Room charges

If your venue has rooms as well as a bar, staff can put part of a bar bill on a guest's room. Room charges is your record of every one of those, and it is the page to open when a guest queries something on their bill.

This page is the authority on what was charged. A charge is written down here the moment it is taken at the bar, before anything is sent anywhere. Your property system holds a copy that we push across to it — so when the two do not agree, this page is the one that knows what happened.

Open Marketplace in the sidebar, then the Rezcontrol card: once your hotel is connected it opens straight on the Room charges tab. The tabs along the top of Rezcontrol are Room charges, Rooms and guests and Setup. Or set the link up first on Connect your hotel property system.

Who can see it

You can, and so can anyone you have given a login whose level includes See integrations. A Manager has it; an Accountant or Kitchen login does not see the Marketplace at all. Sending or re-sending the daily totals, and changing when they go, needs Connect and set up integrations too (a Manager has it); anyone with only See integrations sees the list without those buttons. (Levels are set on Giving someone else a login.)

If you're on the test hotel

If you connected the built-in test hotel to try room charge out, a warning sits at the top of this page and cannot be dismissed. Everything listed below it is pretend: none of those charges reached any hotel, no guest was billed, and none of it appears on a real bill or folio.

A list of charges is the most convincing thing this page can show you, which is exactly why it says so before the numbers rather than after them. When you're ready for the real thing, see Connect your hotel property system.

What you see when you open it

The top of the page tells you whether anything needs you. Unsettled charges are listed in two separate blocks, because the two kinds need opposite things done about them and getting them the wrong way round costs somebody money:

• Refused — your property system would not take these, so nothing is on the guests' rooms. Go and collect the money another way.
• Not confirmed — these charges are real and recorded here, but we could not confirm they reached your property system. Check the folio first. Chasing the guest before you have checked is how you take the same money twice.

Each block has its own count, its own total and its own button to show just those charges.

Below that are three totals for the period you're looking at:

• Charged to rooms — everything staff charged to a room.
• Not settled — the part that isn't settled, with a line underneath saying how much of it is refused and how much is not confirmed. This is the number to watch, but act on the two blocks above rather than on this figure alone.
• Not sent yet — charges taken at the bar that haven't gone over to your property system yet. Normal, and they clear themselves.

If we cannot work the totals out for some reason, the page tells you plainly instead of showing zeros. The list of charges underneath is still correct.

Who's staying tonight

Above the charges is Staying tonight — the guests your hotel system says are in house right now, refreshed by the overnight pull. Open Show the guest list for the room, the guest's name, and what their allowance is doing.

What the allowance column says, and what it doesn't:

• A figure, e.g. "£20.00 left" — your property system has a credit limit for this guest, and that is what is left of it after tonight's charges. It never stops staff putting a bill on the room: past it, the till warns them.
• "£20.00 over the hotel's limit" — staff put more on the room than the hotel's limit allows (the till warned them). Your property system may turn the charge down overnight; if it does, it shows as Refused in the list below and needs collecting from the guest.
• "No limit" — the hotel has set no spending limit for this guest. This is the most common case, and it is the opposite of being out of money: anything can go on the room. It is deliberately not shown as a figure, because a "£0" here would read as "no money left" and get a perfectly good charge refused at the bar.
• "No allowance" — nothing has been loaded for them tonight, so nothing can go on the room.
• "Blocked" — either your property system refused a charge on this room, or the room has dropped off their in-house list (they may have checked out). Nothing more can go on it.
• "Can't be read" — we could not read this guest's limit from your hotel system, so the till will refuse a room charge until we can.

Beside it, Hotel limit is your property system's own credit limit for the whole stay. That is a different number from tonight's allowance and counts down across the days, so the two will not usually match.

If a guest is blocked for any reason, a line under the table says which guest and why, in words — you should not have to work it out from a colour.

"Using the allowance"

The percentage at the top answers "are my guests actually using this?".

It is out of the rooms occupied tonight, not out of every room in the hotel — an empty room cannot use an allowance, so counting it would just measure how busy you are. The sentence under the figure says so, and gives your total room count afterwards so the two are never confused.

