Click on a heading to jump to that section. Click on index at the end of each section to jump back to this point.

Click on the Five Star Systems icon located on the Desktop, or Start > Programs > FiveStarSystems > Five Star Systems

The system will then check connectivity to the local or networked database and then display the login window.

Login to the system using the supplied user name and password.

Once the system has established connection to the database it will check for any software updates. It will notify you of any updates with a second window which will close automatically. When this has completed it will return you to the login screen where you can re-enter your login details.

The first screen you will see is the Current Bookings screen. From here you can view the status of your current bookings, make new Bookings, and add new Guests. You can also filter the view of the Properties by selecting certain criteria on the left column, or by clicking on the plus sign next to the site name in the main window. In the current view, the Bookings are being displayed by Booking Status, i.e. if they are confirmed, unconfirmed, checked-in or checked-out. By clicking on the drop down list at the top of the main window you can choose to View Bookings by Payment, Correspondence or Outstanding Issues. In this way you can see at a glance what your Bookings status is.

To change the dates in the Current Bookings screen click and drag the horizontal grey bar below the grid. Drag it left to go backwards, and drag it to the right to go forward. Currently the system will only display the dates that have been defined as seasons in the PMS WebAdmin screens. Any Bookings that have been manually placed beyond your current season setup can be viewed using the Bookings screen.

You can also use the navigation tools found at the top of the window that displays the Bookings. Using the <Year <Month : Month> and Year> you can step through very quickly. You can also directly enter a date or use the drop down calendar to select a specific date. Clicking and holding the mouse button on the Date at the top of the calendar produces a list of months that you can scroll through by moving the mouse up or down, beyond the edge of the list. Once you have reached the correct month and year, let go and the calendar view will show that month. Click on a date to set that as the current start date for the Current Bookings grid display.

Left click on a day in the timeline. A small window will open. Keep holding the left mouse button down and drag to the right. A grey line will indicate the chosen days. As you drag, the window will auto update with the following information:

Start Date
End Date
Price

Booking Allowed or Restricted
Property Available or Not Available

By letting go of the mouse button when you have selected the correct number of days, a New Booking Details screen will appear.

If the chosen dates are incorrect, draw the booking back to the Start Date and let go. No Booking Details screen will appear. You will now be able to draw a new booking on a different Start Date or Property.

If you create a booking by accident or have not drawn enough days for a particular booking and the Booking Reference screen has opened up, just by closing the Booking will remove the details from the Current Bookings screen. This is because each new Booking is assigned a Default Guest called Guest Enquiry. The system has been told to disregard any Bookings that have this Guest when the Booking Reference screen is closed. A new Booking will only remain on the time line if a Guest has been associated with the Booking.

This is the main Booking Details screen. From here when can view data about the Booking and the Guest. The Booking ID is assigned by the system at the time of creating the Booking, as are the Confirm by and Pay by dates which are set with in the PMS Admin pages. Each new Booking will have a default booking status of Unconfirmed and the payment status of Unpaid.

The Total Cost is displayed along with the preceding totals for Basic Accommodation Cost, the Total Booking Cost (which includes any Booking Extras), the Discounted Booking Cost (the cost after any discounts for Late Availability, Guest Type, Web, Portal or Manual have been added)and Extras. The Receipts are in red because there have been no entries into the system, and the Deposit Required is in red indicating that the deposit has not been paid.

The deposit amount is calculated by the system and is either a percentage as defined in the Policies section of the WebAdmin, or a fixed amount against that property, again defined in the Property pages of WebAdmin.

The first thing to do is add the Guest to the Booking. Click on Assign Guest and the Guest Details window will open. NB: If you do not add a Guest, and the Guest name in the window is still Guest Enquiry, the Booking will be removed from the Current Bookings screen when you close the Booking Reference screen.

As you start typing in the First Name and the Last Name the system will sort through your Guest database, narrowing down the search. Establish with the guest on the phone or by details in the email if they are already on the system. If they are, click on the Guest in the Matching Guests result and it will fill in all fields according to the information held on that Guest. You can then Save & Assign the Guest to this Booking.

