Questions and Answers
Beds24 is a cost-effective self-service system offering powerful online booking engines for your own website property management and optional channel management.
Contents
- 1 Bookings
- 2 Channel Manager
- 3 Currencies
- 4 Payment Collection and Payment Gateways
- 5 Documentation/Questions
- 6 Email Address
- 7 Fees
- 8 Facebook
- 9 Forum
- 10 Free Trial
- 11 Google Analytics / Tracking
- 12 Help / Training
- 13 Import Data / Connect to other Systems /API
- 14 Languages
- 15 Messaging and Notifications
- 16 Mailings
- 17 Mobile
- 18 Multiple Properties / Agency Functions
- 19 Multiple Users
- 20 Pictures
- 21 Private Label
- 22 Rates/Prices
- 23 Reports
- 24 Setup and Customisation
- 25 System Status
- 26 Support
- 27 Web site integration and Widgets
- 28 Where is your office?
- 29 Wordpress
1 Bookings
Beds24 shows real-time availability. Bookings can be instant (auto confirmed) or on request (manually confirmed or declined). Bookings can be changed or moved to another room if required.
Cancellations
You can give guests the option to view and cancel bookings but not change them.
Information
You can set which information you require your guest to enter when they make a booking.
2 Channel Manager
We have two way XML connections with major booking channels so Beds24.com can export inventory and prices and import bookings and modifications to bookings. To some channels we can also send pictures and descriptions.
For some Channels we have an iCal connection which has limitations the capabilities of the connection depend on the channel.
You can find details for each connected channel here.
This page explains in detail how the channel manager works.
If required you can set different rates for your own website and booking channel(s).
3 Currencies
You can set the system to use one master currency. The new responsive version of the booking page allows you to use a currency converter. If you are using booking channels which require a different currency than your standard currency you can add a multiplier to prices to convert to a different currency.
If you are using multiple properties you can set a different currency for each.
Your account fees are billed in € but you can pay in any mayor currency according to the current exchange rage.
4 Payment Collection and Payment Gateways
You can use Beds24 to receive deposit payments with the booking or collect credit card details. Integrated payment gateways are Paypal (which also allows credit card payments), Stripe, Realex, Authorize.Net, Paymill and Bitpay. All later payments have to be processed outside the Beds24 system. Beds24 does not handle money. All payments go directly into your account with the payment gateway.
To use this service you will need an account with the payment gateway you want to use. Beds24 charges a small per transaction fee and the payment gateway will charge their fees.
All the payment gateways we connect to are fully PCI DSS compliant.
Alternatively you can securely collect credit card details and process the payment through your own bank or merchant account.
Beds24 is not involved in deposit collections for bookings from booking channels. Each booking channel handles them according to their rules/your account settings. If you use Stripe as payment gateway you can choose to send credit cards supplied by all channels directly to Stripe where the cards can be validated and charged.
5 Documentation/Questions
The start page of the support wiki has links to many common questions: https://wiki.beds24.com/index.php/Main_Page
There is also a search function which can be used to search for other topics.
When you click on the FUNCTIONS button in the top left you will find links to commonly used functions.
If you have questions or need help you can use the forum (http://forum.beds24.com) or you can create a ticket via the support button at the top of the Beds24 control panel.
6 Email Address
How can I change my email address.
You can change your Administrator Email Address by going to Settings > Account > Account Access
You can change your Property Email Address by going to Property Email Address in Settings > Properties > Description > Email.
7 Fees
With Beds24 you only pay for what you use. There is a basic fee for the use of the system which is based on the number of rooms set up plus fees for the services which are used.
You can find detailed information and a calculator on our website to calculate the monthly fee for your set up.
8 Facebook
Beds24 provides a Facebook app to accept bookings directly from a facebook page.
9 Forum
Beds24.com has a forum used by other Beds24.com users (http://forum.beds24.com)
10 Free Trial
Signing up for the free trial opens a fully functional account. You may use this account to test all the functionality of the system for free. The trial period is 14 days, after this period expires, a payment is required to continue using the account.
11 Google Analytics / Tracking
You can install Google Analytics on you booking page. Beds24 also has a built in logging system which will give you information on the activities on your booking page and where a booking originated from.
12 Help / Training
Beds24.com has extensive training/help, you can access the relevant HELP for each area of BEDS24.com by clicking the HELP button in the top right menu. Where you see (?) for a setting, click (?) for context help.
