Important to know:
To access the import reservations tool, go to Setup > Property & Room Settings > Import Reservations.
Adding reservations to your Little Hotelier will ensure that your room availability/ inventory is accurate when you finish activating Little Hotelier with your OTAs (Online Travel Agencies)/online channels.
An accurate inventory will help you prevent your property from overbooking.
You must include ALL existing reservations confirmed for future dates including phone-in, walk-in and OTAs.
This is a one time exercise that you should complete before activating Little Hotelier.
Your dedicated Onboarding Specialist will provide you with webinars to help you upload reservations in bulk — we recommend watching these webinars while you add your reservations to Little Hotelier.
A reservation template spreadsheet will be provided to help you upload your reservations in bulk. You can download your copy of the reservation template here.
Why should you should add future reservations to Little Hotelier
Reservations in Little Hotelier dictate all your rooms’ availability, and once you activate Little Hotelier it will connect to your OTAs/ online channels and become your single source of inventory management. Before you enable the Little Hotelier connection with your OTAs/ online channels your availability must be correct, so it’s important that all future reservations are added into Little Hotelier so that we can accurately distribute your property's inventory, and prevent your property from overbooking.
You have the option to manually create a single reservation, or add reservations in bulk with our upload reservation tool and reservation template spreadsheet, as explained in this article. We recommend adding reservations in bulk to help you maximise efficiency and save time.
Add multiple future reservations to Little Hotelier
Step 1: prepare before you begin
Ensure you have set up room types and room rates for your property.
Add all your reservation details in the reservation template provided by your dedicated Onboarding Specialist. Note: You can also find the reservation template here.
In later steps you will copy the reservations you have added to the template, and then paste them into the Add multiple reservations grid of the upload tool, allowing you to then import all these reservations in bulk without manually creating individual reservations.
All future reservations must be added, so to avoid forgetting about any reservations ensure that you are aware of all your future reservations regardless of whether these have been made through phone, email, social media, or OTAs/ online channels.
Step 2: open the Add multiple reservations tool
Go to Setup > Property & Room Settings > Import Reservations
Click Continue to open the Add multiple reservations grid where you will add your reservations.
If you see a message saying that you need to set up room types and rate plans for your property, refer to the first point in ‘Step 1: prepare before you begin’.
Step 3: add optional details to the grid (if necessary)
After you click on Continue, the Add multiple reservations grid will open along with a new window allowing you to select from a list of Optional details that can be added to the grid — if necessary, select the desired Optional details.
Once you’ve selected the desired Optional details, click Save — the Optional details you selected will now appear as columns on the grid.
Note: Any Optional details not selected will not appear as a column on the grid, so make sure that the template you prepared in ‘Step 1: prepare before you begin’, from which you’ll be copying your reservations, matches the columns on the grid in Little Hotelier.
Note:
The grid is where you will type or paste your reservations, and the Optional details are columns that you can choose to show or hide depending on the details you want to include in your reservations.
Optional details include Source of Reservation, Reservation ID, Email, Phone Number, Address, Children/Infants occupancy, Booked-On Date, Room No., Deposit Total, Payment Total, Currency, and Notes.
For more information about each column, click on the ? icon or learn more about all the grid’s columns in ‘Step 4: add reservation data to the grid’ of this article.
You can show or hide Optional details at any time by clicking on the Select details button at the top right of the page.
If you hide an Optional detail after you have already entered data into its column, the data will be deleted.
Step 4: add reservation data to the grid
Add your reservation data to the grid by typing it into each cell, or by copying and pasting multiple rows from the template you have prepared in ‘Step 1: prepare before you begin’ into the grid at once. (See the top of the grid for an example of the type of data you need to enter into each column.)
For each row, make sure you have entered data into all mandatory fields. (These are the fields not labelled Optional). A green tick will appear next to a row once all of the necessary data has been added.
Check that all of the rows have a green tick.
Below is the list of columns/ details to enter along with their description and their mandatory or optional status:
First name | Mandatory | Enter the first name of the lead guest who booked, and will be staying under, this reservation. (You can add additional guests to the room once the reservation has been uploaded.) |
Last name | Mandatory | Enter the last name of the guest who booked, and will be staying under, this reservation. (You can add additional guests to the room once the reservation has been uploaded.) |
Adults | Mandatory | Enter the number of all adult guests staying under this reservation (this number includes the lead guest). |
Check-in date | Mandatory | Specify the guest’s check-in date, either by selecting it on the calendar or entering it in YYYY-MM-DD format. |
Check-out date | Mandatory | Specify the guest’s check-in date, either by selecting it on the calendar or entering it in YYYY-MM-DD format. |
Room type | Mandatory | Select the reservation’s room type and make sure it is identical to the one used in your Little Hotelier account – for example, ‘Standard Double’. |
Room total | Mandatory | Enter the reservation’s total room price – for example, 120.99. (The currency symbol is not required.) |
Source of reservation | Optional | OTA/online channel the reservation came from. Select from the list or leave blank if it is a phone/email reservation. |
Reservation ID | Optional | Type the ID associated with the reservation. This is provided by the OTA/online channel – for example, e.g. 123456789. |
Room no. | Optional | Select one of the rooms created in Little Hotelier for the Room Type booked for this reservation. |
Notes | Optional | Any additional information regarding the reservation – for example, Dietary requirements or special requests. Credit card information should not be saved in this field. |
Booked-on date | Optional | Enter the date this reservation was booked on. Select the date on the calendar or enter the date YYYY-MM-DD format. |
Rate Plan | Optional | Select the rate plan that the reservation is booked for. Data pasted must match exactly the name of your rate plan in your Little Hotelier account – for example, Room Only. |
Deposit given | Optional | If a deposit has been paid, enter the total – for example, 50. You do not need to add the currency symbol. |
Payments made | Optional | Enter the total amount already paid by the guest – for example, 70. You do not need to add the currency symbol. This amount should not include the deposit given. |
Currency | Optional | Select the currency that will be used to manage the payments for this reservation if different from your chosen currency in your Little Hotelier settings. |
Note:
The grid’s columns contain reservation details, with each row of data representing a reservation that can be uploaded.
