Reservation Options

(Accessed through Maintenance / Program Options / Reservations.)

Quick-select preferences/add-ons -- You can select up to 5 "Attribute" fields to show as checkboxes on the New Reservation dialog.  This enables quick selection of add-ons, particularly useful for features that have added charges (Add-On rates).  If less then 5 are selected, you should use the top-most entries, rather than leaving blanks in between selections.

Default ETA -- You can select one of the selections from the Estimated Arrival Times pick-list as the default for new reservations, or you can select the blank entry if you want it blank by default.

Default type -- If most of your reservations will be a type other than Normal, you can set the default reservation type here.

Default starting date -- This affects the Rack, Map, and New Reservations.  Normally you would leave this as some past date, and make sure the next option, to ignore the default date, is checked.  However if you're making reservations for the next season, then you can set this to your season starting date to save time scrolling the Rack each time.

Ignore default start date once it's in the past -- Normally you would leave this checked, however if you are trying to work on past reservations then you can set the default start date to a past date and uncheck this, so the rack starts in the past.

Default # days for new reservations -- If your typical reservation is for a specific number of days, for instance if you primarily rent 3-day weekend packages, then you can change this value.  Any reservations started fresh, e.g. by double-clicking the Rack or Map, or from the New Reservation icon or menu function, will default to this number of days (nights).  Note that this will be ignored in the special case of setting a date range on the Rack with Available only checked (see the option below).

Automatically Find Customer after Last Name is entered on New Reservations -- This enables a quick-find function when entering the customer name when making New Reservations.  A small version of the Find Customer dialog will open automatically after the Last Name is entered, allowing quick selection of a previous customer.  Without this enabled, the Find Customer button must be used to find existing customers.

Start New Reservations with "Show Available" checked -- This option only affects the "New Reservation" dialog.  When set, the "Show Available" option will default to being checked (on) by default in the New Reservation dialog, so only the available sites will be shown.

Start New Reservations with "Use Preferences" checked -- This option only affects the "New Reservation" dialog.  When set, the "Use Preferences" option will default to being checked (on) by default in the New Reservation dialog, so only the sites with the specified preferences will be shown.  Uncheck this if you want to ignore preferences at first.

Show Quick-Pick site list on the New Reservations dialog -- By default, a Quick-Pick site list appears on the New Reservation dialog so that a site can be selected from a list instead of from the mini-rack view.  However this can be cumbersome if your park has many sites, so you may choose to disable this feature and take the list off of the dialog.

Use date selections from the Rack (when double-clicking), if 'Available Only' is checked -- This option is enabled by default, so you can use the main Rack view to check site availability for selected dates and choose a site.  If this sometimes results in the wrong assumption about reservation dates, it can be disabled.  For instance, if you like to use the Rack to select sites that will be available for several days longer than the reservation, then this could result in the wrong dates being assumed for the new reservation.

Enable automatic multiple-site selection -- When this is enabled, a "Qty" field will be added to the New Reservation dialog.  This can be used to have it automatically select and add a number of sites, instead of selecting each one individually.

Automatically copy any existing Customer Notes to New Reservations Notes -- If you typically have notes in Customer Details that you want to see when making a new reservation (e.g. warnings or special circumstances), set this option so the Customer notes will always show up on New Reservation and will also stay with the Reservation Details.  With this option unchecked, the Reservation Notes will always be blank to start with.

Automatically copy New Reservation Notes to Customer Notes -- Set this if you want any new or changed Notes entered on the New Reservation dialog to be copied back to the Customer Details (e.g. so they show up again next time you make a reservation for this customer).  However, if there are existing Customer Notes and you modify the Notes in the New Reservation, then the Customer notes will not be overwritten with the new Reservation notes.

Keep the Rack and Map views on the same date when switching between them -- When this is enabled, the Rack and Map views will be kept in sync as far as the From and To dates  selected.  If this option is not enabled, then changing the date on one view will not change dates in the other view.

Remove checked-out reservations from the Rack (make available for extra check-in same day) -- When this is selected, checked-out reservations are removed from the Rack (and treated as an available site) instead of showing in a dark grey color.  This is not generally recommended (it's often handy to see what sites have been recently vacated and who was there), but you may need to set this option if you commonly have people check out the same day they arrive and you want to make that site available for someone else arriving later that day.

Allow Guest reservations to be checked in before the host (and checked out after the host) -- Normally you would want the person with the main reservation, or host, to arrive before any of his guests (Guest reservations on the same site).  Therefore this option is not enabled by default.  However if you handle Guest reservations in such a way that the guests may arrive before the host (and likewise if the guests may leave after the host), then enable this option so they can be checked in or out in any order. Note that this refers only to the time of day they arrive or leave -- they can never arrive on a day before the host reservation starts or leave on a day after the host reservation ends.

Duplicate Customer Checking -- This button opens a separate dialog for setting the criteria used in checking for duplicate customers when entering a new reservation.