It counts rooms, not guests. If two people are staying in one room, they each have their own allowance but the room counts once — and the page says so when it happens, so "14 guests in 12 rooms" doesn't look like a mistake.

On a night with nobody staying there is no percentage to show, and the page shows a dash rather than 0%.

Choosing what you're looking at

Use the quick ranges (Today, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days) or pick your own dates. You can also narrow by room or by status, and change the order between newest, oldest and largest first.

Everything you pick goes into the web address, so you can bookmark a view you check often, or send it to somebody.

Narrowing by room narrows the totals too, so when you filter to one room every number on the page is about that guest — you are never reading a hotel-wide figure as though it were about the person in front of you.

Narrowing by status does not. The unsettled figures at the top keep covering every status in the period, on purpose: if picking Refused also hid the Not confirmed warning, the page would be quietly hiding the charges you must not chase. The page says so on screen whenever a status filter is on.

What the statuses mean

| Status | What it means | What to do | |---|---|---| | Waiting | Held against the guest's allowance, not on their room yet. | Nothing. It goes over on the next send. | | Sent | Sent to your property system. We're waiting to hear back. | Nothing yet. | | On the room | It's on the guest's room and settles at checkout. | Nothing. | | Refused | Your property system wouldn't take it. Nothing is on the guest's room. | The drinks were still served, so this needs paying another way. | | Not confirmed | The charge is real and recorded here. We sent it and never heard back, so we can't confirm it reached the room. | Check the guest's folio before you settle their bill. Don't chase the guest until you have — you may take the money twice. | | Cancelled | The sale was abandoned before anything was sent. | Nothing. | | Released | Someone checked the folio and gave the allowance back. | Nothing. | | Reversed | Taken back off the guest's room. | Nothing. |

Refused and Not confirmed are the two that cost you money — but not in the same way, and not with the same fix. Refused means the money is definitely still owed, so go and get it. Not confirmed means the money may already be on the guest's bill, so check before you ask for it. That is why the top of the page keeps them apart.

Why "Not confirmed" doesn't mean "we don't know if it happened"

It happened. The charge was taken at the bar and written down here before anything was sent — that part is never in doubt, and it is what this page is a record of.

What we can't confirm is whether the copy reached your property system. When we send a charge, your system replies with a plain success and no detail, and it offers no way to look a single posting back up afterwards. So if the reply never arrives, we can't tell whether it landed. We mark it Not confirmed and keep it held against the guest's allowance rather than guessing, because guessing wrong in either direction costs somebody real money.

Opening the guest's folio in your property system settles it in a few seconds.

Settling a guest's query

Click the amount on any row — or use Charge details from the row menu. You get:

• the night, the room, the guest and the booking reference
• the bill number your property system knows the charge by, which is what to quote when you ring them
• what was on the bill — the actual drinks and food, with quantities and prices
• a list of what actually happened to that charge and when: when it was put on at the till, when it went over, and what came back.

A charge that has not been sent yet has no bill number, and the panel says so rather than showing a blank.

Why the bill is often bigger than the charge

This is normal and it is not an error. A room charge is an amount off a bill, up to and including the whole thing — so £15 of a £31 bill on the room means the other £16 was taken at the till. The bill also keeps growing after the charge is made, so a guest who puts £20 on the room at 7pm and carries on drinking leaves a much larger bill pointing at that £20.

The panel spells the relationship out in a sentence, so you never have to subtract two numbers and wonder which is wrong.

When there's no bill to show

Two different things, and the panel says which:

• "This charge does not say which bill it came off" — charges taken before this feature was added never recorded one, and there is no way to work it out afterwards. Nothing has been lost; it was never captured.
• "The bill is no longer on your system" — we did know, and the bill has since been removed. The charge itself is unaffected.

If some lines on a bill have no price recorded, the panel shows no bill total at all rather than a total that quietly leaves them out — a short total would look like an overcharge.

