This section of the User Guide is still undergoing updates. Thanks for your patience!
Making a Booking
The booking process usually begins in the Client database, where your first order of business is to find (or create) the Client record to which the booking is to be linked. As appropriate and if you haven’t already done so, address the question of whether the reservation will be for a group leader or re-seller, in which case it should be marked as a Master; whether (at what percentage) the reservation should be commissioned (Address tab) and whether a salesperson is to be credited with the booking (Main tab). So long as the Client record is “Active”, you are good to proceed.
To start, in the Client record you wish to add a Booking, click on the “+ Booking” button. You will be asked to reconfirm that you want to make a tour booking. If you began the process in error, you are able to abort by clicking on the “Stop” button. If your Client has been linked to one or more Master Records (explained in the Chapter 2), you will next be asked if you want to link this booking to one of them. If you reply “Yes”, the linkage is made when you click on the “Select” button adjacent to the Master name in the portal that will present. If the booking is for an individual you do not wish to associate or link to a group leader or travel agent, your response is “No”.
In the first screen that presents, you will see and be able to select from codes for all tours still to depart and marked active. Otherwise, if you know the code, beginning to type it will narrow the search.
Once having picked a code, glance to the bottom of the screen where the tour name, begin and end dates will have dropped into view. You will also see a display of the tour’s present status—number booked, available, etc. and, just below, the name of the Client or Contact to which this booking is linked.
Using the value lists that present, complete the # Travelers, the Type of Room (if it’s a day trip with no room component, choose “Day”), the Type of Booking and the Type of Invoice fields. When creating a “direct” booking, i.e. not associated with a group leader, travel agent, etc., your input will be “PAX” and “PAX.”
In the Source and Segment fields, select from the values that presents to identify how the booking came to be. The values you see are the same you were able to select from in Client. In the Salesperson field, you will see the name of the person who has been associated with the Client to which this Booking is linked. As appropriate, eliminate or change that reference now.
If you’ve made an incorrect selection, simply select again. If you need to thwart the booking process because you’ve started from the wrong Client, or for any other reason, click on the “Stop” button.
Click on the “Continue” button to move to the next window.
Next, click on the “New PAX from Client” button to download the name or names resident in the Client record. If there are two names in the Client record, both names will load at the click of the button. If both persons represented in the Client record are not traveling, it’s better to use the same process as you would if the name of the traveler is not the name represented in the Client record (example being a situation where “mom and dad” are represented in the Client record, but it’s their child who is the traveler). That would be to click on the “New Pax Record” button as many times as necessary to load all of the travelers (maximum of four) that will occupy the room represented in the booking.
If for any reason you want to manually waitlist the reservation, click the box highlighted in our example in yellow.
If the reservation is for a single person open to sharing a room, click in the “Wants a Roommate” field.
If the traveler has a roommate, confirmed in a separate Booking, the roommate’s name can be entered in the “Rooming With” field (see green highlights) and you can now, or eventually, mark both records with a common Tag #, explained as follows:
Each time you make a booking, TourTools™ will automatically assign the next available Tag#, shown in our example as #2 in the field labeled “Next Tag #.” In some sense, tag numbers can be thought of as room numbers and are what allow you to tie reservations from separate records together on the rooming list. You are able to manually assign or override a tag number (in the field highlighted in red), either now or at a later time, to travelers who have separate booking records but plan to share the same room.
Example
Harriet Smith and Betty Jones have two separate client records and are rooming together on tour. Harriet’s reservation was processed first and was automatically assigned tag number 5. Two weeks later, you receive Betty’s reservation. If you note Harriet’s number before processing Betty’s reservation, you can immediately enter “5” in the tag number field as you book Betty; or, once Betty’s reservation is complete, you can go back and override the number that was automatically assigned. The shared tag number is what will join them on the rooming list you will eventually generate.
A few suggestions: The rooming list’s primary sort is on the Tag # so it is recommended that you assign a high number to the driver and tour escort; that way, they will drop to the very bottom of the document. It may also be helpful to assign sequential tag numbers to all of your double/twin rooms, then follow with your triples, then quads, then singles. It makes your roomlist a little more logical and visually appealing. Finally, it also makes sense to assign sequential tag numbers to people traveling together, who have requested adjacent rooms.
If the reservation is for a Driver or someone (an escort or group leader) you consider to be Staff (traveling on a Single or Double occupancy basis), click in the appropriate field (in our example, highlighted in blue) to load the number of passengers in the record to be tagged as such. Note that the numbers entered in these fields are what will populate the “Utilized” fields of the same names in Tours.
Next, proceed to the “View Pricing, Select Packages…” part of the screen, in the lower left, where you will see a series of labeled buttons representing the various Package types associated with the tour. Picking any one of them will trigger display of Packages of that type that are available for purchase. It’s recommended that you click “PKG” first and sell the “Primary” or core Package before selling any Options.
Referring to the example on the previous page, since the booking is for one person in a single, the “Discover Savannah” package on a “Single” basis would be selected by clicking on the “Book” button on the right. Once a selection has been made, the Package details will load below, along with an indication of how many passengers booked the service, and the status. In our example, since the “#Travelers” in the record was 1 when Discover Savannah was booked, a 1 would drop into the “#Pax” field. If the sale is confirmed the Status will show as “CNF”, the Price field will reflect the per person cost of $512, and PKG shows as the Type. If there is no space available on the tour, either because the capacity reflected in Tours has been exceeded or because inventory in one of the Package’s Contracted Services records has been depleted, the Status will display as WL (waitlisted). Note that any and all waitlisted records remain so until you clear them; i.e. the process is not automated meaning you might chose to confirm the second or third record ahead of the first if circumstances dictate.