Similar to Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, you can copy, paste, and edit data in the grid.
You can copy, paste, and delete multiple cells at once.
Select multiple cells by clicking and dragging over them.
We recommend uploading large numbers of reservations in batches; if any errors occur, they will be easier to fix.
Recommended optional fields
Although the following fields are not mandatory, we recommend entering data into them.
Room number — when this field is empty, a reservation will be assigned to any available room in the selected room type, so if you want to choose a specific room to assign to the reservation, add its room number to this field.
Currency — when this field is left blank, your property’s default currency will be used, so add the relevant data if you sell rooms in multiple currencies.
Reservation ID and Source of reservation — if the Reservation ID is left empty, a reservation will be assigned a new ID starting with ‘LH’. For reservations that come through a channel, the reservation ID needs to match the channel’s reservation ID otherwise cancellations and modifications of the reservation will not sync. You can either select the Source of reservation (optional field), in which case the channel’s reservation ID will be automatically entered into the Reservation ID field, or enter the reservation ID manually. (Note, some channels do not support syncing cancellations and modifications.)
Do not use the same Reservation ID for multiple rows of data — unless you are uploading a reservation for multiple rooms — as it will lead to uploading multiple rows as a single reservation and overwriting some of your important data.
Reservations for multiple rooms
To upload a reservation for multiple rooms, enter a separate row of data for each room in the booking and use the same Reservation ID for each of the rows — this ensures that when the rows are uploaded, they will be merged into a single reservation with multiple rooms.
Keep the following data identical across these rows: Guest name, Check-in date, Check-out date, and Booked-on date. If the data differs, some of their values will be overwritten when they are uploaded and merged into a single reservation.
Step 5: fix data errors
If error messages emerge after entering your data into the grid, you will need to fix them before continuing — see below for how and when they appear:
If a mandatory field is left empty, a grey question mark will appear next to the row it is situated in.
Errors related to specific field(s) of data will be highlighted in red and the row it is located will have a grey question mark next to it. Hover over a red field to see its error message, and fix the data accordingly.
Errors concerning one or more entire rows of data will be highlighted red and have a red exclamation mark. Hover over the exclamation mark to see the error message, then fix the data across the row(s).
When fixing errors, we recommend keeping the following in mind:
The Check-in date cannot be in the past; only current and future reservations can be uploaded.
The Check-in date must be before the Check-out date.
The name of the Room type must match the name used in Little Hotelier. (But do not worry — you can select an existing room type simply by using the dropdown menu.)
Likewise, the name of the Rate plan must also match the name used in Little Hotelier (and existing rate plans can be selected in the dropdown menu).
To prevent overbooking, two rows with the same Room type and Room no. cannot have overlapping Check-in and Check-out dates — for example, the same room cannot be booked for 1–3 Jan and 2–3 Jan. Doing so will generate the following error message: “Reservation information is the same for another row. Make the required corrections and try again.”
Step 6: upload reservations
Follow the below steps to complete the upload your reservations:
Check that all of the rows of data have a green tick.
Click Upload x reservation (found on the top right). Note: The Upload x reservation button on the top right will show the number of rows with valid data; only rows with a green tick are uploaded, so these are the ones that are counted.
Ensure that all of the data is correct — a ‘Finish and add this reservation?’ pop-up will appear asking you to ensure all reservations are added correctly, click Continue and add.
The upload will start processing, leading to one of the following outcomes:
If successful — the reservations you entered have been added to Little Hotelier and can now be viewed in your Calendar and Reservations pages.
If failed — the reservations could not be uploaded due to error(s), so follow the previous step, ‘Step 5: fix data errors’ to solve the problem, then click Upload x reservation again.
Rows of data with a grey question mark or red exclamation mark will not be uploaded, however they will stay in the grid for the next time you visit this page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add group reservations?
When multiple rooms types are booked under the same reservation ID, each room type will need to be on a separate row.
How do I add multiple guests' names for one room type when inputting a reservation?
Enter the guest that has made the booking when uploading reservations – this is the main/ lead guest. You can include additional guests manually once the reservation has been uploaded.
I have a reservation with the check-in and check-out dates in the past, can I add them?
Only future availability is pushed to your OTAs/ Online channels as dates in the past are no longer bookable. For this reason, the multiple reservations tool will only accept reservations where the check-out date is in the future.
I have copied and pasted some data in the multiple reservations tool, but it is still showing errors?
The errors are likely to be visible in the columns where you have drop-down options available – for example, Source of Reservation, Room Type, Room Rate, Room Number, and Currency. Values that are copied and pasted from an external source must be an exact match.
Will I lose all the information if I log out?
There is no need to worry about losing your progress as the multiple reservation tool will save your work as you go along. You can easily log out and pick up where you left off.
The tool won’t accept my prices with a decimal, why is that?
You will need to make sure that your Little Hotelier allows decimals. This setting can be found in Setup > Property & Room Settings > Property Details > General > Front Desk Options > Allow decimals checkbox.
How can I be sure that my reservations have been added correctly to Little Hotelier?Once you click Upload x reservation open the multiple reservations tool to see if the reservations have been added successfully. You will see a success message to let you know how many reservations have been successfully uploaded. If any reservations fail, the errors will be highlighted ready for you to correct and upload again.
Some of my guests' names use special characters, will Little Hotelier accept those?
Little Hotelier will accept any special characters in your guests’ first and last names.