Free breakfasts

Below the charges is Free breakfasts: every bill staff made free from the till with the Free breakfast button (see Put a bill on a guest's room). It covers the same dates as the charges above.

For each one you see the day, the time, the room, the guest, what was on the bill, what it was worth, and which member of staff gave it on which till. Above the list, each day has a line with how many free breakfasts there were and what they were worth.

Each booking is meant to get one free breakfast a day. The till reminds staff when a booking has already had one, but lets them give another. When that happens, the day's line says so, for example 1 booking had more than one. Two bookings sharing a room are counted separately.

A free breakfast is not a room charge. Nothing is sent to your property system, so free breakfasts never show as Refused or Not confirmed. In your sales reports each one is a £0 sale with a Free breakfast · Room N discount.

Use the download button on the list to get it as a spreadsheet.

Daily totals to Rezcontrol

If your venue has daily totals switched on, a Daily totals to Rezcontrol section appears under the charges. Once a trading day is over, we send Rezcontrol that day's sales for each department and the cash and card totals, as one entry. Money put on a guest's room is left out, because the room charge already sent it. Refunds count on the day you gave them.

Switching it on and off. Use Send daily totals to Rezcontrol at the top of the section. Sending starts with the day you switch it on: earlier days are never sent automatically, because Rezcontrol would file them all under the day they arrive. Switch it off and nothing more is sent until you switch it back on — and the days in between are not sent then either.

When it goes — pick the send time. Rezcontrol files your totals under the day they arrive, and can't back-date them. Each hotel's Rezcontrol day ends at its own cash-up time (often around 1am, sometimes 7am or 11am). So pick a Send time after your last sale and before the hotel's cash-up — ask the hotel what their cash-up time is if you don't know. A day is always sent the day after it, at that time. Under the time you pick, the page tells you exactly when a day will go, for example Tuesday's totals will be sent Wednesday at 00:30:

• If you pick a time too soon after your day ends, it goes 30 minutes after the end of your trading day instead (we wait that long for late sales), and the page says so.
• If you pick an evening time, such as 23:30, that is the evening of the next day — a whole day late — and the page warns you.

Until then the day shows Waiting to send, with the time it will go and its current figures, so sales from a till that was offline, and corrections made overnight, are included. Press Send now if you want it to go earlier. If you send an older day by hand, it will be filed under today's date in Rezcontrol, and the page tells you that before you press.

What the statuses mean.

• Sent — Rezcontrol has it.
• Not sent — needs a look — the day did not add up to cash plus card, so we held it back. The reason is shown underneath, for example a tip or a gift card was taken that day. Fix what it says, then press Send now.
• Refused by Rezcontrol — they turned it down and nothing arrived. The reason is shown; fix it and send again. When Rezcontrol gave a message of its own, it is shown too, as Rezcontrol said: "…", with their reference number. Quote that reference if you contact Rezcontrol support: it lets them find the exact attempt.
• Check Rezcontrol — we sent it but could not tell whether it arrived. If Rezcontrol said anything, it is shown underneath. Look for the day in Rezcontrol first. If it is there, press It's in Rezcontrol. Only send again if it is not there: sending a day twice puts it in twice.
• Nothing to send — no trade that day.

If it says two different VAT rates. Rezcontrol works VAT out from the department, so a department can only hold one VAT rate at a time. There are two ways a day breaks that rule, and they need different fixes:

• Two of your categories are on different VAT rates and both point at the same department. Give each of them its own department, on the Setup tab of Rezcontrol (open it from the Marketplace), then press Send now.
• One single category has items at two different VAT rates inside it. No department can separate those, because everything in a category goes to that category's department. Either split the category in two — one for each rate — or put those items on the same VAT rate. Then press Send now.

Changed after sending. If a sale or correction for a day arrives after that day was sent, the day shows what changed. We do not send it again and we do not move it to another day, so adjust it in Rezcontrol by hand if the difference matters.

Downloading it

Use the download button above the table to get the charges you're looking at as a spreadsheet, filters and all.

Related

• Connect your hotel property system