If they are new to the database, continue to add the details to the fields and then click on the Save & Apply button to add the Guest to the database and assign to the current Booking.

On the Booking Reference screen you can now change the number of Guests staying.

By clicking on the Add Receipt at the top of the Booking Details screen, you will get the New Receipt window. The Payment date will be today’s date, but it can be backdated. The Outstanding Bookings list will display any Outstanding Balances that the Guest may have on the System, i.e. from previous Bookings. The current Booking Balance from the selected Booking will be indicated by a tick.

Using the drop down menu select the Payment Type from the available payment methods. These will have been added to your system from the WebAdmin screens regarding Payment Types. Each Payment Type may display additional fields that are used to record the information about that payment method, for example, the details to allow you to transact a payment via Credit Card, including the CVV code (the 3 digit number on the reverse of the credit card.

Enter the Amount tendered, and any surcharge you may want to apply. You can also, at this point, change the Person who is entering the Receipt Details.

The Allocation Method can be left to Automatic, unless you want Manually allocate certain amounts of the Receipted payment to other Outstanding Booking amounts. Clicking on Allocate will start the process of adding the Receipt to the Booking. It will also then ask ‘Are You Sure’. Click Yes to continue and add the Receipt.

When you have entered a Guest against a Booking, and any time before and after you have added a Receipt, you have the option of printing or emailing letters.

Click on Print at the top of the Booking Details window. Here you will get the option to select from a list of word templates that the PMS has been told about. Each letter or email belongs to a Group of Correspondence that are broken into 5 sections, PRO (Provisional Confirmation), DCL (Deposit Confirmation), PCL (Payment Confirmation), BAL (Balance Acknowledgement) or COMP (Completion letter). Each group of letters can have as many individual letters or emails as you require, and these groups are linked visually to the Booking status and Payment status of a Booking in the Current Bookings screen.

You also have the option of printing the letters immediately or batch them for later printing. The Batch print at the end of day consists of one document containing all the pages of queued letters.

When the letter has finished opening you are left with the final merged document that you can save and/or print. There is no need to close Word as in previous versions of Five Star Systems PMS.

The Booking is then updated to show in the Booking Details window which letter group has been printed and a comment added to the Booking Notes area.

Each letter template can be tailored to your exact needs and you also have the ability to edit the final letter as a normal document should you wish to add any pertinent information that does not need to be part of the normal template.

Email confirmations are handled in the same way, except you have the ability to preview the message before it is sent.

Setting up of letters and emails for the PMS are covered in another manual, which can be found on the download website

http://downloads.five-star-systems.co.uk

A new installation of the PMS will contain several example letter templates for Letters, Emails and Marketing.

There is also the ability to print a Booking Form. This is a single, dedicated mail merge to a named document called BookingForm.doc

This document can be found in the Five Star Systems program directory and can be edited to your liking. It can also include credit card details for those Property Managers who require a hard copy of all details from a Booking.

The example BookingForm.doc can be edited, as long as it is saved with the same name.

Clicking on Extras on the top menu will allow you to add any extras that have been configured into the PMS. Click on the Date to choose that date from a drop down calendar.

Additional Extras are configured through the WebAdmin screens. As long as your PMS is replicating, these additions will be available to you after a minute or so.

From the drop down list of Items, click on the chosen Extra, and then tab into the next field. The Return key does not function the same way within a database and most navigation is done using Tab and Shift Tab. If cost override has been enabled you can change the price of this extra. Tab once more into Quantity and enter a number. Keep tabbing and enter the appropriate information in the notes area (if required). Tab to the end of the line and press Tab once more. This will then enter the extra against the Booking, calculate the cost and add the amount to the Outstanding Balance.

From the Guest Details tab on the Booking Reference screen you can view the current Guest assigned to the Booking. You can also Edit Guest Details from here to amend or update the Guest.

