Global Configuration | Advanced Tab

By the end of this training article you will be able to:

• To understand the HART PMS Configuration

Configuration > Global > Advanced 

Configuration > Global is used for the basic background set up of the hotel’s PMS. 

Top Line

• ID / Hotel Name: as it will be displayed within HART. This cannot be edited
• VAT Code: Input your company VAT Number and will show it on the invoices
• Rooms: Total rooms the hotel has overall which is auto-populated
• People:  Input the number of people who can stay as a maximum (not required)
• Extra Beds: How many extra beds you have in your inventory. 
• Baby Cots: How many extra beds you have in your inventory. This will automatically deduct for both Extra Beds and Baby cots, and make the user aware at the room booking stage once all have been allocated
• Group Guests: This is used to set the default pax for creating group bookings. For example, 1 will automatically set all bedrooms attached to a group booking to single occupancy.

Colours 

Allows the user to mix and match the background colours for the training and main database by moving the < and the > then select OK. Click on the box with the colour to enter the colour selection screen shown below.

Close Day 

• Password: The password required to perform the close of day. To configure, simply type inside the box and save
• Last Close Day shows when the end of day was run last
• Date: Displays the date the system is on. 
• Status: The current status of the closed day. This should read finished, once completed, or in progress if still underway. 

The Date can be changed manually in emergencies only (if, for example, the close day has been run twice).

Options

• Bill Copies: Determines how many bill copies should be printed automatically on top of the one printed by the user
• Info: Relates to the bill information printout. The following options are available.
  • Automatic: The system will automatically print out the information printout when navigating to the departure screen for bedroom bookings
  • Prompt: The user will get a prompt asking if they would like to print the bill information when navigating to the departure screen

1. None: The system will take no action. The user can still manually print an information copy of the bill if the guest asks for it

Password

This is where the user login password criteria and parameters are set, the following are available.

• Change Password: The number of days before the user must change their password
• Log Out: Number of minutes before the system logs the user out automatically. If a negative value is inserted, HART will shut down in the given minutes
• Complex: Forces HART log in passwords to have to contain a capital, lower case, symbol, number and be more than 8 characters long

Defaults

This part of the upper screen shows the defaults new room bookings are given by the system

• Status: The booking status a reservation is given. I.e. Definite or Tentative
• Guest Country: Will populate all new profiles by default with this country
• Currency: Default currency used inside all billing
• Hotel Country: The country the Hotel is based in.

Revenue Settings

Assign a revenue center the Telephone and Newspapers. The dropdown will show all available revenue centers, please select the required center, and save.  

Stock

This is where some of your stock management defaults are set.

• Avg Price Period: Is used for the stocktake to calculate an average price for purchased items within a period as per the number of months set up. This is used for stock valuation. For example, if 3 was inputted then the system would calculate the average stock price based on 3 months of prices.
• Current Period: Is selected if the stock valuation would be based on the current stocktake period which is set up in Configuration > Materials > Stocktake date. 
• Valuation: is used for the method to be used in stock valuations. 
  • Weighted average: means that an average price is taking into consideration quantities i.e. ml of wine
  • Average price: is used to calculate the average price but ignoring quantities and last price paid will only use the most recent price paid per item.

System & Application Settings

System Settings

• Country: The county system is installed in. Caution must be taken here as incorrect selection and changes can cause a system malfunction
• Auto Update for HART to automatically look for system updates. Please be aware that this is currently under development
• Azure: Some clients host their database on Azure. This cannot be configured from here; it is a view only setting and will be set up in the background by HART

Application Settings

• Communication: Select the marketing contact default set inside the guest’s profile when creating a new profile. This should always be set to no contact or undefined in line with being GDPR compliant in Europe
• Group Guest: displays the profile used for all group members of a group booking. This should never be changed or overwritten
• Function Diary: A drop-down used to configure whether the Reservations > Function Diary in for this database should display weekly or daily by default 
• Channel Availability: This can be set to Fixed or Flexible and refers to the bedroom availability the hotel is sending out to the online travel agents. 
  • Fixed: Means that the hotel sets aside a pool of rooms for third parties. This is set up in sales/ room yield. If your hotel is set to fixed and your room yield is set to 0, the hotel is sending out 0 availability.  As reservations come in from third parties, this availability is manged automatically, without considering direct reservations. 
  • Flexible: Used to set and offset of the actual availability taking in account all reservations. This is the most common default
• Pickup Status:  This refers to bedrooms which have been cleaned the previous day or bedrooms being returned to inventory without having been stayed in. The Pickup Status is selected from the drop down. For example, you may wish all rooms which were not occupied the previous day to go to a specific status so the housekeepers know they need to be checked. All available statuses are configured in Configuration > Housekeeping > Status.
• Dirty Status: Is selected from the drop down. All available statuses are configured in Configuration > Housekeeping > Status. The dirty status is the status the room is returned to the system as after a check out or being out of order.
• Main Window: This is used to configure the Function Diary display. If set to Exclude Prospect (i.e. enquiries) they will not be displayed inside the main window of the Function Diary in Reservations, but inside the secondary window underneath. If this is set to included prospect it will be obvious to the user which dates, and rooms are being held as this is now also displaying inside the main function diary window.
• Public Areas: This must be ticked if they should be available to be assigned inside the assignment report for the attendants in Housekeeping.
• Start Up: is here to configure the start-up screen after logging in. Select either the room rack or hoogle. If left blank HART will start with only the menu bar to the right-hand side.

