For property owners with no front desk system or direct booking engine, creating reservations can be complex. It can mean guests must book through an online travel agency (OTA) and pay them a commission, or lose guests to competitor offers. Little Hotelier allows you to create your own reservations, saving money and empowering you to manage the guest relationship.
This article covers how to create a reservation, which details you should enter, and a description of each tab that all reservations include.
💡 You can create reservations from the Calendar page and the Reservations page.
When do I need to create manual reservations?
As your Little Hotelier is connected to OTAs (also called channels) and a direct booking engine, most new reservations will be created and added to your calendar automatically. However, if a guest decides to make a booking directly via phone or email, you'll need to manually create that reservation in your Little Hotelier front desk.
Creating a reservation allows you to select and hold a room for guests. Your availability will also be updated automatically on your connected channels will show this new availability. Making sure these bookings have a reservation in your front desk helps to prevent overbookings.
➕ Here are some situations when you might need to create a manual reservation:
When a guest walks in asking if a room is available at the last minute.
When guests contact you through your directly via your phone, e-mail, website, or even your social media pages.
If you have agreements with physical travel agencies (not OTAs), they might contact you to book a room for one of their customers.
If you're part of a property chain or have agreements with other properties and they're overbooked and need to relocate their guests.
💡 Did you know that there's a Little Hotelier mobile app?
How do I create a reservation?
There are three ways to create a reservation manually in Little Hotelier:
Directly click and drag on the Calendar on your Calendar page
Use the +Reservation button (also on your Calendar page)
Use your Reservations page
How do I create a reservation on my Calendar page?
There are two easy ways to manually create a reservation on your Calendar page:
Through the +Reservation button
Go to the Calendar page
Click on the +Reservation button at the top right corner
A New Reservation pop-up will appear where you can enter the reservation information in the applicable fields. See section: Add new reservation details.
Clicking and dragging on the Calendar
Go to the Calendar page
Locate the new reservation’s check-in date
On the cell corresponding with the room where you wish to create this reservation, click and drag to the right across the days the booking will be required.
On the Create new... pop-up window, click on the +Reservation button
A New Reservation pop-up will appear where you can enter the reservation information in the applicable fields. See section: Add new reservation details.
How do I create a reservation on my Reservations page?
You can also create reservations from the Reservations page. Simply follow these steps:
Go to Reservations
Click on +Create reservation, just below the searching filters.
A New Reservation pop-up will appear where you can enter the reservation information in the applicable fields. See section: Add new reservation details.
Add new reservation details
Once you have created a reservation, you'll need to fill out some fields from the reservation's Details tab. This tab contains a reservation 's most crucial data, including general information about the stay, the primary guest, and payment summary.
General reservation details
Enter Check-in and Check-out dates
💡 The length of stay and the booking status are to the right of these dates
Select the Room type and the Rate plan you want
Select a specific room name or number (Room #) from the drop-down to allocate a physical room to the booking (and know which key to hand over during check-in)
💡 If you leave this field blank, the reservation will appear as unallocated on your Calendar, but your availability will still decrease.
⚠️ If the Room # drop-down menu does not have a room number to select, it means that you have no more rooms available for this room type. Why? Well:
You might need to rearrange the bookings to accommodate your guest reservations
Maybe your room type is completely booked
Perhaps all your room type’s physical rooms have closures
In any case, make sure to double-check why there are no physical rooms available in the drop-down before generating the reservation, to avoid overbooking your property.
💡 The Check-in, Check-out, Room type and Room # fields are automatically filled in for reservations created from the Calendar page.Select the number of Adults, Children, and Infants included in this reservation.
⚠️ The number of adults should always be more than 0 if the room type settings have adults required selected.The Room price field will show the total room price, excluding any extra person fees and discounts you might want to apply. If the Rate plan field has been filled in, the Room price is greyed out.
⚠️ The Room price is automatically filled in based on the rate currently shown in your inventory for the rate plan and dates selected.
💡 To manually apply a different rate, select the blank option on the Rate plan field in order to edit the Room price.The Extra person field shows the sum-up price for all additional occupants not included in the Room total price.
⚠️ The Extra person field is automatically filled based on the Occupancies set in the rate plan selected. If you leave the Rate plan field blank, the Extra person field won't be editable. In this case, you'll have to include any extra fees in the Room price.
➕ Let's say you have a Double room. The standard rate including two adults totals 100 for this rate plan. Additional children are charged at 20 each. If you make a reservation for 2 adults and 2 children, the Room price field will show 100, and the Extra person field will show 40. Neither of these two fields can be edited while a rate plan is selected.Add a Discount, if applicable. You might want to give your guest a special discount that will show in their invoice.
You can add more rooms to a reservation by clicking on the +Add another room button below the Discount field. If you do so, you can fill in all the fields, as explained in step 2 of the General reservation details.
Primary contact
Just below the general reservation details, on the Details tab, is a section called Primary contact details. The primary contact is the main guest of a reservation, usually either the person who made the booking or the one paying.
If more than one guest is included in the reservation, you can add additional guests in the Guests tab on the reservation window.
⚠️ The primary contact details (name and ID document) is what's included in an invoice.
💡 Your primary contact details and other guests’ details will be stored on the Guests page of your Little Hotelier.