The Accomm. Costs tab shows a breakdown of the Accommodation Costs that have been applied to the current Booking.

The Booking Extras tab displays individual entries for Optional and Mandatory Booking Extras. From the main menu at the top of the Booking Reference you can add any Optional Booking Extras that are applicable to this Booking. The drop down list will be specific to the Property as set up through the WebAdmin pages.

The Discounts tab will display all discounts that have been applied to this Booking at the time of Booking. Web Discount, Guest Discount and Late Availability Discount are automatically generated if the system has been configured to do this, and the only type of Discount you can apply is a Manual Discount. You can enter a percentage in either the Nominal %, Adjusted % or as a figure (in £ and p). If you enter a minus figure, this will have the effect of adding the figure to the Discounted Cost.

The Adjusted % depends on the Discount Method that has been configured within the PMS WebAdmin screens and is useful in capping the amount of discount that gets applied to a booking.

The Extras tab display all Extras that have been added to the Booking. All normal Extras are added to a Booking via Extras on the top menu and are not dependant on the Property that has been booked.

All Extras are added to the Inventory through the WebAdmin pages.

The Booking Details tab displays information about the Type of Booking, the Agent that made the Booking on behalf of the Guest and also the Source of the Booking. The Source information is useful for ascertaining whether your marketing sources are cost effective, and allowing you to make decisions as to where you might advertise in the future.

The Notes tab displays 2 areas of information. The Booking Notes are used by the Correspondence feature of the PMS so that you have a paper trail of all Correspondence sent to that Guest, either by Email or by Letter. The Office Notes area is going to be used by Reports and may include information that relates to the Housekeepers job so that additional items may be present at the time of Guest occupation.

You can also add your own notes to either section. Pressing the Tab key when you reach the end of the inserted text will commit that note to the Booking and add the date/time stamp.

The Receipts tab shows each receipt that has been entered against this Booking. Receipts are entered using the Add Receipts on the top menu.

The Alerts tab shows any active Alerts that have been scheduled. Although the Alerts are setup and scheduled from within a Booking they do not have to bear any relationship to that Booking.

The Credit Card tab allows you to view and add additional credit card details to the Booking. One of the cards can be set to default which will usually be the current method of payment.

History allows you to see the previous Bookings made by a Guest. Please note this tab is not available for selection from a Guest Enquiry Booking.

By clicking on the Availability tab in the bottom left hand side, you can perform searches against the database using selected criteria. The results are listed in the main window. Double clicking on one of the entries will take you to the New Booking Reference screen where you can continue to Assign Guests and enter additional information.

A list of Bookings will be generated. Each line is clickable and will open a new Booking Reference screen as though you had drawn it on the Current Bookings screen.

An example of using this screen would be to generate a list of Bookings that are available as Late Availability, ie within the next 2 weeks. This list can be exported to Excel, the columns re-arranged and then cut and pasted into the Late Availability marketing letter described in another section.

By clicking and holding on a column title, you can group the list of Bookings. In the example above the Price was chosen, and moved into the darker area above the column headings. This grouping can be applied multiple times to give different layouts, for example group by Property and then by Price. Each column can also be sorted by ascending or descending order, indicated by an arrow next to the Column Title, just by clicking on the Column heading.

The lower half of the screen contains information about the selected or highlighted Booking property. This will assist the PM or admin staff in selecting the correct property for their Guest.

The Bookings screen allows you to a specific search for Bookings. You can either enter the Booking ID or Reference number, you can select dates between which you would like to view Bookings, or you can search by the Guests First and Last Name.

The additional windows on the left hand side allow you to filter the results according to Booking status, or by Site/Region and also by Booking Source.

