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See also:
Synchronizing Linked Reservations
Group Reservation Special Handling
Changing the Customer of a Reservation
Group reservations and other linked reservations can be created easily, which can save time maintaining reservations for multiple sites.
Clarification -- although they are often referred to as "group reservations", remember that technically each reservation record can only have one site assigned to it. When more than one site is linked, or in a group, it's actually multiple reservation records with internal links between them. This allows them to be handled in certain ways as a single reservation.
Linking Overview
Reservation linking is handled through a system called "Portfolios". This is mostly an internal organization term -- as a user, you see the linkage as a tree structure similar to file folders on the computer. Any reservation can own any number of portfolios (folders), each of which can contain any number of reservations -- which can in turn own other portfolios. Technically there is no limitation to the number of levels or complication of the structure, but in practice you're likely to only use 1 or 2 levels.
In addition to the multi-level linkage structure, each portfolio (set of reservations) can be one of 3 types. Note the distinctions between these types -- it's important in know which type to use for different situations:
•Synchronized -- The reservations keep their dates and status in sync automatically (for instance when you check in one, the rest are all checked in automatically), and are combined for billing purposes. They must all be under the same customer name.
•Non-synchronized -- Reservations linked this way can have different dates and have separate transactions for billing. They start out under then same customer name, but the customer for each one can be changed later through the "Change to a different Customer" function in Reservation Details.
•Sub-member -- Besides being "logically" a sub-member of the owner reservation, transactions (billing) will be combined with the "transaction master" reservation and the customer must be the same. However, it's not synchronized with the portfolio owner so the dates do not have to be the same as the owner reservation.
Some important points:
•All synchronized and sub-member reservations are combined for billing (and any synchronized or sub-members of those, etc. all combined with their top-level owner). However, non-synchronized reservations are considered separate "sets" or "top-level reservations" for billing. Thus by using appropriate link types, you can completely control which reservations are combined for billing.
•Only synchronized reservations will maintain identical dates and status. But changes to any linked as sub-member or non-synchronized will only affect that particular reservation.
•There are no date restrictions for sub-members (for instance it's not like a Guest reservation where the guest's stay can't be outside the host) -- so by using sub-member linking it's even possible to combine billing for separate stays (even on the same site!) for the same customer.
•Even Guest reservations can have sub-member reservations linked to it -- so for instance a Guest can rent a stall or canoe, which can be combined on the guest's bill and not affect the host reservation.
•Any synchronized link can be changed to non-synchronized (e.g. to separate the billing or change the customer) or a sub-member (to change dates independently while keeping the billing combined). However it cannot be changed back to synchronized (since there could be a conflict of dates, etc.). For the most part it wouldn't be necessary to re-synchronize it, since Sub-members have most of the same advantages.
•Any non-synchronized or sub-member link can be changed back and forth, so you can combine or separate billing at any time (but be sure to go back and re-calculate charges appropriately if you don't have auto-recalculation enabled).
•If the dates and/or the customer of any linked reservation is different than the master reservation, then the differences will be noted wherever the tree list is shown.
•If you need different customer names on each reservation, e.g. for groups, then they must be non-synchronized.
Transactions and Auto-Rates
A single collection of linked reservations can contain some that are billed separately and some combined, and even the combined ones can have different dates. This requires some special handling of the transactions for linked reservations. See Working with Transactions / Reservation Transactions section for more information.
See also:
Synchronizing Linked Reservations
Group Reservation Special Handling
Changing the Customer of a Reservation