The primary contact information below is mandatory:
First name and Last name
Other primary contact details are not required to save a booking successfully:
Contact details: E-mail and Phone number
Address (including city and country fields are mandatory in Germany)
Payment details: you can add the credit card details of your guests, including the card number, its expiry date (MM/YYYY), and the cardholder name.
💡 An e-mail address is essential for sending guests their booking confirmation, booking summary, invoices, etc.
💡 Once the payment details and the reservation is saved, the credit card number will be encrypted. Only admin users will be the only users able to view it.Arrival time
Referral information
💡 It's always worthwhile asking guests how they discovered your propertyID document type and ID number are legally required in some locations
⚠️ You should check whether local laws require you to request this information from your guests. In Spain, property owners are required to run and export police reports with guests’ ID document details as well as other information.
Marketing e-mails. You may need to ask guests whether they consent to receive your marketing e-mails as per data protection laws. If this option is not available you may need to enable GDPR consent in your Guest display settings.
The Guest comments section is where you can add comments or note special guest requests. For example, "I prefer a room with a view" or "Please give me an accessible room at ground level or close to an elevator."
💡 The comments added here will be shown on the confirmation e-mail sent to the guest. If you wish to add comments visible only to your staff, you can do so in the Notes tab once a reservation has been created.
⚠️ Please, avoid including credit card information in the Guests' comments box or the Notes tab, as the system will automatically encrypt them if detected.
You might want to save your reservation with the current information. Click Save at the bottom right corner.
➕ Once saved, a booking reference number is generated. Manual reservations and bookings that come through your direct booking engine will always have a booking reference (also called a reservation ID) that starts with ¨LH¨, followed by a number. New tabs will also become available in the reservation, these include Guests, Inclusions, Extra items, Payments, Notes, and Invoices.
💡 Did you know that you can add a custom field in the Primary contact section? This is useful for asking all your guests a question that has not been covered in other fields. For example, it could be used to advise of allergies you should be aware of, or to provide a guest loyalty code.
Booking summary
On the Details tab, when creating or editing a reservation, you will find the Booking summary providing a quick overview of the total charges for the reservation. Below is a detailed explanation of each Booking summary component:
Room total: this is the total room price, excluding any extra person fees and discounts you might apply
Extra person total: this is the price for all additional occupants (Adults, Children, and Infants) that are not included in the Room total price
Extras total: this is the price for all extras added in the Extra items tab of this reservation.
Discount total: this shows the value entered in the Discount field
Credit card surcharges: this shows any additional fee you might charge guests when paying with certain credit cards.
Total: this is the grand total a guest owes, including extra charges, taxes, and surcharges, minus any discounts
Total received: this is the amount a guest has already paid. The Total received is altered whenever you process or record a payment.
💡 You may want to configure a deposit guests have to pay at the time of booking.
Total outstanding: this is the remaining amount between the Total and the Total received. The Total outstanding will show any amount still pending payment by your guest. The Total outstanding gets altered once you process or record a payment.
💡 The different payment status will display reservations with different colour flags on your Calendar page, depending on if they are fully paid or with an outstanding amount. Learn more: Calendar overview
Percentage taxes included / Percentage taxes total: this is the total amount of taxes included in the reservation. This amount can show in two different ways in the Booking summary, depending on your tax configuration:
If the Display the room rates inclusive of taxes and fees option is ticked on Setup > Set up taxes > Settings, you will see Percentage taxes included showing under Total outstanding in the Booking summary.
If Display the room rates inclusive of taxes and fees option is unticked on Setup > Set up taxes > Settings, then you will see Percentage taxes total showing under Credit card surcharges in the Booking summary.
💡 You may also see Fixed amount taxes in the Booking summary if you have set up a fixed amount tax.
Record payment: this button allows you to record any payment and refund manually.
💡 If you are using Little Hotelier Payments (our payment gateway), you will see an additional button called Process payment.
If you haven’t saved your reservation, please click Save at the bottom right corner to do so.
How do I apply a discount on a reservation?
Discounts can be applied on the Details tab of every reservation. You can choose to apply a discount on a room level basis or per night basis.
⚠️ You can only select one way to apply your discount.
To apply a discount on a room level basis:
Click on the amount/percentage symbol to choose between applying an amount or percentage (%) discount
Enter the discount value
To apply a discount per night basis:
Click the drop-down arrow beside Discount. This will reveal the pricing per night
⚠️ The drop-down arrow is not visible for a one-night bookingClick on the amount/percentage symbol to choose between amount or percentage (%)
Enter the discount value
💡Different nights can have a mix of amount and percentage discounts.
➕ When applying a percentage discount (%), this will be discounted from the Room total, not the reservation Total.
My reservation is created; what are those new options I see?
Once you click Save, your new reservation will be created. New information and options become available in the reservation window:
A booking reference number (or reservation ID) will be generated and displayed at the top of the reservation window. Manual reservations and bookings that come through your direct booking engine will always start with 'LH', followed by a number.
New tabs will appear beside the Details tab, where you can enter the following additional information:
Guests
Inclusions
Extra items
Payments
Notes
Invoices
New options and buttons also appear on the Details tab:
Keep rates for existing dates
Length of stay
Booking status
Add guests button
Print button
E-mail button