Front desk systems and property management software

[Hostels]

What kinds of systems does your hostel use to manage reservations and guests?

Here are some of the ones that I have seen:

• Paper reservation and accounting system
• Excel or OpenOffice spreadsheet
• roomMaster 2000
• Ros2000
• ASSD (including Gomio's version)
• Hostelworld's Backpack software

Any others to add? Recommendations or warnings about one system vs. another?

[Hostels]

I was recently told about a front desk software program called HostelPower. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[Andy08]

The hostel I worked in used paper sheets to cover the 100+ beds. It worked ok. Although it seemed to be just pure luck that we could accomodate hostelworld bookings, as there was no way to transfer the availability we had on paper to the hostelworld booking system..We just had to check our bookings every shift. We got caught out a few times and often that meant spreading bookings across a number of rooms. On one occasion we had to send a booking off to our "sister" hostel as my manager put it. He was good at making an unaffiliated, even more run down hotel turned hostel sound like a good option in the face of over booking.. Yes, the hostel had very low ratings on hostelworld and there weren't a lot of positive reviews but it was full in summer!
good times.

[Hostels]

Keeping track of beds on paper is rough -- it's hard to keep track of bookings and easy for dishonest front desk staff to skim money.

There were two hostels I worked at that ran paper systems at the front desk. One of the hostels was so popular that it did not take reservations so it had no need for an electronic system to manage bookings. The other hostel was so empty when I arrived that it didn't have to worry about too many bookings. I ended up building a reservations spreadsheet for the latter hostel which got the place through the busy season, but the spreadsheet was eventually replaced by a front desk program. My impression was that in both cases some money was being skimmed off by a few dishonest front desk staff.

I wonder if there is an ideal front desk software system for hostels. I haven't found one yet, but I haven't tried ASSD or Hostel Power in a live front desk setting...

[Andy08]

Yeah I've heard stories about that sort of thing. A mate of mine worked in a hostel in Melbourne where one of his colleagues was caught dodging the books so his girlfriend could stay in the hostel for free. He got away with it for a few months.. It's funny that you mention staff skimming money from the hostel. It was standard procedure in the hostel I worked in! We only accepted cash and every week the owners wanted us to put a few hundred pounds into "the red book." Basically it was a good way to avoid paying tax. With the paper sheets it was easy. We would just put lines through the occupied rooms. At the end of the month one of us would get the job of erasing all the lines and then it just looked like the rooms were empty. If I haven't mentioned it previously, yes the owners of the hostel were only in it for the money.

[jahnsj]

Originally Posted by Hostels

I was recently told about a front desk software program called HostelPower. Does anyone have any experience with it?

I've downloaded the trial version and set up all the rooms and POS system and it seems very use friendly. But I dont have any actual experience with it in action, as in at the front desk with customers and downloading actual bookings. The shift exchange seems very easy and makes alsmost everything including the incoming reservations paperless. Worries me a little but they assure that there is a solid backup feature.

In any case of backup, I have experience with computers and would put the computer in RAID 1 or 6 in order to make sure any data is not lost. RAID is a setting where there are 2 or more hard drives acting as one. In the case of RAID 1 there are 2 hard drives that mirror each other, incase one fails or is damaged over time, as the life expectance of a normal hard drive is about 5 years.

Also the reservation system as is, can only work on one computer, they're coming out with a networked system soon, but havent contacted me yet.

[Hostels]

Thanks for the info about HostelPower. If you decide to use it I would be interested to hear how things go with it.

Is anyone using ASSD or Gomio's front desk software?

Are there any other good front desk programs that I've missed in my list?

[jahnsj]

Originally Posted by Hostels

Thanks for the info about HostelPower. If you decide to use it I would be interested to hear how things go with it.

Is anyone using ASSD or Gomio's front desk software?

Are there any other good front desk programs that I've missed in my list?

Yah, we currently use ASSD in our hostel. Its good, a bit complicated at the start to learn, not as user friendly as HostelPower but it has all the bells and whistles on it in order to run your place properly.

It takes a while to learn how to do everything and you cant set it up your yourself like HostelPower.

Also with ASSD you can download your internet bookings but you have to assign a room and the adjust the price manualy. Right now we only download gomio reservations but in theory we could also ger hostleworld bookings but we need to get the ASSD company to do it, which is draging out a little.

If you have any questions about ASSD dont hesitate!

[jahnsj]

Originally Posted by Hostels

What kinds of systems does your hostel use to manage reservations and guests?

Here are some of the ones that I have seen:

• Paper reservation and accounting system
• Excel or OpenOffice spreadsheet
• roomMaster 2000
• Ros2000
• ASSD (including Gomio's version)
• Hostelworld's Backpack software

Any others to add? Recommendations or warnings about one system vs. another?

As I understand the Backpack software doesnt come with a POS system. Thats why we opted not to use it at our hostel.

It might have chaged.

[Hostels]

Originally Posted by jahnsj

If you have any questions about ASSD dont hesitate!

Thanks, in the future I may have some questions about it. I know a hostel that is looking for a new front desk system.