Front desk Live

The booking chart

Rooms down the side, nights across the top, every stay drawn as a bar — the one screen a front desk lives on, with the price and the rules on it.

The chart is the whole hotel on one screen. Every room is a row, every night a column, and every booking is a bar you can read from across the desk: the guest's name, the nights, and a colour that says where the business came from — an OTA, the hotel's own page, a company, a walk-in.

What is on it, and why

Above the rooms sit the rate for each night, the minimum stay and any stop-sell. The price and the rule are on the same screen as the booking, so the desk never quotes a rate the chart will refuse a minute later.

Below the chart, a shaded row says how many rooms of each type are still free on each night — the number a reservations manager wants without opening a report.

Drag a bar to another room or another night; the system asks once if the move needs asking about, and refuses only when money would be wrong.
Right-click a room to book it or block it; a block asks why, from which night to which, and writes the person's name on it.
A booking that has no room yet — a channel booking arriving when its type is full — sits in a lane of its own for its room type, still draggable, so it is never invisible.
The chart keeps itself current: a booking pushed by a channel is drawn in the same request that accepted it.

What it will not do

It will not let a stay be moved behind the business date, and it will not let a closed night be dragged into a different day. Those are the ways a chart quietly corrupts a hotel's books, and each is a refusal with a sentence attached.

Every picture on this site is this screen, on a demo hotel, taken by a script that fails if the screen has moved.

More on Front desk

Taking a bookingA room, a rate and a guest in under thirty seconds — quoted first, so the price the desk says is the price the system takes. Check-inThe guest, their ID and the room in one screen; the bill that is already open is the bill; and a room is free the moment the last guest has left. The registration cardThe GRC the guest signs, on the hotel's own paper, drawn from the booking and reprintable. The folioOne stay, one bill — or several windows on it when the company pays the room and the guest pays their own dinner. The GST invoiceA tax invoice with the right slab, the CGST/SGST split, the buyer's GSTIN when there is one, and a QR code anyone downstream can verify. Check-outSettle, or bill to a company, or — for a small balance — waive it at the door with a reason and a name. The bill is still there after the guest has gone. Credit and debit notesAn issued invoice is never edited. A wrong value goes down by a credit note and up by a debit note — separate, numbered, pointing at the original. Room move and upgradeMove a stay to another room, or up a category, from the chart, with the reason and the person written on the move. No-shows and cancellationsA policy on every booking, a retention charge the audit applies, and a charge the hotel cannot collect is not posted as if it could. Group bookingsOne booking, many rooms, a rooming list, and each room checked in and billed on its own or on the master. The guest recordOne guest is one row across every hotel. A shared email is not a person, and the guest who is already booked is not booked again. Corrections by the administratorThe administrator can correct any booking — audited, in house, departed, billed — and the log is the price. Room blocks and closed datesRight-click a room to block it, with a reason, a range and a name; close a date for the whole hotel; and the channels are told in the same minute. Arrivals and departuresWho is expected, who has not arrived, who has not left — with the rate and how they pay, because the desk asked for those two columns. Money owedEvery balance somebody has to chase, in one panel — and a payment link that is chased until somebody knows what happened to it. Every change says who made itThe booking's own timeline: taken, changed, moved, checked in, billed — each with a person, a time and a machine. A full room is a question, not a wallThe owner's standing rule — refuse only for money; otherwise say what you see, ask once, and write down who said yes. A discount on the bill is a decision with a name on itThe folio's fourth tab: a percentage or an amount off the whole bill, the room, the food or one line, the GST reduced with it, a reason from the hotel's list and a name on every line — a manager above the hotel's limit. And a small leftover forgiven at the door, under a ceiling, recorded. The clock on the door has a priceEarly check-in and late check-out as the hotel's own policy — as many bands per side as it wants, in hours from the door time, each a percentage of the night or a flat amount. The desk posts; a manager waives with a reason; the list of who was charged or waived is a report. A mistake made today is undone todayUndo on the card walks back what the desk did — a check-in, a payment, a charge, a cancellation — as a stack, until the night audit closes the day. A cancelled booking is put back from Find. A bill closed at zero is reopened by an administrator to void, refund and close again. Every one recorded.