News Making Deposit Schedules Work for You

With so many options for configuring deposit schedules, it can be overwhelming to know which one has been applied. These six tips will help you with setup and understanding how your deposits are calculated.

1. Roll With It

A rolling default deposit schedule is the most important piece to have in place. A rolling default schedule ensures that some form of a policy is applied to transactions in the event that one hasn’t been set up properly or if there is a gap between policy dates. When you create a default schedule, leave the end date blank so that it never expires. The last thing you want is for a guest to reserve during a peak period without being required to put money down, especially if they end up cancelling. This will cover you.

2. Mind the Gap

Once you have your default policy in place, make sure you’ve not created any gaps with any of your other policies. Schedules begin and end at midnight (00:00 hours) on the date entered. So, if you want a deposit policy to change on January 1, the existing schedule should end on January 1 and the new schedule should begin on January 1. This will eliminate any potential gaps from occurring when the schedules are applied.

3. Take Precedence

With so many policies potentially in place, it’s helpful to understand how they are being applied. This is where supplier precedence and reseller precedence come into effect. Regardless of which option is set on your system, any policy assigned at the promotion level will always supersede all other policies. If no promotion-level policy is in place, product-level policies apply. This is followed by supplier-/reseller-specific policies. Depending on your system settings, the defaults set by the supplier or reseller will surpass the other. Understanding how this works will help you figure out which one will be in effect when an itinerary is booked. For more information, check out this Inntopia Help article.

4. Bottom’s Up

If two active schedules exist at the same level for the same date, the most recently created one is applied. The most recent one takes precedence and is displayed at the bottom of the deposit schedule page.

5. Grab the Money

If you have multiple credit card charges scheduled to process within five days of each other, the system charges the total amount of all charges within that time frame. To avoid multiple charges within a short time period, the charge is posted on the date of the first deposit. This is often seen with itineraries that are due to arrive within five days of booking.

6. The Arrival Date Rules

When itineraries are booked, some lodging and activity dates will ultimately span over multiple deposit schedules. Deposit schedules follow the arrival date of the first lodging product on the itinerary; not the specific product date of each item. If there is no lodging product, the schedule looks for the date of the first activity product.

For example, a guest may decide to stay from December 28 through January 3 and your holiday deposit policy is place from December 22-31.  On the itinerary, the guest has lift tickets booked on January 2, which is outside of the holiday deposit policy. However, because the first arrival date on the itinerary is December 28, all lodging and activities, including those scheduled to arrive (or be used) outside of the holiday policy dates, will be subject to the holiday policy.

These tips should help you gain a further understanding of how deposit schedules apply within Inntopia. Additional training is available within Innovative U, including a recorded webinar.

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