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!

Hello everyone,

We’ve got some exciting news to share with you! Introducing our brand new Online Check-in feature with cheaper online payments. The new online check-in is designed to streamline and speed up the check-in process for your guests and reception. It’s all about making things easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

👇 Scroll down to find out the details and where you can find your link.

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

—
FrontDesk Master Team

What’s new?

⇒ Redesigned interface. A new redesigned interface that guides the guest step by step through the online check-in process.

⇒ New features. Require guest to accept specific terms of stay, adjust how City tax is displayed or add a custom message to the check-in confirmation screen.

⇒ Precheck-in codes. Generate precheck-in codes used by the reception to find arrived guests and make a quick check-in in the system.

⇒ Cheaper online payments. An affordable payment gateway which will replace Stripe in the EU.

Coming up next

The upcoming Online Check-in update will introduce new reservation management options for guests. Guests will gain the ability to:

• Cancel reservations, nights, or guests
• Modify reservation stay dates
• Purchase extra items
• Leave notes for the reception

Available before the end of this year!

New Online Check-in interface

The new interface offers a clear and pleasant UI for the guests. It makes the online check-in fast and easy. See the video below which shows all the steps of the check-in.

New Online Check-in features

New Online Check-in brings new features, that can help you customize the process to your needs. In Online Check-in Settings, you can find the following options:

• Enable Online Check-in X days before arrival
• Enable online payments and make them mandatory
• Enable pre-checkin codes (see what pre-checkin codes are)
• Show city tax in the reservation summary
• Choose which guest details are required for online check-in

Show City Tax

Decide how City tax should be displayed and if it should be included into online payment.

Terms and Conditions

Apart from selecting the template to serve as the Terms & Conditions that guests must accept for online check-in, you can personalize it with custom checkboxes.

Look & Feel

In this part, you can customize the Online Check-in experience by changing the accent color. Use Google hex color picker to select a color of your preference.

Additionally, you can adjust the messages displayed to guests after a successful online check-in. These messages can vary depending on whether the online check-in occurs before the arrival day or on the arrival day.

Precheck-in codes

Precheck-in codes are created to accelerate the check-in process and minimize the time guests spend at the reception. These codes are generated by the system following a successful online check-in after the guest has already reached the property.

Upon enabling the pre-check-in codes option, when a guest clicks the “I arrived” button in Online Check-in, the system generates a pre-check-in code that appears as follows:

Next, the guest shows the code to the receptionist. The receptionist cross-references the code against the list of generated pre-check-ins, confirms the check-in with a single click, and provides the guest with the room keys.

See the video to see how precheck-in codes work:

Your Online Check-in link

You can find the link to your new Online Check-in in the Property Settings under Online Check-in > Settings. Copy the link and use it on your website, or replace the existing online check-in link in automated emails.

Cheaper Online Payments

Starting now, we are offering a new online payments’ gateway which is a more affordable alternative to the current Stripe integration. Have a look at the transaction fees comparision in the Eurozone:

*The fees listed above apply to VISA, MAESTRO, and MASTERCARD payments. 

Stripe will be replaced by the new payment gateway in the following countries:

We will be contacting you directly to schedule the upgrade from Stripe to FrontDesk Master Payments. If you are not using any payment gateway yet and would like to start, reach out to our support team at support@frontdeskmaster.com.

Have a great day!

– FrontDesk Master Team

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!

Happy New Year! We wish you dozens of guests (not necessarily in the same bed though), fun staff parties, and great experiences!

With the New Year, we have just released a new system update. See below some features that are available now in FrontDesk Master.

More good news coming soon.

Content

Point of Sale

• • Custom item and category colors
  • Sell multiple items per consumption date
  • Search item in POS
  • Pay Now button
  • Give change
  • Sell to staff members

Booking Methods in automatic emails
Enlarge guest photo
Smart Availability Rules
Minimum Advance restriction for Booking.com
INE report improvements for Portugal
Did you know that…?

Point of Sale

Try the updated version of our Point of Sale. Set up custom categories and item colors, use new search item option, sell items for different consumption dates, give change or sell to staff members. All that is in the updated interface that we hope you’ll like!

Custom item and category colors

Now you can create custom category colors and set different colors for items’ backgrounds. 

You will find Edit Categories button in Item Manager. You can access it now without opening a sale item. When changing category color, you can use the default color palette or HEX color codes.

To set up the background color of a sale item, open the item in Item Manager and choose the color using Select color option. Here you can also use the default color palette or custom colors in HEX.

Sell multiple items per consumption date

With the recent update, we added an option to sell items for different consumption dates. When selling breakfasts, you can do that now with just one sale. For that, use Sell multiple per consumption date option. It will allow you to choose the quantity and price of items that will be consumed on different days of the reservation.

All sales will be listed per consumption date in the Sales tab in the reservation form:

You can double-click on the item or use Edit button to adjust sold item quantity or prices.

Search item

Now you can use dynamic search in POS to quickly find items from your list. Start typing the item name to filter the list.

Pay Now button

Pay now button has two options now:

• Click on Pay Now button – the transaction will be registered on the default property account, e.g., Cash Box. It works like the old “Exact Cash” button.
• Click on the arrow to select a different account where you would like to save the transaction.

Give change (or don’t)

If the Pay Now amount is higher than the sale items value, on Pay Now button click you will have the option to give a change and register a change transaction in a different currency.

This modal gives you three options:

• Sell and give change in the same currency. In this case, the system will show you how much is the change for the received amount. It won’t create any change transaction in the system, just the regular sale with the total sale amount.
• Sell and give change in a different currency. If you select a different currency to give a change, the system will calculate the amount to give to the guest and it will create the change transaction in the selected currency.
• Sell and do not give change. This option allows you to register the transaction value higher than the total value of sold items. Total sale remains the same, but you register a higher amount paid by the guest.

Sell to Staff members

To register sales to staff members, use Sell to Staff button. Select the user who buys selected items and confirm the sale. Note that you can set up different prices for staff members in item settings.

Booking Methods in automatic emails

Now you can select multiple booking methods in automatic emails instead of creating separate lines for each of them!

Enlarge guest photos 📸

Double-click on the uploaded image will enlarge it so you can see the guest photo or uploaded document on a larger scale.

Smart Availability Rules

Automatically block selected room types if another room type is booked. This availability automation works great if you offer an option to book the whole property or rooms in different combinations. Now you do not have to block such rooms manually and risk overbookings, let the system do it for you!

For example, our FULL HOUSE room type will be closed automatically if selected room types are booked. The reverse rule adds the same rule for selected room types – if one of the room types is booked, FULL HOUSE will be closed automatically.

Minimum Advance Booking for Booking.com

There is a new restriction for Booking.com, Minimum Advance Booking, which you can set up via Cut Off restriction in FDM. Cut off will restrict the minimum number of days before check-in that a guest can book a room or unit. E.g., if we set the restriction for 1 day, guests won’t be able to book for the same day.

INE report improvements (for Portugal)

We added some improvements that will help you generate INE from the National Statistics report. 

In the first step, set up the INE configuration in Property Settings / General / Company Details. After that, you will be able to generate the full INE report from National Statistics. On the right side panel, you will find extra options and fields that you can add to the report.

Did you know that in FrontDesk Master you can …?

• send price estimation to guest via WhatsApp or email?
• create a task for reservation note?
• swap reservations on beds?
• customize Bed View with colors of your choice?

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

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