Other settings - Tariff editing modes

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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 General 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 General 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".

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