Chose the date selection by ticking the box to the left of the Date Field. Click either on the date, the month or the Year to change each component of the date. Once it is highlighted, just type in the relevant day (1-31), month (Jan, Feb, Mar…) or 4 digit year. An alternative method is to click on the arrow to the right of the date to get a drop down calendar. From this calendar you can choose Today to enter today’s date or click on a day in the month shown. Navigate to other months by using the left and right arrows at the top of the calendar, or click and hold on the Month and Year. Another screen will appear whilst you are holding the mouse click down. Move the mouse up or down beyond the edge of the displayed months to scroll through previous or subsequent months. When you have selected the correct month and year, let go of the mouse button to set the calendar Month and Year. Don’t forget to choose the day within that Month and Year that will now be displayed in the calendar view.

This screen is useful in identifying any bookings that have gone past their Confirm By date or are within the Due By date for final payment. I.e. within 30 days, 42 days there should be no Outstanding Balance. If there is a Balance showing, double click on that Booking line to get the Booking Reference screen so that you can call, email or send a reminder.

The ability to print this screen or export the list to Excel is also provided.

As in the Availability Screen, you can sort the results by dragging a heading into the space above the column Titles. Depending on the order that you do this, the results can be displayed in various ways.

By clicking once on a Booking you can preview the data in the lower part of the main window. This area is non editable, and is for informational purposes only. By double clicking on a Booking line it will open the Booking Reference screen, where you can edit, change or update details about that Booking.

NB any changes to a Booking done via this method will not show up on this screen until a new search has been done. This screen will not refresh whilst the PMS is running, but on a subsequent restart of the PMS the list will be clear. Also by clicking Search it will reload any information, if the criteria or the dates have been changed, the list will reflect this.

The Property screen allows a PM to select a list from their Properties that match certain criteria. Useful for an establishment or Agency that has a large number of Properties where they may not know all the details.

The details of each property can be viewed in the lower part of the main screen. Property details are setup through PMS WebAdmin and again the manual can be found on http://downloads.five-star-systems.co.uk

By hovering the mouse over the divide between the list and the overview of a property you can click and drag upwards or downwards to resize each window of the main window. This will allow you to view more Properties or view more details about a selected Property.

The Guest screen is a method of getting a list of Guests, or identifying a single Guest from First Name, Last Name, Guest ID or Postcode. It can also find a Guest from a Booking ID. The date function is similar to the Bookings screen where you can filter the list according to their arrival date.

Selecting a Guest by a single click will fill out the Guest Details preview window, and the notes area, as well as showing the booking history of that Guest if there are previous Bookings in the system.

Double clicking on a Guest will open the Guest Detail screen where you can edit their details. Double clicking on a Booking entry will open the Booking Reference screen, even if it is not a current Booking.

Again we have the ability to print the list, or export the list to Excel. An example of the use of the export to Excel is to create a data-source for some ad-hoc Marketing.

Click on Edit to change any of the Guest Details. You will than have the choice of applying the changes to the Booking. You can also click on Mail Merge and choose one of the letters setup within Marketing. This will create one letter using these details.

When you click on Edit, all fields within the Guest Details become active.

Tick the box Use in Marketing will then allow these Guest Details to be included in any number of Mailing lists.

Highlight each list in turn and choose the correct action. Any subsequent marketing that calls up a Mailing List that appears in the Selected Lists window will now contain these Guest Details.

By default the report layouts do not remember any ticked boxes. You can, however, update the default layouts on all reports to remember these settings. Load each default report in turn, tick the Region, Agent, Owner and Source, and then click update. This will save the default report with these boxes selected. Anytime you want to start a new Report you won't have to select these 4 items.

The Reports screen allows you to select from different Groups of Reports and either export to Excel or send them directly to a printer.

To create a report, first select the Group that you want the report to come from. Then in the second drop down box you can either choose the default of a New Report, or a previously saved Report. Select the dates between which you want the report to run, either by manually entering a date or from the calendar (its use and function having been described in previous sections of this manual.

You can choose to view Bookings by Booking Date, Arrival Date (default) or Departure Date.

The Report period is defined next. If you choose to enter new dates the Report Period will default to 10 days. Quick tip, if you select Calendar Years, the dates will automatically change From the 1st January to the 31st December of the current year. Then by clicking on the Split Bookings across Calendar Months and Years you can view the current years Bookings in 2 clicks.