Terminal Integration

The Terminal Integration window is here to select the interface if you are connecting your PDQ machines to HART.

• Type: We currently have an interface for WorldPay and Verifone 
• Refund Password: must be set here
• Full must be ticked if no credit card payments method are allowed to be used to manually post in HART
• Keep Log: logs all terminal communication text files inside the clients HART folder. 
• Fallback Payment: This must be selected for the system to use this in emergency situations where the payment method was not transmitted or available. All payments methods that have been configured in Configuration > Financials > Payments are available to be selected from the drop down.

 Switches

• Auto Deposit Receipt: will automatically print out a receipt once a deposit added is saved.
• Receipt Copy: will save a copy of the POS receipt inside the HART folder of the day if required to be able to reprint this
• TEN as DEF: determines that tentative bedroom bookings are treated as definite bookings and are taken out of the hotel’s availability
• Monitor Ch: Close day will check if pending changes to the channel exist. 
• Archive Function Proforma: This is used to assign a sequence number every time a function proforma is printed and displayed on the proforma
• Member Overdraft: If using member levy cards, tick this to allow members to go overdrawn on their membership cards. This can still be configured at the individual member level too.
• Restrict Activities: Will only show the activities for the operator logged in, if unticked everyone’s activities are displayed on the reports. These are the activities set by Events Coordinators or Sales Managers in the Sales Office
• Email Reports: This is the switch that allows the auto emailing of reports from HART at night audit
• Daily Budget: must be ticked for the budget to be displayed daily. Only needed if you are using the budgeting functionality in HART
• Grant Credit: will automatically set all new accounts to credit approved, rather than manually set by the user.
• Consolidation the hotel is using the consolidation function this must be set in here.

Payment & Account Settings

• Sales Ledger: This tab determines which payment method is used as the debtor/ sales ledger in billing and links this via here to the Sales Ledger. This is also known as City Ledger
• Deposit: This determines which payment method is used as a deposit in billing and links this via this setting to the Deposit Ledger
• Cash: Determines which payment method is used for cash transaction
• Cash Card: Links all the cash card transactions to the cash card profile via the guest’s wizard
• Pending: This account holds all unprocessed deposits and opens POS orders at end of day. Make sure that the folio liked to this tab is excluded from revenue. Use the three little dots to link the folio
• Comp Voucher: This account holds all complimentary voucher transactions. Make sure that the folio liked to this tab is excluded from revenue Use the three little dots to link the folio
• Corrections Account: Holds all correction transactions. Make sure that the folio liked to this tab is excluded from revenue. Use the three little dots to link the folio.
• Units: Relates to the usage of business units. There are two options, statistics, or billing. When billing is selected the system can produce different types of invoices with different numbering per unit.
• Reduced Vat: Is set up in days. It relates to the period after which reduced VAT for a stay applies
• Currency: The currency symbol is added to show on the invoice in from of the amount
• DD Format: This is used to create an export of all membership payments due. We support three formats WinBacsStd, WinBacs18, and Allied Irish.
• P&L Level: The Profit and Loss date determines whether the profit and loss report costs are retrieved based on invoice date or transaction action date. Only used if you are using the P&L element of HART
• Rounding: Used in HART for charges to be set to first decimal, closed integer, or no change.

At the bottom of the screen, we can add an alternative currency (Alt Currency), this is used for converting financial reports only in properties that may deal in two currencies. 

• POS Sales tab allows the hotel to report on POS sale either by net or gross
• Consolidation Server: Used if consolidation is enabled for this database, the server is added in here by development
• Rack Style: Depending on the preference of new or old Room Rack select it here
• Room Share: This is used if the hotel allows more than one reservation to be allocated per room. Like for example in a hostel, where different guests share one room.
• Set Fonts is used to change the fonts inside the email editor if for example, you send a confirmation email via HART. There are two options, default or choose a font. Choose font opens the following window. In here you select the font type, the size, and if you wanted everything in bold. OK sets this font and cancel close the window.

Email & Postcode Settings

The final window is used to set the hotel's email and postcode settings. 

• Email Folder:  Use the three little dots to link the sent confirmation and any correspondence sent via the guest profile (double-clicking onto the email inside the guests profile opens the email editor) to a folder ideally in a shared location to every member can access these documents
• Email Mode 
  • HART: PMS ‘s built-in email functionally using the email server details listed in Access > Security
  • Outlook: PMS hands control of sending the email to the locally installed version of Outlook (PMS details, guest name, etc are still passed along) 
  • Flexible: PMS asks which one the user wants to use every time an email is sent
• Calendar Sync: Allows the HART sales office diary to synchronise with the sales managers outlook account if set to Outlook or none if set to none
• Acc Email: Configures accounts emails sent from sales ledger to be BCC’d to this address.
• Postcode: Always set this to GetAddress for the postcode lookup to work correctly when creating new profiles for guests or accounts.