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Force Advance Bill and Payment at Check In
When the Reservations>Cashiering Flow at Checkin / During Stay application setting is set to Force Advance Bill and Payment, prepayment of anticipated charges for one or more nights is required prior to checkin, regardless of payment method. You may determine the number of nights for which payment is required during the check in process.
Upon selecting the Check In option (e.g., from the Reservation Search screen or from the Arrivals screen) the Billing screen appears with a prompt to specify the number of nights for which the guest is to prepay.
Note: For a Day Use reservation, any of the Advance Bill screen options may be chosen. (If you select Nights, enter 0.) Regardless of your choice, the Payment screen will display 0 in the Nights field.
Note: When checking in a group via the Group Options menu Check In Group button, the Billing screen and Payment screen are not displayed. Keys will be issued with a Key Valid Until date equal to the departure date (or the number of days after checkout determined by the IFC>Key Expiry Days application setting).
Options include:
When you have made your choice, select OK to display the Payment screen. (See Prepayment via Routing Instructions, below, if the Lodging transaction code for this reservation is covered by room routing.)
Note: When the Reservations>Cashiering Flow at Checkin/During Stay application setting is set to Force Advance Bill and Payment, the Print Folio check box is not available on the Payment form and the folio will automatically be generated when the full payment has been applied.
Payment screen fields are standard to the Payment screen except for the following:
Amount. The view-only amount shown in the Amount field is determined by the number of nights for which you are requiring prepayment. Charges that must be prepaid include Lodging (i.e., Room and Tax), plus the following, as applicable:
Deposits are automatically subtracted from the amount.
Note: During check-in, when the Reservations>Cashiering Flow at Checkin / During Stay application setting is set to Force Advance Bill and Payment and the Cashiering>Exclude Rate from Auth Based on Routing application parameter is set to Y, if a reservation has room routing or window routing instructions for the Lodging transaction code, the amount shown in the Amount field on the Payment screen will exclude the routed charges. This is regardless of the payment method associated with the reservation.
Nights. The number of nights for which prepayment is being made. View-only and auto-populated depending on the section made in response to the number of nights prompt.
Key Valid Until. The date until which the room key will be valid. View only and auto-populated depending on the selection made in response to the number of nights prompt.
Select Post to post the payment and continue with the check in. The "Checkin Successful" message appears, along with a key PIN code (if the key interface is such that it issues a key PIN code). One of the following payment records is automatically generated, depending on the Reservation>Force Bill Print Type application setting:
Note: The KEY_PIN and KEY_VALID_UNTIL merge codes may be included on the folio in order to print the key lock code assigned to the guest room for this check in.
If you select Close, the check in process is discontinued and you are returned to the screen from which you initiated the check in.
If the Lodging transaction code (Room charge) for the reservation has been routed to another guest's room (see Transaction Routing for details) the Lodging prepayment obligation for the reservation being checked in will be handled by automatically routing the Lodging charges to that room. In this case, once you have selected the number of nights for which prepayment is required, you are prompted to: "Verify routing instructions for Lodging transaction code." The Payment screen is not displayed unless there are other charges that must be prepaid (i.e., packages, fixed charges, pre-stay charges).
When you are checking in a reservation and performing an advance bill, if charges exist on multiple windows, then the payment screen will appear for each of the windows having a balance. If a payment is made for any of the windows, then the check in remains; if no payment is posted for any of the windows then the check in is reversed.
Note: When the Reservations>Cashiering Flow At Checkin/During Stay application setting is Force Advance Bill and Payment, Force Advance Bill, or Force Payment by default the prompt to post additional charges is not displayed. See Popup Blocker for additional details.
After the reservation is checked in, when performing a room move or trying to issue a key via the interface menu, on the Keys screen the key valid date is grayed out and defaults to the valid-until date for the earlier issued key.
When the IFC>Display Key Screen application parameter is set to Y, then if extending the number of nights on the reservation, the Keys screen will also gray out the valid-until date; even if you select OK, a new key / key PIN code will be issued only for the existing valid-until date. If Display Key Screen is inactive, then a key command is not sent to interface to create a new key. The intention is that the user will not be able to issue a key that is valid for dates that the guest has not been charged for or paid for. If you wish to issue a new key that is valid for future dates, an Advance Bill has to be performed.
See Also
