Important Functionalities Of A Hotel PMS
One of your most valuable tools as a hotelier is a property management system (PMS). The right property management system (PMS) may improve hotel efficiency, productivity, and earnings. However, everything from guest bookings and front desk operations to maintenance management and cleaning may be challenging with a pre-owned property management system.
In the hospitality industry, a Property Management System (PMS) is used to manage and run the day-to-day tasks and operations of a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, inn, or other similar establishments. A property management system (PMS) is a type of back-end software used by the hospitality industry to carry out a wide variety of administrative tasks, including but not limited to reservation management, guest check-in, and check-out, pre- and post-stay services, housekeeping, inventory control, rate management, channel integration, reporting, and analytics.
Important Hotel property management system functions are:
Control Dashboard:
Your property management software’s interface should be a welcoming, informative place to start. The most important data for your day-to-day operations may be seen at a glance in an easy-to-read and comprehend control dashboard. The appropriate information will make things simpler and quicker to do. The main page of your PMS ought to load quickly and automatically refresh with any new information. Day-to-day pricing and yield management, as well as other choices, are likely to be impacted by data on room availability, occupancy, arrivals, and departures. Especially for front desk workers, this data has to be easily accessible via a streamlined, intuitive design. A dashboard is a great tool for hotel managers and owners that need quick access to the most crucial data.
Revenue Management:
Even if you have a dedicated revenue manager on staff, you may still streamline your pricing and customer service operations by using a few simple revenue management practices. Modern hotel performance indicators like RevPAR can be calculated with far less uncertainty because of advancements in revenue management technologies.
A revenue management system (RMS) may help you maintain competitiveness and price confidence by keeping tabs on the pricing strategies of your rivals, collecting market data in real time, and automatically changing your pricing. Pick a hotel property management system (PMS) that communicates with a revenue management system (RMS) for improved productivity and data precision.
Channel Management:
You need real-time synchronization between your PMS and the many online distribution platforms where your products will be sold. Your internet presence will be boosted by a Channel Manager, leading to more bookings and more revenue. However, for maximum command and to eliminate the possibility of overbookings, integration with your property management software is essential.
Whether you need to make a pricing or availability adjustment, you can do it all in your PMS and have it reflected instantly across all booking channels. Your PMS will automatically update with any new online bookings, giving you complete visibility into your occupancy levels and allowing you to respond quickly to any changes. Try to choose a channel manager that has ties to more than just the major OTAs, such as regional or specialized booking sites, global distribution systems (GDS), meta-search engines, and more.
Housekeeping Management:
The addition of housekeeping features will aid properties of all sizes in operating efficiently. Your property management system for hotels should streamline administrative processes and improve productivity. This describes a housekeeping report. The PMS supplier at your hotel should be aware of which guest rooms need extra attention before their arrival. The front desk supervisor may create a to-do list, and the room attendants can keep it up to date. As a result of the PMS’s room-turnover tracking capabilities, larger hotels can maintain peak efficiency. In addition, high-tech methods may automatically produce a cleaning plan to ensure the department runs well. It is important to note that the housekeeping features allow for the assignment of maids, the administration of room status, the distribution of floors or blocks, etc.
Control Calendar:
A calendar is a helpful tool for keeping track of appointments and gaining perspective. Room availability and optimization options may be quickly seen on an organized schedule.
Client Communication & Data Management:
In order to keep in contact with current and former guests after they have checked out, property owners must gather and arrange relevant data. These days, customer relationship management features are included in most PMS packages. Guests’ information may be safely stored in a readily accessible database.
Using a customer relationship management (CRM) module (either external to the PMS or built into the PMS itself) that interfaces with the front desk and reservation system to gather and manage all guest information is a necessity for larger hotels dealing with a massive volume of visitor data. In-house loyalty and membership programs may be tailored to each visitor with the help of the CRM module. For hotels and resorts, they are crucial.
Analytics and Reporting:
Keeping tabs on things like bookings, cash flow, room availability, occupancy rates, etc. is crucial to a hotel’s success. A reliable PMS will allow you to produce reports that meet your specifications every time. To put it another way, this facilitates gaining access to relevant information for making educated choices.
The most important reports your PMS should generate are as follows:
- Every Day Reports
- Predicted Room Use
- ADR (Average Daily Rate)
- RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room)
Some of the reports that may be generated by a PMS include night audit reports, departure/arrival reports, tax and room reports, housekeeping reports, shift audit reports, etc., depending on the program and the size of your property. Additionally, the PMS should have the capability to export these reports to other file types like XLSX and PDF.
When dealing with a hotel of this size, the reporting requirements may become fairly complex. The PMS must have robust reporting and analytics capabilities to accommodate such hotels.