side.
  
• Bulk update guests to "marketing OK". From the Customer List, select the guests you wish to update, right-click on a selected guest, and choose "Enable Marketing OK", or "Disable Marketing OK".

For more information about new features and bug fixes, please take a look at the release notes.

Do you need some ideas for templates, or want a head-start on creating your own custom report and letter templates for RezOvation GT?  We've made it easy for you by creating a package of custom templates, in just about every category.

Follow the directions below to get started.

1. Click here to download the template package.
2. Save the file to an easy to find location such as Desktop or My Documents.
3. Locate the downloaded file, and right-click on it.  Select "Extract".  This will create a folder with the template files.
4. To edit a template file, just open it -- it's in Microsoft Word (DOC) format. 
5. When finished editing, close the template and upload it to RezOvation GT by doing the following:
* Go to the Manage Reports and Letter Template configuration section (click the button next to the gear icon in the toolbar, or select View > Template Configuration). 
* Click the link for the template category you wish to edit, e.g. "Confirmation Letter".
* Select the specific template you wish to edit, and click "duplicate".
* Select the duplicated template, and click "check in". 
* Locate the custom template, and select it.  Word may open and close a few times -- this is normal. 
* Select the custom template, and click "set to default".

Click here for more information about editing templates.

 

Looking for more useful articles?  Click here to visit the RezOvation Wiki.

Today is a very exciting day for Microsoft Windows users, as Windows 7 has finally launched!  Here at RezOvation, we've been using Windows 7 since the beta was released earlier this year, and we're happy to say that RezOvation GT and RezOvation Desktop both work without a hitch.  In addition, RezOvation GT has passed the official certification testing for Windows 7.  You can view more information in the Windows 7 compatibility database, which you can view here. 

RezOvation GT is compatible with Windows 7 32 bit and 64 bit editions, and RezOvation Desktop is compatible with Windows 7 32 bit edition.  Nothing is required from you to maintain compatibility -- simply install the latest version of RezOvation software.

For users of Windows Vista, upgrades to Windows 7 are available from Microsoft; for users of Windows XP, a full Windows reinstall is required.  Expect to see most new computers from Dell, Gateway, HP, and others ship with Windows 7 preinstalled (or with a free upgrade from Vista). If you purchased a copy of Vista or a new PC after June 26, 2009, you may be eligible for a free upgrade -- see this link for details.

For more information about Windows 7, visit the Microsoft website.

We've released the latest version of RezOvation GT.  The version is 5.4.1.84 and is available via the auto update feature.  This update includes numerous fixes, and details can be found here.

We're happy to announce that the latest update to RezOvation GT has been released.  The version is 5.4.1.49, and some features include:

• Gift Certificate management list view, which allows you to easily view / edit / manage all of your gift certificates and pre-paid accounts. To access this feature, click the "Gift" icon on the toolbar.
  
  
• Gift Certificate online checkout. This feature is available for Booking Engine users only, and allows you to sell your own "house" gift certificates online. To access this feature, simply place the Gift Certificate booking link on your site. This link can be found under Configuration > Booking Engine, in the "Booking engine integration with your website" section.
  
  
• Search feature for the Gift Certificate lookup screen. This screen appears when you are applying a gift certificate payment, and allows you to search for a gift certificate by number, purchaser, to, and from fields.
  
  
• Added an export feature to the customer and reservation list, which allows you to export any customer and reservation data to a CSV (spreadsheet) file. To access this feature, select File > Export from the customer or reservation list.
  
  
• Added a "Do Not Move" feature to the Occupancy map. To access this feature, right-click on any room reservation on the Occupancy Map and select "Do Not Move". If you then attempt to move the room, a warning message will appear and you will not be able to move the reservation to another room or another date.
  
  
• Reservations with credit card holds now display as orange on occupancy map. You can change this color by going to Configuration > Lists and Occupancy map (bottom right side of the Configuration screen), and selecting "choose occupancy map colors".
  
  
• Added additional data columns to the reservation list, including # of nights, # of guests, # of adults, # of children, arrival time, departure time, total charges, and total tax.
  
  
• List columns now "stick" when you reorder them. To reorder a list column, simply left-click on the column header and drag it to the left or right. The order will be saved when you close the program.
  
  
• Added a new Reservation Balance report. This report displays running totals through a specific date of any reservations which have a balance. This includes in house, departed, and future reservations.
  
  
• Added a new Reservation By Booking Date summary report. This report displays aggregate information about reservations booked for a particular date range, including % of reservations booked online vs offline, and more.
  
  
• Added a new user security level which prevents certain users from deleting reservations and customers, and canceling reservations. To access this feature, go to Configuration > Users (bottom right side), open the User you wish to edit, and uncheck the box for "delete customers and reservations" and "cancel reservations".

For more features as well as bug fixes, please read the release notes.

We want your feedback!  Share your voice and help decide which features are included in future updates.  Visit our feedback forum now.

At RezOvation, we're always listening to your ideas, suggestions, and problems to make sure that our software is making your innkeeping life easier and bringing you more reservations.  In the past, we've always taken feature requests and product enhancements either through our suggestion form or when talking to innkeepers.  While we'll continue to do that, our number of users has grown so much that we need a better way to track your feedback and make sure that we are working on the improvements that matter to you! 

As part of this goal, we're pleased to announce a new feedback forum for RezOvation GT, which is designed to gather and share your ideas in a way that we hope will be helpful to you and to our product team.   Some features that we're excited about:

• Everyone can submit their favorite ideas, and browse ideas that have already been submitted
• Everyone can vote on their favorite ideas
• We can better track for your benefit which ideas have been implemented, which are in progress, and which are under consideration, providing you with better insight into what our product team is working on
• You'll have more direct access to the product team to share your ideas and discuss them. 

You can visit the forum here: http://feedback.rezovation.com.  You'll also notice a large "Feedback" button on many of the RezOvation GT support pages -- just click it to see some of the top ideas and submit your own.

Please note that In order to submit ideas, you will need to either create a login on the feedback page, or use your existing Google / Yahoo / Facebook / etc. login information via the OpenID system. 

We're looking forward to all of your great ideas ... see you there!

- The RezOvation team

RezOvation, the leader in property management systems for inns, B&BS, hotels, and specialty lodging with its RezOvation GT 5.0 Property Management System product, announced that it has passed full PA-DSS credit card security certification. “Our GT product is one of the first products in the world to have completed the new, more rigorous payment application certification standards,” explained John Banczak, COO of RezOvation. “Our customers can now rest assured that RezOvation GT has undergone the most stringent data security testing procedures available and is fully approved for credit card processing and data storage.”

Credit card security is quickly becoming a critical issue for all small merchants that accept credit cards, including B&Bs and small hotels. Any third-party application that a small merchant uses to capture, transmit, store, or process credit cards must be fully certified by 2010 – whether it is an online application, a website shopping-cart, or installed software – and small merchants are scrambling to find software that is approved, appropriate, and affordable. By July of 2010, just over a year away, credit card processors must ensure that all of their merchants are using only fully certified applications. In addition, merchants using third-party applications that are not certified cannot become PCI compliant. Many credit card processors are already enforcing compliance or are charging additional fees to non-compliant properties. RezOvation is already seeing a huge demand from its customers for certified applications and encourages properties to become PA-DSS complaint well in advance of the 2010 deadline to avoid the expected last-minute rush.

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