Hi. we are taking over a small hotel and hostel, it will be 10 rooms, 4 of them hotel, 5 hostel private and 1 dorm. what would be the best hotelsystem for us? the summer will be crazy busy and winter will be quiet.

I was thinking to do it on paper since its so few rooms but would be nice to have a system if not to expensive that will allocate bookings directly into the system.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Has anyone used Logify? If so, what is the verdict?

They claim to do:
Custom Website (from templates)
Custom Domain Free
Reservation System
Support & Unlimited Hosting
Channel Manager
Booking System
Multiple Languages for your Site

...all for $20/mo!?!?

It can apparently be used for any type of lodging establishment as well (though vacation rentals seems like their bread and butter).

Hostels may want to have this story on the radar:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/01/445006454/3-things-to-...

It sounds like if merchants don't have the new chip technology, they are liable for any fraud committed through the machines rather than the credit card companies.

I don't know much about this story, but I read it online and thought that hostels might want to know.

Hello HM community!
First of all, let me thank you, I found tons of interesting infos in this forum.
I on a serious hunt for a software able to satisfy all our needs. I looked into many PMS (Cloudbeds, Bananadesk, Iblesa, Loventis, HostelOffice, name it) but I decided that PMS alone is not enough.
What about accounting? stock? pos? many of them don't integrate with any of these features.

So I ask the community! We need the following features:

-PMS (for front desk ops, booking engine, check ins/outs and bla bla bla). Say a nice CloudBeds.
-POS
-Back Office (accounting and stock mostly)
-Channel Manager

All PMS integrate with a Channel Manager ok, some even with a POS. But what about if I want a unique, integrated solution? Something that integrates perfectly front desk operations with point of sale and accounting and stock?

I surfed a lot of websites. So far the only two companies that offer suck integrated solution are eZee Burrp! (11 softwares!) and GuestCentrix. But GC has a quite confusing website that does not explain much in detail and it has a terrible support. I wrote them and they did not hit me back. Cloudbeds has the best support so far, but it is only FrontDesk and ChManager. I have to say I bet that CloudBeds will be a leader in the future, the owners are the same of MyAllocator and they seem to know very well what they are doing, but so far it is not enough for our needs!

Do you know others? can you share experiences if you use such a software? Or if you simply want to share the solution that you adopted, that would also help a lot :) maby I'm overrating the importance of having all in one...

Cheers!

Can any one recommend some software to keep track of our keydeposits? E.g. how many keys given out, how many returned, how much money in the till, etc.

Cheers

It's been a few years since I posted, but I've regularly been on here reading :) I'm in the process of starting up a ~180 bed hostel in Cape Town together with some partners, and I've been researching a bunch of PMS/CM/IBE systems, largely thanks to the info found here. We were originally looking at Guest Centrix, but that doesn't appear to be available for African based businesses... I was wondering if anyone here would choose something different if they were starting up again from scratch?

Here's a summary of my research so far, in no particular order, though some of the comments might give away preferences:

PMS
Hostel Office: www.hosteloffice.com ; essentially a provider/reseller of Dorm Project (http://dormproject.ch) it looks like. Active commenter on these forums and seems to know what he's talking about.
Loventis: http://www.loventis.com/PropertyManagementSystem (their CM looks to be https://www.myallocator.com - not their own as it originally looks like). Site and interface not looking so spiffy.
Banana Desk: https://bananadesk.com - ties in with My Allocator. Clear pricing a $1 per month per bed.
Cloud Beds: https://www.cloudbeds.com - ties in with My Allocator (owns them?). Looks very easy to use (note to self; good websites sell!!). Free IBE, but no pricing on site.
Man Cloud: https://www.mancloud.eu/en - Looks nice and modern. .8 EUR per bed with optional extras. Ties in with MA.
Room Pillow: http://www.roompillow.com/home/#features - looks nice and very focused on hostels; possibly smallish - still around in a few years?!
Hostel System: http://www.hostelsystem.com - looks to have its own CM and IBE (2% commission). CM might be one of the below disguised? 55GBP p/m +
Charts: http://www.chartspms.com - used by Nomads, Jazz amongst others. Looks like it was built in 90s and no clear pricing. Have their own CM but also appear to link up to Siteminder.
Happy Booking - http://www.happybooking.se - Swedish system.
Room Key PMS: http://roomkeypms.com (doesn’t look like they are hostel focused, but system and site look GREAT!)
Web Res Pro: http://www.webrezpro.com/cloud-pms-hostels/ - for some reason the site does not inspire me with confidence.

CM
My Allocator: https://www.myallocator.com (17 per month regardless of size?) - links up with these PMS's https://www.myallocator.com/pms-connections/ . Has own (free) IBE it seems.
Site Minder: http://www.siteminder.com/channel-manager/ (more focused on hotels than hostels?) - has own booking system for site integration (The Booking Button). Works with a ton of PMS’s: http://www.siteminder.com/integrations/property-management-systems/ . 109 for the CM, 179 for CM + IBE

In short
Price is not the main focus here, but I have included it where I could easily find it (and also if hidden too much that's a negative in my book). The main focus is a great system that increases our rev/profit at the end of the day. I'm willing to pay more for GREAT vs good - this saves us time, and that pays for this many times over. We are going all out on this property and are focused on it being as ahead of its time as it can be, with a clear focus on personalization where it makes sense. I nicked this off another thread here and I feel similar:

What we are looking for is a comprehensive PMS with a good amount of features. We want all the basic features like guest profiles (for individuals and companies), easy room changes, CRM features, chance to sell the same room as different room types etc. and of course full integration to channel manager and/or individual channels.

What else we are looking for? Of course we are looking for a realiable partner, someone who will not be out of business in 6 months after we have changed our system. We need a software which can expanded when we grow (multi-property, door locking interfaces etc.). We are looking for a good and intuitive interface (Charts, come on! It's 2012!!)

Oh, and if you want to come and work with us, get in touch! :)

Working at a hostel in Sweden stockholm. We do everything on paper.. yeah I know. stone age, especially for the size of this place!

Anyways

One room category is nearly full, lets say you get a reservation of 5 days and there are only a few single nights avalable in dirrefernt rooms.. it come to a point where I no longer can rearrange reservations in the category to fit the new reservation without having to ask the guest to move room in the middle of the stay.

How do you solve this problem smoothly?

Thanks

We are experiencing trouble recently where almost everyday there is a booking "missing"
We check todays arrivals every morning to make sure we arent missing any check ins and almost every day there is one, this only started to happen recently. Im trying to figure out if it is due to hman faults or if it is MyAllocator...

Anyone else having the same problem?

Hi all. I'm in the process of setting up a hostel and want a booking system that can interact with my website and OTAs to manage my reservations, allow me to assign beds to guests and produce management reports. I have read about the types of systems available but I dont understand the difference between Property Management Systems and Channel Management Systems? Are there any products on the market that combine the two?

From reading the forums it seems that Myallocator and bananadesk are two recommended platforms that integrate together. What does one do that the other doesn't? From reading up on them and watching the promotional videos it seems that they provide a very similar service.

Thank you but please no responses from companies trying to recommend their own product.

Thanks

Hi everyone.

Ive read some of the forums on here but I still dont understand exactly how the hostelworld commission works. I believe it is along the lines of the following:

1) They take 12% from the guest when making the booking online
2) Hostelworld charge the hostel a fee for their referral of 12%

My question is, is the commission fee the same 12% that they deduct on booking? In other words if I sell a room for $10, what will my post commission income be?

Thanks,

Mark