Floating Allowance / Package Credit

This guide walks through the steps needed to create a room rate that is inclusive of a 'floating credit.'  This is where the guest is provided with a credit to use throughout their entire stay.

By the end of this training guide you will understand:

• How to set up the package
• What happens on check in
• How to check out

As an overview, when created these packages will include an allocation towards the resort credit.  On check-in, this is then balanced against a credit (payment) on a separate folio, against which food, beverage and other charges can be posted.  At departure, there will typically either be a balance over and above the allowance which the guest will need to settle.  It's also possible that there is package credit left over in which case the hotel will need to post revenue against this to balance the folio before the room can be checked out.  By placing the package credit and charges against it, sitting in a separate folio, allows for very quick reference on the remaining credit available

Important Notes

• Prior to departure, it is important that the guest's bill is checked to ensure the credit allowance is only being used against permissible purchases according to the rate plan rules.  Whilst it's possible to control which revenue streams are sent to the credit folio, this still requires cross-checking.
• Ahead of launching this package, the hotel should agree on a revenue stream that any unused credit should be posted against to balance, e.g. accommodation
• Before implementation, it's strongly recommended that the finance team are involved in the package creation, especially as new revenue and payment types are required

Package set up

Create a package as per a normal rate plan, further guidance on which is available here.  It’s important that the Floating/Resort Credit is set to be on the First Night only

Create the rate plan as normal.  The Floating Credit line must have the new Allowance tick box checked.  Note: No outlets or allowances need to be set as would be the case in an inclusive allowance rate plan, such as Dinner, Bed & Breakfast

Within Configuration > Global > Billing, create a Billing template:

In the upper section, there should be:

• The rate plan which will be available from the drop-down list
• Billing – note a template for each scenario needs to be created with the relevant folios (Pay Own Account, Guest Settle Extras etc)
• Select ‘Room’ from booking however, this field is overridden by the existence of the Rate Plan

In the lower section:

• Right-click and add the folios that are needed for that billing.  In the example above we have an Arrangement folio and a Floating folio for the credit
• Make sure the Floating folio has the Main box ticked – this will ensure that when posting charges from the POS that these charges go to this folio automatically

Lower right section:

• It’s possible to define which revenue streams go to a specific folio.  In the example above, Accommodation, Breakfast, the Floating Credit (from the package) and service charge will all go to the arrangement folio.  Having this set up means that when a POS check is posted to the room, the service will get split off automatically, as it’s unlikely this could be used against resort credit

Check in

On check-in a payment will be added to the Floating folio automatically, so the guest has credit that can start being posted against:

To reiterate, it’s important that there are hotel-level level clearly communicated rules on what the credit can be used against, for instance, in which outlets.

Check Out

In the example below, the Arrangement folio contains the rate plan charges plus service charge from a POS check:

The Floating folio contains the original credit plus the F&B charges.  In this example, there was credit left over so it has been balanced with a charge of ‘Floating Credit’ revenue to bring it to balance and allow check-out