In food service and hotel environments, a business day refers to the beginning and end times of a day of business. A business day can have any begin time, but typically a business day starts in the early morning hours during a slow or closed period of operations (for example, 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m.). In contrast, a calendar day always begins at 12:00 a.m.
In a cruise ship environment the PMS controls the business date. POS transactions (for example, dinner or drinks) post to rooms in the PMS. The POS and PMS must be in sync to communicate and balance these transactions. When initializing the Start of Day (SOD) on a ship, change the PMS date before changing the POS date.
On cruise ships, Simphony allows a manual SOD to run twice in one calendar day. The rooms empty at approximately the same time on a cruise ship and the financial information resets. The ship’s PMS and POS are closed out after the last guest leaves the ship, which is typically between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. The SOD changes in the PMS and POS at that time, and the next cruise begins. Both the PMS and POS change the SOD again at about 3:00 a.m. the following day when the cruise is under way.
Related Topics
Parent topic: Handling Time Zone Changes on a Moving Property