Check-out & billing time brackets

This page sets the rules the front desk and the auto-billing job use to decide when something happens for a daily-room reservation:

When does a guest who arrives at this time of day check out?
When does the system stamp tonight's room charge?

It's a tenant-wide policy: every room billed Daily uses these brackets. Hourly rooms ignore them.

Before you start

You need Company Settings access.
Decide your house rules. A common shape:
- Guests who arrive in the small hours (00:00 to 04:00) check out at 14:30 the same day and are charged at 06:00 the same day.
- Everyone else checks out at 14:30 the next day and is charged at 18:00 the same day.
Always charge a night before its check-out time. If the charge time falls after check-out, a guest who leaves on time is never charged for that night.
The page enforces that your brackets cover the whole 24 hours. You can't save until they do.

Steps

Open Setup → Check-out & Billing Times.
The strip at the top shows your day, 00:00 on the left to 24:00 on the right. Each bracket is a colored block. Gaps appear as gray.
Click Add bracket to insert a new row.
Fill in:
- If guest arrives from / to — the arrival-time window.
- Check out at — when this bracket's guests check out.
- On — SameDay or NextDay.
- Auto-bill at — the time of day the auto-billing job stamps the day's charge.
- On — PreviousDay, SameDay, or NextDay (when the billing time refers to).
- Stamp all txns at billing time: only changes the "last billed" time recorded on each night. Ticked, it's the moment the system actually charged the night. Unticked, it's the scheduled charge time. It changes no amounts and no accounting dates. Most properties leave it off.
The last bracket of the day ends at 00:00 — that's the day-wrap. Don't try to end it at "24:00".
The strip turns fully colored when coverage is complete. The Save button activates.
Read What these settings do under the table (see below).
Click Save settings.

The auto-bill time is worked out for you

You no longer type Auto-bill at. Two timings follow each bracket's check-out time:

Late check-out fee starts at check-out + the room type's Grace (min) (Setup → Late Checkout Policy). A guest leaving before that owes nothing extra.
A full night is charged at check-out + the hotel's late check-out window, the single number at the top of this page. That is the bracket's Auto-bill at.

Between the two the guest is a late check-out and owes the fee, not a night. With a 14:30 check-out, a 60-minute grace and a 90-minute window: fee from 15:30, full night from 16:00. The panel lists these times for every check-out time and room type.

The auto-bill time is counted on the day a night starts, and it also charges a guest's first night on the arrival day: with 16:00, a guest arriving at 07:00 is charged that afternoon; one arriving at 20:00 straight away, since the time has passed. To charge every first night at check-in instead, tick Bill guest immediately on check-in in Preferences.

So the window must be longer than every grace — equal would leave no fee period at all. Saving a window a grace reaches is refused and names the room type; so is saving such a grace on the policy page. Before every billing run the system re-derives every bracket's auto-bill time from the window (and widens a window a grace has reached), so a value typed anywhere else cannot drift.

See, in plain words, what your settings do

Under the table, What these settings do explains the current brackets. It updates as you edit, before you save, and covers:

The first night, by arrival time: when each bracket's guests are due out, when their first night is charged, and which day it counts as revenue.
The second night onwards: every later night starts at the check-out time. So the bracket that contains the check-out time decides all later nights, whichever bracket the guest arrived in.
At check-out: what leaving on time, leaving late, and leaving early (day use) cost.
Worked examples: a 2-night stay for an arrival in each bracket.
Please check: settings that would charge nothing, or charge a new night on every billing run.

Click Print / Save as PDF to hand it to managers or owners.

Tips

Each night counts as revenue on the day it starts. A guest arriving at 02:00 on Monday is a Monday night.
A guest who stays past check-out but leaves before the next charge time is a late check-out. The room type's late fee is added at check-out once its grace minutes have passed (Late Checkout Policy). A guest still there at the next charge time pays a full night.
A stay's first night is always charged at check-out, even for a day use. The front desk can lower % to bill.
Best charge time: the end of your late check-out window, for example 18:00 when check-out is 12:00–14:30. Late leavers up to then pay the late fee; after it, a full night. Day use and late check-outs are settled at check-out either way.
The simplest setup is a single bracket from 00:00 to 00:00 with one fixed check-out and billing time. The strip will be one solid color.
Brackets are sorted by arrival time. You can add them in any order.
To delete a bracket, click the row's delete icon. The strip updates immediately to show the gap that opens up.
The colored badges in the strip carry the start–end label when the bracket is wide enough to show it.

Common problems

"Gap between 12:00 and 14:00" → you have two brackets that don't touch. Either extend one or add a third bracket to fill the gap.
"Overlap between bracket 1 and bracket 2" → two brackets cover the same arrival-time window. Adjust one of their bounds.
"Last bracket must end at 00:00" → the highest bracket has to wrap back to midnight. The page treats 00:00 on the last row as 24:00.
"Auto-billing doesn't fire on the right time" → the bracket's Auto-bill at is the wall-clock time the engine compares against. If your tenant's Time Zone (Organization Profile) is wrong, billing will fire at the wrong wall-clock; fix that first.
Save button is greyed out → either coverage is incomplete (red text) or you haven't changed anything since loading. The dot turns green once every minute of the day belongs to exactly one bracket.