There is setup wizards that you can access from this page: [https:/www.beds24.com/wizard/index.php?lang=en]
They are designed to introduce the system and guide you through the setup process. The wizards open your control panel and booking page in wizard mode. Login with your username and password and follow the steps.
There are also tutorials and videos showing you how to do the set up: [https:/wiki.beds24.com/index.php?title=Main_Page]
When you click on the FUNCTIONS button in the top left you will find links to commonly used functions.
13 Import Data / Connect to other Systems /API
If you need to import bookings into Beds24 you can use a csv via our API (https://www.beds24.com/api/). For some channels we can try to import bookings.
The API can also be used to import/export other data, connect to third party systems or to build your own application.
14 Languages
The backend is English, German partially in Spanish, and we can offer customer support in English and German. The booking page where guest can make their bookings is available in 31 languages (Arabic, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish). If the booking page does not currently support your language we can look into adding it if you help us with the translation.
Hosts can choose to activate one or more languages to give guests the option to book in their own language.
15 Messaging and Notifications
E-Mail You can set up template Emails to manually or auto send to guest e.g. x days before arrival/departure, based on origin of the booking etc. You can export all bookings and process the data e.g. add to your mailing lists.
Bookings through OTA´s will be confirmed directly through the OTA not from Beds24.
16 Mailings
Guest information and contact details can be downloaded to be imported into external mailing lists.
17 Mobile
The design of the control panel is responsive meaning it adjusts to the size of the screen. This allows you to perform all actions from your smart phone or tablet it you need to. You have the option to set up a special dashboard to use from mobile devices.
The booking page is mobile friendly. It detects which device the guest uses and adjusts the view accordingly.
18 Multiple Properties / Agency Functions
With Beds24 you can manage multiple properties in one account. You have the option to create subaccounts with individual logins for each property. The subaccounts can have their own login with full access (read and write) or limited access (read only).
The agency search page allows guests to search for availability by criteria you define and book directly online. For a simple example please look here: https://www.beds24.com/demo/agency-online-reservation-system.htm
We do not have a way to automatically split payments or calculate commission. You could collect the deposit from the guest (your commission) and the property collects the balance when the guest arrives.
19 Multiple Users
You can create sub accounts with full or limited access rights. Choose from default roles (e.g. admin, backoffice, reception, cleaner) or create you rown roles.
20 Pictures
The new responsive booking page allows up to 5 pictures per property plus up to five pictures per room and offer.
By default the adaptive version of the booking page allows for one picture per unit but you can add a Woo slider which will let you display multiple pictures. If you are comfortable working with HTML you can also add multiple pictures directly.
21 Private Label
The private label option allows you to use your own subdomain for your booking page (bookings.mywebsite.com).
22 Rates/Prices
You can set a simple or refined rate structure based for example on seasons, occupancies, minimum/maximum stays, time of booking (e.g. last minute).
23 Reports
The system includes a range of predefined reports including revenue reports, arrivals, departures, invoices, occupancy and current guests. You also have the option to create custom reports. All reports can be saved as .csv files. Custom reports are also available for download as Excel or pdf files.
24 Setup and Customisation
Beds24 is a self service system. Set up is free of charge and you do it yourself. We have setup wizards which introduce the system and guide you through the setup process.
Almost all elements on the booking page and invoice have classes and you can apply custom CSS to customise them. You or your web designer can use Firebug or a similar tool to look up the classes.
25 System Status
We do have a public monitoring system. Even though our service is very reliable there will be occasional short outages due to necessary maintenance. Also we cannot except acts of God.
26 Support
Beds24 is designed as a self-service system. Beds24 information and support is available via following channels:
For users who prefer phone support we cooperate with partners who offer professional help for a fee. For a list please have a look here:
27 Web site integration and Widgets
Beds24 can be integrated into any website. Adding a booking widget to a website requires pasting some html code we provide to the source code. This will work with any system as long as you can access the source code.
The Beds24 booking page is fully customisable. The innovative design of the new responsive version lets you not only change colors but also define which content you want to display where on the form.
28 Where is your office?
Our company is in Berlin, Germany.
29 Wordpress
Beds24 provides a Wordpress plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/beds24-online-booking/) which makes it easy to add booking technology to any Wordpress site via shortcodes. The actual management of bookings and inventory is done directly in the Beds24 control panel.
