A facility for reducing complex administration requirements for management of advance payment was recently announced by Pelican, developer of an hotel E-distribution and reservation system. The advance payment control system, a component of Pelican System’s online contracting feature, largely automates the processing of advance payments and credit from travel agents and corporate clients.The facility offers a number of user-configurable options to handle most types of advance payments, including credit-card online payment, advance deposit, prepayment, and client credit. Beside setting credit limits and pay-by dates, the facility can also be configured to suggest alternate payment options. For example, an agent who has used up his advance deposit might be offered the opportunity to pay by credit card for an additional, last-minute booking.
Detailed reports on account balances, at-a-glance overviews, and warning flags generated by the facility can greatly simplify management and control of commercial payments. The facility will keep track of payment due dates, payments received—whether by agents or directly from the guest—and commissions payable in the case of direct customer payment. The facility can be particularly useful with new or travel agents / corporate clients by automatically monitoring compliance with prepayment dates for initial reservations, rapidly establishing whether the client or agent will be eligible for credit.
Though credit is an essential component of modern hotel operations, the resources needed to control customer credit can impose a considerable burden on the back office. The management capabilities offered by Pelican System’s online payment facility can provide clients with much-needed flexibility in payments without the high demands on time and resources made by manual monitoring and control.
——-