Front desk guide, part 3: the guest's bill

This is part 3 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.

Every booking has a bill (also called a folio). Everything the guest owes goes on it, and everything they pay comes off it. Because it is the hotel's money, the bill is built so nothing disappears: a charge that is cancelled stays visible, crossed out, with who did it and why.

Open a bill

Choose a guest from In the house on the front desk screen, or find a booking under Bookings. The page has two parts. At the top are the booking's room price, discount, VAT and stay total. Below is the Bill, with the Charges (what the guest owes), what has been Paid and what is Still owed, and then every charge and payment in a list.

Open the full folio shows the whole record of the bill: every charge, payment and void, and who made each. To find a bill without knowing the booking, use Folios. It filters by In house, Owing money, Due out, Settled and more.

Add a charge

A guest has a drink at the bar, sends laundry, or opens the minibar. Choose Add a charge and fill in:

• Department: Room, Bar, Restaurant, Laundry, Minibar or Other. It decides where the money shows in the reports.

• Description: what it is, in words the guest will recognise on their bill.

• Amount (naira), and the VAT and Service amounts if they apply.

Choose Add charge. It joins the list and Still owed goes up.

Take a payment

Open your cashier shift first (part 4), so the cash is counted against your name. Then choose Take a payment.

1. Under How did they pay? choose Cash, Card (POS), Bank transfer, Cheque, Mobile money or Other.

2. Type the Amount (naira). It can be less than the bill: the guest can pay part now and part later.

3. Add a Reference if there is one, such as the POS receipt number or the transfer reference. It makes the payment easy to find later.

4. Choose Record payment.

Xenia confirms with a green message, and Paid and Still owed change at once.

Void a charge the right way

Beside each charge are Void and Move. Use Void when a charge should not be there, such as a wrong amount or a charge added to the wrong guest. A void is one of the things a hotel loses money through, so Xenia asks for permission.

You have three choices:

• Keep it: do nothing.

• Ask a manager now: type the reason and send the request. The manager gets it on their phone or in Approvals and can approve or refuse. You can follow it under Approvals → My requests.

• Void with a code: if a manager is standing beside you, they can generate a one-time code for this charge on their own screen. Type it in. It works once, for ten minutes.

A voided charge stays on the bill, crossed out, and is recorded. Large voids alert the owner. Move puts a charge on a different bill when it was added to the wrong guest, and a payment entered by mistake can be undone with Reverse, which is recorded in the same way.

Next: Part 4: the stay, check-out and your shift.