Author: Paulina Brzeźniak

We are pleased to announce that FrontDesk Master has partnered with Hostel Hop, an innovative hostel booking platform that is set to revolutionize the way you connect with travelers and boost your revenue. This partnership opens up new opportunities for your hostel to thrive and expand its reach in the ever-evolving travel industry.

What Does This Mean for Your Hostel?

By integrating Hostel Hop through FrontDesk Master, you gain access to a host of benefits that will enhance your hostel’s operations and profitability:

• Lower Booking Fees: Hostel Hop charges hostels a competitive 12% booking fee, reducing your overhead compared to the 15% charged by some competitors, making your business more profitable.
• Streamlined Booking Management: Our user-friendly interface simplifies the booking process, reducing your administrative workload and improving efficiency. Say goodbye to the hassles of manual bookings.
• Increased Revenue: Our unique 4% cash-back to travelers for referrals can generate more bookings through your network, resulting in increased occupancy and revenue for your hostel.

Receptionist Engagement: Empower your receptionists to earn bonuses and commissions by referring travelers to Hostel Hop and making recommendations, strengthening their commitment to your business and driving more bookings.

How to Get Started:

Getting your hostel set up with Hostel Hop through FrontDesk Master is a breeze. Here’s what you need to do:

Create an Account: If you haven’t already, sign up for an account on Hostel Hop.

• Select FrontDesk Master as Your Channel Manager: In your Hostel Hop settings, simply choose Front Desk Master as your channel manager. From there you will simply copy the credentials into your FDM account and you’re done! FDM will handle the rest.
• That’s it! You’re all set to benefit from Hostel Hop’s innovative features and the support of Front Desk Master.

Need Assistance?

Hostel Hop is set to open to travelers in November of 2023. Please take advantage of this time to onboard your hostel. If you have any questions or would like our dedicated team to assist with setting up your hostel profile, please reach out to us via email at info@hostelhop.io or by phone at +1 (407) 325-5080. We’re committed to ensuring a smooth transition and making the most of this exciting partnership.

We are thrilled to embark on this journey with you and look forward to seeing your hostel thrive with Hostel Hop and FrontDesk Master. Together, we can transform the hostel booking landscape and elevate the services we offer to travelers worldwide.

Thank you for being a valued member of our network. Here’s to a bright and prosperous future!

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Did you consider exploring Airbnb channel?

Click HERE to check 10 things you should know about it!

Hosts on Airbnb can offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. When it comes to stays, they can offer a wide variety of different types of properties, including apartments, hotels, villas, vacation rentals, BNBs, hostels, serviced apartments, apart-hotels, resorts, and many more. Airbnb identified the Hosts’ need to manage their properties more efficiently and has created easyto-use solutions. A wide variety of tools is also available for Hosts to manage and list their properties effortlessly via Airbnb.

Now you can also synchronize Airbnb XML connection with FrontDesk Master channel manager in order to have a better control of your prices and availability. For more information feel free to contact us at support@frontdeskmaster.com.

Hello everyone,

We hope that you are doing well. This month we have released a new system update. The most exciting one is mobile access to FrontDesk Master.

See below some new features that are available now in FrontDesk Master.

More good news coming soon.

Best,
FrontDesk Master Team

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Currency option for rounding prices

We have added the possibility of choosing the currencies you want to apply the rounding rules on.

Exchange rate update improvement

We have added an option to update the channels immediately after receiving the exchange rate information from the official source.

Booking method filter in Guest demographics report

Possibility of editing items sold in reservation

Now you will be able to edit the price and the number of items sold in a reservation.

New city tax model for Greece

New pre-defined tax model, Greece | €1.5, adds city tax differently for dorms and private rooms:

• • dorm rooms – €1.5 per bednight (guest)
  • private rooms – €1.5 per private room per night. 

The standard Greece city tax model, adds €0.5 per bednight in dorms and per night in private rooms.

Add guest nationality improvements

Now you can search for guest nationality much faster by typing it in Guest Details!

Option 1: Mobile Access 

If you log in to FrontDesk Master on your phone, you will see a number of features that were adjusted for the mobile and touch view. See below the already available features. (Mobile POS, housekeeping, accounts, and booking list are in the works!)

Create new bookings

Use the new Add Booking option to easily create bookings on mobile.

Close Rooms and edit prices with Bulk Update

Use Bulk Update to set up restrictions, close availability or change prices from your mobile.

Check your prices and availability

Use Prices Calendar to quickly check your room types’ availability, prices, and restrictions. Run Global Update and change your prices manually.

See your bookings on Bed View

Mobile bed view allows you to check your bookings and guests on beds. See the reservation status and details for selected reservation.

Check your property Dashboard

Use Dashboard to quickly check your property occupancy, guests, and statistics for the day. Check recent changes in Live Feed.

Option 2: Full FrontDesk Master on mobile!

The limited number of features described above are adjusted for the mobile and touch screens. However, there is also an option to run a full FrontDesk Master version on your phone.

For that, you need to do the following:

1. Download a free Puffin Web Browser (Apple Store or Play Store)
2. Open browser settings in the top-right corner and select Request desktop site and Mouse options.

3. Log in to FrontDesk Master in the horizontal view.

Hurray! You can use now all the features on your phone. 