As mentioned earlier, if there are other package types associated with the tour, additional buttons (labeled OPT, LAND ONLY, etc.) will display. Click on them one by one and examine each list to make all the appropriate selections for your Booking. If you are not certain which Package is the one you want, clicking on the small “i” icon next to the Book button, will take you to the Packages module, where you can view the itinerary to see what is included, before returning to the Booking.
The last thing to reference on this layout relates to the traveler’s departure preferences, as they relate to motorcoach or air travel. If noted in their Client record, those preferences will be visible here. If a schedule of motorcoach pick-up and drop-off points has been loaded in Tours, that detail will also be visible and available to select from.
To proceed to the next step in the booking script, again click on the “Continue” button at the top of the screen.
You are now at the point where a payment can be posted. Click on the “New Payment or Discount Record” button to post anything but automated credit card payments (possible if TourTools™ is interfaced to an internet-based credit card processing software; process explained below).
The Type of Payment is a value list of choices (Cash, Check, Credit Card, etc.), the check number goes in the field so labeled, the initials or name of the person posting the payment should be entered in the Received By field, today’s date will auto-fill in the Payment Date field, free-form notes can be entered in the Transactions Notes field, and the amount of the payment should be entered in the Amount Paid field. If your system is programmed to accommodate the sale of travel insurance, there is a field reflecting the premium due as well as a field where the amount of the premium paid can be input. Note that the only time you will use the Credit Card identifier as part of this process will be in instances where you ran the card outside of TourTools™ and need simply to add the payment to the record after the fact.
If you want TourTools™ to calculate a discount based on a percentage of the total cost, select “Discount” as the Payment Type and input the percentage as a decimal (example .10) in the Discount % field and click on the “Calc Discount” button. At that point the calculated amount will drop into the Amount Paid field.
When all entries are complete, use the “Post” button.
Credit Card Payments and Voids
To process a credit card payment online, click on the “New CC or Scheduled Payment” button.
Doing so will begin to set up a payment record and will “auto-load” several fields; today’s date, and the Client name.
As appropriate, click on the “Bal” button to load the current balance, and pick from the value list to identify the Payment Type. Do the same in the CC Transaction Type (Sale, Credit or Void) field, and continue by entering the card detail. If you have the security code, load it in the field labeled ID. This number is not vital to the process unless required by your credit card vendor.
When all entries are complete, click on the “Submit” button. Upon receipt of an authorization response, you will be prompted to post the payment to the account.
If you need to void a payment, click on the “Void” button that appears beneath the entry on the “Payments” screen. That will queue up the details of the card, the amount, the authorization code related to the payment, etc. related to the payment that needs to be reversed. Follow the prompts to continue. Note: A payment can only be voided on the same day it was initially processed.
The reservation process ends at the Notes screen. Notes entered in the Depart or Ret Manifest fields will appear on the manifests that reflect who is joining and leaving the tour at points specified in the Tours record and picked in the Booking (further details follow). Airline Notes will appear on the various flight manifests; Invoice Notes will appear on the Invoice or Receipt, and Rooming List Notes are self-evident. To make internal notes about the Booking, type in the unlabeled white field and click on the pencil to load. The remarks will be tagged with the current date as well as your name.
The “required steps” in the booking process have been completed. You may now need/want to click to some of the other tabs in the record to make additional entries.
Completed Booking Screen
Most of the fields/buttons on the top of this layout do not require explanation or have been addressed previously. Those that haven’t include:
Tag Color: In cases where you have a multi-bus move and want to assign travelers to one bus or the other, use the color coding available via the value list attached to this field (this is different than the colors you are able to assign to bus pick-up and drop-off locations in Tours).
Go Pax Records: For every name in the Booking record, there will be a corresponding “Pax” record, accessible by clicking on this button. You’ll recognize the fields in the section labeled “Personal/Dietary Information” as referencing data from Client (Passport Number, Birthdate, Medical Conditions, etc.). If these fields were empty at the time the booking was made, go back to the Client record to load the details, then return to the Pax record and click on the “Update Health/Diet Info from Client”. You can otherwise update or edit the information right here; however, your input does not translate back to Client.
Along the top of the screen you will see a bank of buttons that can be used to generate a variety of name and also luggage tags, as well as a label that can be used to tag document packets.
Use the “< Back” button to return to the front page of the Booking.
Clicking on the small spoon and fork icon has the same effect as clicking on the “Go Pax Records”. If meal selections have been loaded in Tours, notice that the icon will turn red or pink.
Once in the Pax record(s), click on the button labeled “Load Menus”, to bring the restaurant(s) confirmed as part of the trip into view. Clicking in the field adjacent to the restaurant name will present the menu choices available to pick from and clicking on one will assign that meal to the passenger whose record you have open. Use the navigational arrows at the top left of the layout to move to the next Pax in the record to assign their meal selections. Choices made here correspond to the Pax Meal Report that can be run from Bookings.
At the bottom of the Pax screen there are fields referencing Fundraising and Insurance, both of which are not generic to the system. If either might be something you can use, please ask for details.
Passengers on Different Packages in One Booking
In some scenarios, not all passengers in a booking will be on the same package for various reason. This video will guide you as to how to handle that situation:
If you have any questions that are not answered here Contact TourTools Support for assistance.
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