Choose the x day periods to define report periods of 7 days (1 week), 91 days (a quarter) etc..

If your establishment has multiple sites you can use the Region/Site/Property filter to affect certain Properties by not including Properties from another Site, or you can tick the UK box which will select all your Properties. To expand the tree, click on the plus + next to the UK and continue down through the levels to reach your Site or Sites. Select the Sites by clicking the box. Similarly with the Other window you can select individual Agents, Owners or Source. If you want to see all Bookings just click on the top level for all three.

If you now click search you will get the basic report layout, or a previously saved layout. This layout can be adjusted by selecting from the Columns window the Column heading that you want to display in the main window. Double click on the name and it will add that column. Continue down the list to add all the columns you might need for this report.

By default a New Report is grouping by the selected Reporting Period, but this can changed. In the area above the column headings drag the box (usually Month) back onto the column headings. This now leaves the report ungrouped. Click and drag one of the other headings into this area to use that method of grouping. Add additional ones as needed.

You will also notice that certain column headings can be sorted into ascending and descending order.

When you are happy with the layout and the result of this report, you can save the layout for future use. Click on the Save New, enter a File Name for this report layout and also a Description, and then click OK.

You can update an existing report layout by using the Update button next to the Save New button.

With the Report on the screen you can choose to export this information into Excel or do a Print Preview. You can still access any of the Bookings by double clicking on a line within the report, to open that Booking and view the Booking details. Do not expect this functionality to continue working within Excel, it only works from the Reports screen.

Another report section allows you to print out or export Account information. This is similar to the Accounts Export but without the Batch numbering.

Change the From and To dates to get a list of all transactions between these dates. This list can then be exported via CSV to Excel.

A new report that allows you to print either a list of arrivals/departures over a given period or to export the information as a mail merge to two separate Mail Merge documents, one for Arrivals and one for Departures.

The information in the mail merge contains additional information about the Bookings selected which can then be used to notify Housekeepers, etc…

To get the report to function you must first tick the Region/Site/Property button, and also Agent – Owner – Source buttons.

A special report for Premier Cottage Direct owners. This generates a list of Available Bookings with prices in a format that is compatible with Premier Cottages Direct Online Availability System. To use this report you must have configured each Property with a PCD Sub ID and a PCD Property ID. These numbers are unique to PCD owners and their Properties, and are configured using the PMS WebAdmin.

Once you have configured these details you will be able to use this report. It will always default to start on Todays date, so you must then choose a suitable end date. When you click on Search, it will calculate all available Bookings with a price and also the relevant code for the duration of that booking. You can then export to CSV to view the list, or you can click on the PCD button. This will send the list up to the PCD Availability server where it will be processed. The sweeping process on the Availability server is performed once every 6 hours, it does not happen in real time.

From the Tools drop down select Mailing Lists to open a new window where you can add new Mailing Lists and also mark existing Mailing Lists as inactive. These Mailing Lists will be immediately available so that you can add a Guest to it. They will also be available within Marketing.

Enter a Code, Description and any Notes and tick the box to indicate “IsLive”

From the Tools drop down menu select Marketing.

A new screen will open.

Choose from the available Mailing Lists to perform a search.

Then click on Add Names From Mailing List. This is the list of Guests that will be included in the Mail Merge.

You can add additional Guests to the List by using the Guest Search. Select by Dates, or Name, or any other detail and then click on Add to List.

Ticking the box to the left of the First Name will select these names. You can then click on Add to List to add them to the Guest List.

You can right click on a name and delete this Guest from the list, or you can select multiple names using Ctrl or Shift keys and clicking with the mouse. Once you are happy with the list click on Merge to select the Marketing Letter you wish to use.

From the drop down menu, select the Marketing Letter. These Marketing Letters are added to the system in the same way as Booking Letters and Emails. They are stored in their own folder ML Templates.

