The following guide will show you how and where to add your property details, logo, room photographs and descriptions, as well as setting your check in-out times, housekeeping schedules and email/SMS templates etc:
Adding your property logo
A property logo can be added on the Property screen, from the Settings menu, which appears in the top left-hand corner of your Caterbook account.
Click on the Link icon next to your property name to open the settings.
Click the yellow Choose an image button to browse your PC folders and select your property logo. The maximum image size that can be uploaded is 4MB.
Once your upload is complete, a thumbnail of the logo will appear on the screen.
Your uploaded logo will also appear at the top of your navigation menu in Caterbook, above your Account ID.
Adding Room Type Photographs & Descriptions
Each Caterbook account is built with four standard room types, which you can change to your own specifications on the Room types screen from the Inventory menu.
Click the room name to open the settings for the Room type.
The Room name is what appears on the booking engine and on any guest paperwork and changes can be made by simply editing the field. The room Description (which appears on the booking engine) can be amended or added to by typing in the description text box. Any changes can be updated by clicking the Save button.
Setting Check-in/out times
Check in and check out times are important in Caterbook. Email and SMS message templates can be sent out based on these times, for example if Check In is set at 2pm, configuring an email to be sent 4 hours before would cause a pre-arrival email to be sent to guests at 10am.
Check-in, Check-out and Last check-in times can be set on the Property list screen, from the Settings menu. By default, check in will be set as 14:00 and check out as 10:00.
Click the Link icon next to your property name to open the settings.
Click the Other tab at the top of the screen.
Click the Link icon next to the setting you wish to change.
Click the Clock icon to select the required time and click Save to update the settings.
Check-in and Check-out times also appear clearly on your web booking engine.
Adding Terms & Conditions
It's important that you add your terms and conditions within Caterbook, as it's mandatory that a guest ticks to state that they have read and agree to these, when making a booking via the booking engine. They will also be sent a link to view them via the online check-in form. From the Settings sub-menu, click Property and then Terms and Conditions. On the text panel, add your T&Cs, as required, and click the blue Save button towards the bottom of the screen to save the changes. You are able to add pictures and also hyperlinks to the text, using the icons above the text box.
Setting up Housekeeping Schedules
Each Caterbook account is already set up with a Daily and Departure clean, however, you can create your own housekeeping schedules from the Housekeeping configuration screen under the Inventory sub-menu.
Click the Add new button to create a new Cleaning type.
- Add the Name of the Cleaning type as it will appear on the Housekeeping report
- the Frequency of the clean (daily etc)
- set the Status to 'Active'
- add a descriptive Summary of what the Cleaning type includes (eg, make up beds, change towels) and finally, check the applicable tick boxes:
- Exclude Sunday - if ticked, will prevent the service type from appearing on the Housekeeping report on a Sunday.
- Linen - Where ticked, a change of linen will be indicated on the housekeeping report and a summary of the number of bed linen types required will be displayed.
- Towel - Where ticked, a change of towels will be indicated on the housekeeping report and a summary of the number of towel bundles required will be displayed.
Prioritising the Cleaning types.
Once all the Cleaning types have been added, you will need to prioritise them, so that in the event of two Cleaning types occurring on the same day (eg "Daily and Departure") you can specify which one takes precedence.
Click Change order, and then click and drag the Cleaning types around so that your most important type has Order=1 and so on.
Configuring which rooms use a particular Cleaning type.
Caterbook allows you to have different cleaning rules for each Room type. Your superior rooms, in addition to being larger and more luxurious, might also have a different frequency and level of cleaning to your standard room types.
Select Room Types from the Inventory sub-menu.
Click the room type Name to open it's settings.
From the Cleaning frequency drop down, click to select all the Cleaning types that would apply to this room type. Click Save and repeat for other room types.
Your Cleaning schedule will now appear on the daily housekeeping report where applicable.
The full Housekeeping report can be broken down into smaller Cleaning groups (eg to show rooms on the first floor only). See the following article for details:
https://support.caterbook.net/hc/en-gb/articles/360035244891-How-do-I-configure-the-cleaning-groups-
Setting up Email/SMS Templates
Each Caterbook account is set up by default with the following email templates:
New Booking - to guest (automated & active)
New Booking - to property (automated & active)
Cancellation - to guest (automated & active)
Enquiry Booking - to guest (automated & active)
Enquiry booking - to property (automated & active)
Invoice - to guest (manual & active)
Partner invoice - to partner/company (manual & active)
Express check-in - to guest (manual & inactive)
Express check-out - to guest (manual & inactive)
You can edit existing email templates or create new ones from within the Messaging Centre.
Template content can be styled using the Word-like interface, which also allows you to insert links to your terms and conditions or privacy policy pages on your website, and also display any images that are uploaded to your web space like an email header / logo (click here).
The templates use Placeholder variables to insert information about a specific booking into the message, like the booking reference number, or guest's name. When creating a new template, you would click the your mouse where you wanted to insert a variable and then choose it from the drop down.
Booking and Room row variables.
A reservation has two parts to it. At booking level we have information like the booking reference number, lead guest's name the booking value etc. A booking can contain one or more rooms and these can have different arrival and departure dates, so in order to be able to display each room in turn, we need to sit the Room row data inside a programming loop using the special {Foreach} placeholder:
So within the foreach loop we place the "bookingRoom" variables :
And if we were to preview the email content using a multi room booking we would see:
If you want your email template to be sent out automatically to guests, select the Schedule tab at the top of the Edit Template screen.
Select whether you want the template to be sent out either following an Event or a Time tied to your property Check In or Out times:
1. Event Triggers.
Templates can be sent as a result of the following triggers:
New Booking
Cancellation
Check In
Check Out
Enquiry
After selecting the type you can then specify how many minutes following the event you wish the template to be sent (leave the Delay as 0 if you want the email to be sent straight away).
Setting a 20 minute delay here might be useful when used with Check In for example, to send an email with the times that breakfast is served, or tonight's special's menu for the restaurant..
Click Save to update the settings.
2. Time based scheduling.
The Time option allows you to set a time in Minutes, Hours or Days > Before or After > your scheduled Check in or Check out times.
This could be used to:
- Send a pre-arrival email at 10am on the morning of arrival reminding the guest of their booking details
- Send a pre-departure email at 8pm on the night before, with a Caterpay payment link for their balance if the guest wanted to leave quickly in the morning, or reminding them to leave their key at reception
- Send a post departure email 2 days after check out inviting the guest to submit a Tripadvisor review