Other settings - Tariff editing modes
From Jomres v4 manual
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Other settings - Tariff editing modes and Models
Tariffs are extremely important and are linked to rooms (even SRPs) via room/property types. It's vital that you ensure that any tariffs you create in Advanced or Micromanage mode are associated with a room/property type and a corresponding room in your system.
You configure how tariffs are edited by editing the settings in the Property Configuration -> Tariffs and Currencies tab.
The first option of interest here is very important, and is labelled "Tariff Configuration Mode".
There are three tariff configuration (editing) modes available in this system, and which you choose to use varies depending on your property type and how you want to charge people.
Normal Micromanage Advanced
Normal
Normal is the simplest tariff configuration mode. If you are happy to set one price to be valid for particular room types from now and for the next ten years then you should use this mode. It's very easy to configure and you can effectively set it and forget it. The only time you might want to consider changing settings is when you want to change the number of rooms, or you put the price up.
Micromanage
Micromanage is usually the Tariff Editing mode of choice for SRP managers as it allows you to easily configure the value of each and every day of a booking for the next N years. It is also the editing mode you should use if you want to layer different tariffs over the same period while using the Average tariff Model as this mode doesn't actually create a new tariff as such, but a tariff type which in turn associates many tariffs with each other.
Don't let the large number of inputs you'll see when creating a new tariff in this mode scare you, you can easily use the buttons across the top labelled by the day of the week to modify all of the prices for a given day of the week by changing the input field above then clicking the day of the week.
Hint: If you are likely to want to configure prices for more than two years ahead then you are advised to switch to Micromanage mode, then go back to Property Configuration and click on the Micromanage tab that will now appear in the configurations tabs. Set the "Years to show" option to something that's appropriate for your requirements.
Advanced
Advanced mode allows you to precisely control certain aspects of your tariffs. For example you can ensure that a tariff is only available over a given weekend period by setting the valid from/to dates and the option "Weekends only" to Yes. If you do that, then the tariff will only be available if a booking's particulars fall within a certain set of parameters (eg min and max days could be 2-3 days) so you can ensure that bookings for that period have to be of a certain length.
Another feature of advanced editing mode is the Ignore PPPN option. It is possible to use this option so that a hotel that normally charges per person per night can offer, for example, family rooms that are not charged per head, but per room.
The only disadvantage of Advanced mode is that if you want to use the Average tariff model and you want to have several tariffs for the same room type over the same period then you must use the Micromanage mode, which doesn't offer special features like "Ignore PPPN" or "Weekends only".
Recently added features in Advanced tariff editing mode are :
Arrival Day of week. Using this you can specify that the room tariff combination for this tariff is only shown when the arrival day of the week in the booking form is X day. Min rooms already selected. Minimum number of rooms already selected in booking before tariff/room type combo can be offered. Allows you to have discounted tariffs when more than N rooms are already selected. Max rooms already selected. Maximum number of rooms already selected in booking before tariff/room combo is no longer offered. Allows you to stop offering this room type/tariff combination once N rooms have been selected in the booking form.
Hint: If you know you want to configure your property using the Advanced mode but have a lot of rooms, you should start by using the Normal mode to create your rooms first, then switch to Advanced mode to create more complex tariffs.
Tariff Models
Tariff models for different properties can vary. Some will want to charge a single rate, so whatever the tariff found for a room type is at the beginning of the booking, that rate is applied for the entire period of the booking. This model is known as the Flat Rate model.
The alternative model is the Average model. This is where a corresponding tariff is found for each day of the booking and added to a cumulative sum then divided by the number of days in the booking. It is useful if you want to offer higher prices at weekends or over holiday periods without limiting the length of bookings over said period. If you want to use the Average model then you are advised to switch your Tariff Editing mode (same tab, at the top) to Micromanage. This is because tariff types need to be associated with each other reliably generate the average and if you want to have several different tariffs
Final notes
Choosing between the Advanced and Micromanage is often the key for a good tariff setup. So to better understand this, we`ll learn based on example. Lets say we have 2 tariffs for the same period:
- Tariff B for min 3 people max 3 people - £60 per night
- Tariff B2 (inc dinner) for min 3 people max 3 people - £65 per night
What would you choose at this point? Whatever you choose, your thinking is right...but: For the time period and the number of guests both tariffs are considered valid. In and of itself that's not a problem however if you're using the Average model to allow the system to switch prices if you've got a crossover period (say from Low to High season or vice versa). In Advanced tariff editing tariffs are not associated with other tariffs (in Micromanage they are, internally there's a tariff type) so any time two tariffs are found to be valid at the same time, in Advanced editing and Average Model, if you have both tariff b and b2, then Jomres would calculate the room price to be 125 (60+65).
It's for this exact problem that Micromanage was originally designed to resolve. I could fix the above programattically but it would involve first forcing the property manager to create tariff types, then making them associate tariffs with both room types and tariff types. This adds even more complexity to the system. More complexity = more points for things to go wrong so it's better to simply educate you the user to the potential problems instead. Also, more complexity = more times the Property Manager needs to ask you how to do something.
