Hotel or lodging

A hotel, lodge, guest house or camp that lets rooms by the night. Kila runs it as a hotel: reservations fill the room grid, guests check in at the front desk, and each stay’s folio collects the room, the meals and drinks and the extras until the guest checks out.

What is special

• The front desk instead of the till. Hotel › Front desk holds the day’s arrivals and departures and the guests in the house, and Hotel › Room grid every room night by night. See How the front desk and the room grid work.
• The folio. Each stay’s bill, with the room nights, extras, deposits and payments, split between the guest and a company when a company pays: Post charges and take payments on the folio. The restaurant and bar charge their bills to it: Charge a restaurant or bar bill to a room.
• The guest register. Kila asks for the details the law asks for at check-in, and keeps the register to print for an inspection: Check a guest in.
• The night audit posts the night’s rooms, turns guests who did not come into no-shows and closes the hotel day: Run the night audit.
• Rates by plan and season, deposits, company accounts and the tourism levy: Set up rooms, rates and seasons.
• Food safety. A hotel starts with the Food safety rules for its kitchen: Food safety.

Naivasha Lakeside Lodge, the demo hotel, has 30 rooms of four types, a restaurant and a bar, its own booking page, and Channex, door locks and register checks played by Kila’s simulators, which run on the demo site only.

How Kila sets it up

The main screen is Room grid and folios.

Rules it follows:

• Food safety: Expiry, waste, temperature and hygiene checks

Its words:

Most businesses	Hotel or lodging
customer	guest
sale	stay
receipt	folio
branch	property

Its set-up steps

1. Business details, KRA PIN and TRA licence
2. Property, room types, rooms and rates
3. Rate plans, meal plans, deposits, levies and the night audit
4. Outlets (restaurant, bar) on Food & drink service
5. Staff and roles: front office, reservations, housekeeping, night audit
6. M-Pesa till or paybill
7. Booking page and channel calendars (OTAs)
8. First reservation and check-in

Its home page

• Last night and the month to date
• Today at the front desk
• My rooms today
• My work orders
• Tonight’s night audit
• Occupancy tonight; arrivals and departures
• Rooms by status
• Revenue today: rooms, food and drink, other
• Open folios and company accounts owed
• Next 30 nights on the books
• Housekeeping and maintenance today
• Payments waiting for confirmation
• Approvals and reviews waiting
• Licences, permits and returns due

Roles it starts with

Kila’s standard roles, plus these for a hotel:

• Front office and Front office manager: the front desk, day and night.
• Reservations: reservations, groups and company bookings.
• Night auditor: the desk at night and the night audit.
• Executive housekeeper and Room attendant: the rooms, clean and inspected.
• Maintenance technician: faults in rooms and the building.
• Events coordinator: conferences and events.
• Credit controller: company accounts.
• Food and drink cashier: the restaurant and bar tills.

Where to go next

• Hotels, lodges and guest houses: everything a hotel needs, day by day.