Checking In

You can check in a reservation from the right-click menu on the tab views, or from the Reservation Details dialog by clicking on the Checked In check box. If it's a walk-in reservation, you can also select Check In directly from the New Reservation dialog.

A checked-in reservation is treated differently in many ways, most of which were already covered in the Dynamic Interactive Reports section.

One thing to note about color coding for a checked-in reservation is that once it's checked in, other status flags can affect its color so that a checked-in reservation can appear in several different colors. The most important one is whether it's paid or not -- the text will be red on the Rack for any dates that have not been paid for.  (Like other colors, this can be changed through the Color Key).  Also, a different background color will be used for Monthly, Group, and Free Stay reservation types once they are checked in.

Normally you will be checking in a reservation with today as the First Night date. If the reservation's First Night is not today, a warning message will give you the choice of aborting the check-in, checking it in and changing it to start today, or checking it in with the original start date.  Be careful how you answer this, or you could change the start date by accident and then have to change it back to what it was (if you remember what it was!)  These warnings typically happen when initially entering reservations for people that are already here when you start using the software, and later if you forget to check someone in and do it on a later date.  However if someone arrives earlier or later than their planned reservation, you will get this warning if you don't change their start date before checking them in.  (Actually it's a nice feature to have the software offer to change the date automatically, which saves a step -- just be sure to read the warnings carefully.)

If you do change the start date of the reservation (as a result of the prompt mentioned above), you will also be asked if they will be staying the same number of nights.  If you answer No, the reservation's original Last Night will remain the same.  If you answer Yes, then the Last Night will be adjusted automatically to make the number of days the same.  If you find this prompt more of a burden than a help (i.e. if you nearly always answer No), then you can turn it off in Maintenance / Program Options / Prompts.

Now, once you've confirmed that you want to check in the reservation, the Transactions dialog will appear so you can enter charges, payment, etc. and print a receipt.    Note that if you click Cancel on the Transactions dialog, it does not cancel the check-in, only the transactions.  In addition, you can have it jump immediately to Select Rate(s), where you can immediately select the appropriate rate from a list.  These are both options that can be disabled -- if you prefer not to see the Transactions dialog automatically every time you do a check in, or don't want to select the rate immediately, you can turn these functions off in Maintenance / Program Options / Prompts.

If you checked in a reservation by mistake and want to undo the check-in, go to the Reservation Details dialog and click the Checked In check box, then confirm the undo.  Manager access is required for this function.

Note that there is an option to show a warning if the previous reservation has not been checked out before checking in the next one.  You can also prohibit checking in before the previous has been checked out, by Access Level.  See Maintenance / Program Options / Prompts for more information.