Other important bug fixes

• DEV-8099 Online check-in: button text edited manually in Firefox browser
• DEV-8089 Accommodation revenue – duplicated filter
• DEV-8069 Pickup report crashes after a few dates and filters changes
• DEV-8066 Occupancy report does not work when you compare it to previous years
• DEV-7950 Unallocated booking highlighting not working
• DEV-7906 UI corrections
• DEV-7821 Invoices – problem with changing the item description
• DEV-7461 BE Coupon not working with days restrictions
• DEV-7340 Shifts audit report – shift reports appear on incorrect dates
• DEV-4234 Incorrect currency on cancellation notification

Hello everyone,

We hope that you are doing well. See below some new features available in FrontDesk Master.

More good news coming soon.

Best,
FrontDesk Master Team

Important! Read please: A better control of checked-out and checked-in reservations

We have implemented some extra rules and permission related to controlling who and when can edit checked-in and checked-out reservations. They will help you to avoid unauthorized changes in bookings.

Please read these articles:

1) Editing checked-out bookings is limited now

2) Editing check-in bookings is limited now

Dashboard improvements and new modules

We have improved FrontDesk Master dashboard. Please check this article about the newly available modules.

MAIN CARDS

LIVE FEED

BOOKING PICKUP

ACCOUNT CASH FLOW

OCCUPANCY & REVENUE

ACCOMMODATION PROJECTIONS

CURRENT SHIFT SUMMARY

Task module

Now you can add tasks and connect them with reservations.

1. How to add a task and link it with a reservation?
2. How to search for bookings with tasks?
3. How do task notifications work?
4. How to mark the task as complete?

Specific city tax for private rooms only

We have added an extra option which allows applying the city tax only for private rooms.

Different taxes for different periods

Now you can set up different accommodation and sale taxes for different periods.

Manage occupancy prices on Booking.com directly from FrontDesk Master

Now you can manage your occupancy prices for private rooms on Booking.com directly from the system instead of setting them up on the Extranet.

Click here in order to see how to make it work!

SPOILER ALERT! Automated, rule-based calculation of occupancy prices will be released soon!

More options to collect pre-payments with Stripe on your Booking Engine

Just a reminder. You can use Stripe to collect pre-payments (or payments for non-refundable reservations) in your booking engine on your website. 

Now you can charge not only a booking percentage but also you can make a pre-payment equal to a certain number of nights. 

New Booking Search window

We have added a new tab in Reservation View that allows searching and filtering bookings more flexibly and effectively. 

Guest profile

Check your guest profiles in FrontDesk Master. You can find information about a specific guest in one place.

Daily Revenue report

Check your daily revenues in our new report!

Click on the underlined value in order to see the related reservations or transactions.

Extra fields in the Guest List report

Now you can extract more information about your guest by using extra fields in the Guest List report.

ID type for Brasil

We have added extra ID types for Brazilian properties!

Filter your bills by the due date!

We have added an extra filter for you to make finding your bills easier.

Improvements of Reservation Payments report

Now you can filter your reservation payments by stay date. We have also added an extra summary table to this report.

Extra invoice table for Spain

You can now use a new table {InvoiceItemsTableSpainIII} in Spanish on your invoices!

Booking list improvements

Now you can check and uncheck the statuses with one click on your bookings list.

Check here how to see more columns.

We have also added some extra columns there!

Staff sales improvements

Now your staff sales will be automatically saved on the default account you set up for a specific item.

Pre-paid bookings from Dorms.com

Now you can immediately register the payments from pre-paid bookings you receive from Dorms.com!

Export Account Balance report to Excel

Now you can export your Account Balance Report to CSV format and open it in Excel!

Free Google Hotel links

Do you use FrontDesk Master booking engine? Now you can make your property appear on free Google Hotel links. Check this link to see how to enable it.

Avoid errors while moving reservations!

When you move a reservation, the system will show in the pop-up extra information about what details are going to change. This will help you to avoid unwanted date or room type changes.

Consumption date for returned items

The consumption date information for returned items was added in the sales tab.

Stay date filter in OTA metrics report

Now you can filter the information by stay date in OTA metrics report.

Make refunds via Stripe!

Now you can not only take payments via Stripe but also make refunds!

 

Strategies for 730 days!

Now you can set up strategies for 730 days!

An easier way of extending bookings

Now you can extend your bookings in an easier way directly from right-click menu.

Change credit card details

Now you can delete the existing credit card and add new details.

New keys for emails and printouts!

We have added some extra keys for emails and printouts that will extract for you the following information:

• Booking method
• ID type
• Arrival time
• Referral
• List of reservation room types
• Reservation and guest extra fileds

New date filters in Guest Demographics and Nationality Behaviour reports

 

 

Rounding prices

You don’t use decimals or tenths? You would like to round your prices? Now you can do that. Please read this article about the new rounding rules feature!

Other important bug fixes

• DEV-7910 Shift audit – shift transactions out of order
• DEV-7867 Permissions problems
• DEV-7861 Daily Revenue – incorrect extras tax values with Show Details option
• DEV-7841 Problem with editing booking engine items
• DEV-7827 Can’t add a guest to the blacklist if there are guest notes
• DEV-7811 City tax – inconsistency in reports
• DEV-7730 Problem with city tax value on in InvoiceItemsTableSpainIII
• DEV-7628 Notification emails not sent
• DEV-7078 Booking Engine – max guests restriction not working
• DEV-7028 Popup about occupied room appears when it should not
• DEV-1552 Split and availability problem