The Reception Form holds a guest's details and, most importantly, who pays for the stay. Everything the guest is charged — rooms, bar, restaurant — goes to the customer account chosen in Sponsorship, and that is the account you will see on the Customer Ledger.
Before you start
- You need the Booking Management permission.
- For Employer, the company must already exist as a customer.
- For Existing Guest, the guest whose account you want to use must have stayed before and paid for themselves (Self).
Steps
- Go to Front Office → Guests and open the guest, or click New.
- Fill in the guest's details (or use Scan ID). Surname, First Name and Telephone are required.
- In Sponsorship, choose who pays:
- Self — the guest pays. The guest gets their own customer account the first time they are saved as Self, and keeps it afterwards.
- Employer — a company pays. Pick the company in Sponsor (Employer / Customer).
- Complimentary — the hotel absorbs the stay. The bill goes to the shared HOTELGUEST account.
- House Use — internal use (staff, manager). The bill goes to the shared IN-HOUSE USE account.
- Existing Guest — the bill goes to another guest's account. See below.
- Optionally set a Credit Limit (blank means no limit) and a Group Account.
- Click Save Changes (or Create Guest). A new guest is saved once and the form closes, taking you back to where you came from. To change the guest afterwards, open them from Front Office → Guests.
Billing a guest to someone else's account (Existing Guest)
- Set Sponsorship to Existing Guest.
- In Choose the past guest, type part of their name or phone number and pick them. Only guests who paid for themselves are listed.
- Sponsor (Customer Account) now shows the account that will be billed. Check it is the right one — this account, not the guest you picked, is what gets charged.
- Save.
To change it later, open the form and pick a different past guest. If you do not pick anyone, saving keeps the account already shown.
Tips
- Saving a guest's form without touching Sponsorship never changes who pays.
- In the guest picker, the grey text next to each name is that guest's phone number and their account name — use it to tell apart guests with similar names.
- Changing who pays also moves the guest's existing invoices and receipts to the new account.
Common problems
- "Telephone is required." (or "Surname and Telephone are required.") → The message names exactly what is missing. Fill those fields in and save again. The same rule applies to a new guest at check-in and on a booking.
- "Choose the past guest whose account this guest is billed to." → You switched to Existing Guest but haven't picked anyone. Pick a past guest, or switch back.
- "Past guest is sponsored as '…', not Self" → You can only borrow the account of a guest who paid for themselves. Pick that guest's own earlier stay where they paid, or use Employer with the customer account instead.
- A guest's charges don't appear on their Customer Ledger → Open their Reception Form and look at Sponsorship. The charges are on whichever account is shown there — for example HOTELGUEST if the account was inherited from a complimentary guest. Pick the right account and save.
- The account name looks odd (extra spaces, a different spelling) → It is the name as it was first registered. Search the Customer Ledger by phone number or account number instead of name.