Do the initial Setup

General

Properties can be Hotels, B&B´s, appartmenthouses, campgrounds etc. Beds24 can handle multiple properties.

A property can have one or more rooms. Rooms can but do not need to represent physical rooms, they are a way of splitting your property into separately bookable sections.

If you renting your property as a whole you still need to define one room which in your case represents your complete property.

You are only a few steps away from accepting online bookings:

Step 1 - your Settings

Click on SETTINGS in the top menu bar.

• Go to ACCOUNT -> BUSINESS INFO and fill in your information
• If you want to use another language than English on your booking page click on LANGUAGES and tick the ones you want to use

• Go to PROPERTIES -> DESCRIPTION and enter the name and the currency symbol you want to use

• Go to PROPTERIES -> BOOKING QUESTIONS and determine what information you want to collect from your guest

• Go to COMMUNICATION -> GUEST NOTIFICATIONS and define the texts for your booking confirmation to your guests. Template Variables, which include information from the booking may be included.

• Go to ROOMS. A click on EDIT will open a field where you can set the name and set the quantity of rooms of that type available.

Room Allocation: "One Room Per Booking" will allocate one room for each booking. This is the normal setting for a hotel room etc. "One Room Per Guest" will allocate one room for each person in the booking. This is typical for a hostel selling beds or for activity or event tickets which are allocated per person.

Collect Number of Guests:

Maximum People: This is the total number of people this room can accommodate. A booking cannot be made for this room for more than this number of people. If Maximum Adults and Maximum Children are non zero the lowest of Maximum People or Maximum Adults plus Maximum Children will apply as the maximum room occupancy.

Maximum Adults: This is the maximum number of adults this room can accommodate. A booking cannot be made for this room including more than this number of adults. This can be used with the Maximum Children setting to specify the maximum number of adults and children that can be occupied. If both Maximum Adults and Max Children are zero then maximum People is used and the booking form will only ask for the number of guests.

Maximum Children: This is the maximum number of children this room can accommodate. A booking cannot be made for this room including more than this number of children. If you set this to zero the booking page will simply ask for the number of guests. There will be no field for the number of children. If required you can specify any age restrictions in your description and policy fields.

Maximum Nights: This sets the maximum number of nights a booking will be accepted for. If Max. Nights is set to 1 only the arrival date will be collected, the departure date will be automatically set to the next day.

Dont forget to SAVE.

• Room type means rooms are interchangable and have the same price. Your guest will only book a room of this type and you can allocate any of the availble rooms of that type. If you have more than one room type add another room for each room type and set up

• Go to BOOKING PAGE -> DESCRIPTION select which property/room and enter the information you want to display on your booking page. Fields yu leave empty will not be displayed. If you want to display descriptions add it in each language you have enabled. The Booking instruction is valid for a property can be used to give important information e.g. a minimum booking period.

In BOOKING PAGE -> PICTURES you select for which property/room you want to upload a picture.

You are done with a basic setup of your booking page. If you want to customise the design of your booking page you can optionally do so under BOOKING PAGE -> DESIGN

Step 2 - set your prices

1 Set a simple rate structure

If you have a simple pricing - one price per room (not per person), no extras or discounts go to DASHBOARD -> GRID. This is a table giving you a complete overview on your bookings, rates and inventory. By ticking the boxes you can select what you want to display.

Activate DAILY PRICES. You can set your room prices here. Click in the DAILY PRICE row and set price and date range and click SAVE. You may modify individual dates as required.

Override Dates: Each date can be set to BLACKOUT in which case it is not available on that date or EXCEPTION in which case it uses the same booking strategy as the properties exceptional period. If no override is set (- - - - -) the booking strategy is as defined for the property.

To remove a price set it to 0 (numeral zero)

The price offered to the guest will be the lowest from your Daily Prices and your Rates which match the requested stay period.

2 Set a refined rates and discount structure

To set a definded stucture go to RATES. Multiple rates and discounts may be defined for each room. When multiple rates exist for a given date the system default will calculate and offer the lowest price that matches your criteria. You can override this in the rates settings.

When creating multiple rates you would generally set your highest price to always be available and create discounted price rates for longer stays, specific days of the week or date ranges as you require. This way you can create sophisticated rate models.

Adding Rates and Discounts: To add a new rate click on the button ADD RATE

Copy a Rate: If you want to use the same rate for another room click on SAVE AS A COPY

Changing Rates and Discounts: Click on the rate you want to change and enter your changes. You can delete rate setting and add new ones. You may re-use old rates that are still in the system by changing their start and end dates.

Step 3 - add your bookings

To avoid double bookings it is advisable to enter the bookings you already have. In DASHBOARD -> GRID you will find a row INVENTORY. The number shows rooms remaining to sell. They can be edited to quickly change your availability. Doubleclick to open a popup and save the changes.

'To Add Bookings' click on the person+ icon, fill in the information and SAVE. Your booking has now been entered into the system.

Step 4 - Check your booking page. Go to back to SETTINGS -> PROPERTIES and click on SHOW.

Step 5 Booking widgets connect your website to your booking page. Click on SETTINGS -> BOOKING WIDGETS. Choose the widget you want to use. If required you can customise the appearance. If you need help please click on the HELP button on the top rights of the widgets page.

Copy your widget to your website. To install the booking widgets on your web site you will need the ability to edit the HTML of your page. This may involve knowing the passwords for your web server and the ability to transfer your files. Your web hosting service should be able to provide information and assist you with this.

Setting up your Beds24.com account is free if you do it yourself. We can do the setup for you for a small one off fee starting from €19. Technical support for you or your webdesigner to integrate the availability calendars and booking widgets into your website is free. Upon request we can do this for you as well. Please contact clicking on SUPPORT in the top menu.

Step 6

Do some test bookings to check everything is working.

Congratulations! You are now receiving online bookings.

New online bookings will be added automatically. You can also enter new bookings manually.

Refined Settings

If you want to set refined Booking Rules, Discount Codes, Upsell Items, use deposit collection through Paypal collect Credit Card , Room Dependencies choose from the menu on the left.