Front desk
Front desk guide, part 2: bookings, reservations and guests
Check in a walk-in, make a booking, reserve a room for later, and find or add a guest, with every box explained.
By The Xenia team · · 4 min read
This is part 2 of 4 of the Xenia front desk guide: 1. Signing in · 2. Bookings and guests · 3. The guest's bill · 4. The stay, check-out and your shift.
Three words come up all day, and they mean different things in Xenia:
A walk-in is a guest who arrives now without a reservation.
A booking is a guest staying in a room, now or on dates you choose.
A reservation is a promise of a room of a certain kind for later. It holds the room until the guest arrives, so a room is never promised twice.
Check in a walk-in
On the Front desk screen choose Walk-in.
Choose the room.
Type the guest's first and last name and phone number.
Say how many nights and how many people.
Choose Check in.
Xenia works out the price, puts a night's charge on the bill for each night, and shows the room as occupied.
Make a booking
Use Bookings → New booking when you know the dates, or when the guest is already standing at the desk and you want more control than the walk-in form gives.
Room: the list shows each room's type and nightly rate.
Find a guest who has stayed before: type a name, phone number or email to reuse their record instead of typing it again.
First name, last name and phone number. Email is optional.
Arrives, Leaves and People.
Promo code, Discount (%), VAT (%) and Credit limit are optional. The VAT is filled in from the hotel's settings.
As you type, a box at the bottom works out the price before you commit: the room total, any discount and the VAT. Choose Book, pay later to create the booking and bill now, or Continue to payment to take money straight away.
Reserve a room for later
Open Reservations → New reservation. Choose the dates and a room type (not a particular room: the room is chosen when the guest arrives), find or type the guest, and add the number of people and any notes. If the guest is paying a deposit now, fill in the deposit boxes. Choose Reserve.
The reservation appears in the list as Expected, with a row of buttons:
Check in: when the guest arrives. It turns the reservation into a booking.
Guest link: gives you a link to send the guest so they can fill in their own details before they arrive.
Deposit and Deposit online: record a deposit the guest has paid, or let them pay it online.
Cancel: release the room.
A reservation due today also shows under Arriving on the front desk screen. The Calendar view next to the list shows the same reservations by date.
Find or add a guest
Open Guests. Search by name, phone number or email. The buttons All, Owing and Blacklisted narrow the list. Each guest shows how many times they have stayed and, if they owe money, how much.
To add someone before they book, choose Add a guest and fill in their name, phone number, email (optional), the ID they showed, the ID number and their address (optional). Choose Save.
Next: Part 3: the guest's bill.
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