This Export function is currently aimed at users of Sage Line50 or above. Certain settings in the WebAdmin must be present before this Export will work, notably the Export folder and the type of export. It also helps to have the General Ledger Codes in place as well.

This Export works under Batch numbers. These Batches are date specific and allow you to recall a particular period. Any transactions in that time period are recorded and recalled by a particular batch. The batch numbering is automatic.

You do get the option to confirm if the Export was correct before committing the dates to the batch, and thus starting a new batch from that date.

The Options menu allows you to change certain aspects of the Property Management System. This can be found using the menu at the top of the PMS window, under Tools. Click on Options to open a new window.

The first tab shows the current Word templates used for Booking Letters. The details on how to add Letters are covered in the Mail Merge and Booking Letters manual.

The second tab shows the current Word templates used for Booking Emails. The details on how to add Emails are covered in the Mail Merge and Booking Emails manual.

The third tab shows the current Word templates used for Marketing. The details on how to add Marketing Letters are covered in the Mail Merge and Booking Emails manual.

The fourth tab shows the current location of the Report Templates. By default, these folders are located in the C:\Program Files\Five Star Systems folder. For network setups this location, and the location of Booking Letters and Emails, should be changed to a network drive mapping that all computers running Five Star Systems can access. This will reduce the amount of admin needed to maintain these documents as there will only be one version of each document.

The Time Line tab allows you to adjust the height of the row which displays the Booking in the Current Booking screen. The default is 2. The Show Names button is ticked by default and this allows the system to display the Surname of the Guest in the bar that represents the Booking in the time line.

The Database tab shows the currently selected database. It can also be used to connect to another database in the event of a networked setup. By default the PMS will allows try and locate a database on the local machine.

The Replication Status has a couple of monitors. The first is located in the task bar near the Time which is usually in the bottom right hand corner of the desktop. This Icon shows the current status of the Replication using a different colour overlaid onto the white cylinder.

The green one indicates that replication is running normally.

The red one indicates that replication has stopped. In this state the PMS will continue to record information, but at this moment in time it cannot replicate. This could be due to loss of internet connection, or the replication agent has been stopped by the central server. When the connection is re-established or the central server restarts the replication agent, all information will be updated. No information will be lost.

The blue icon indicates that the Replication Agent is retrying the connection. It will do this a number of times until it is successful and goes to green. If it cannot do this the Replication Status will go to red or yellow and stop.

The final state is where the Replication Agent has failed. This could mean that any information added to the PMS, whilst in this state, will not be replicated and has the potential to be lost when the agent restarts. If replication is restarted successfully, then the data may be safe. If the failure is catastrophic then only a new ‘snapshot’ of your database will get the Synchronization Agent working again. To safe guard against data loss it is best to confirm with Five Star Systems as to the nature of the failure. In the majority of cases we can resolve most matters before you become aware of them. In addition to this a new ‘snapshot’ will not be sent until the local database has synchronized and that the PM has been notified of this event.

There is a grey status icon which is only seen when starting the PMS installation for the first time, and this indicates that synchronization status is unavailable or that the local database is being rebuilt after the Synchronisation Agent has been re-subscribed.

Double clicking on this icon will open a screen where you can change the refresh rate of the Replication Status monitor. By default it is set to refresh every minute.

This window can give you detailed information about your synchronization status and also alert you to any Scheduled Maintenance.

This window will pop up whenever there is a change of status. Although it can be annoying it does mean you may well save time by not entering information when there is a chance that ‘replication’ has failed and that data will not be sent back to the ‘central server’.

You can also check the Replication Status from within the PMS using the built in monitor.

The same colours will apply here.

This window can give you detailed information about your synchronization status and also alert you to any Scheduled Maintenance.

This window will pop up whenever there is a change of status. Although it can be annoying it does mean you may well save time by not entering information when there is a chance that ‘replication’ has failed and that data will not be sent back to the ‘central server’.

You can also check the Replication Status from within the PMS using the built in monitor.

Click on the close button to return to the previously displayed screen.