The changed from 20th to the 21st century had made a huge change in the business market, almost the whole of the market had chosen to be work automatically instead of manually. Factory, banks, cooperate office and many more, so do in the hospitality industry.
Therefore, the emerging of the program system had come to a beginning. Then, a Hotel Property Management System(PMS) exists. A PMS helps the hotelier to manage their property in automated form, without using pen & paper.
We are here to give you some tips on how to choose a PMS that fits with your hotel.
Tips 1: Identify your necessary need
Before any investment in a business, you should always identify what is your needs and wants. This is also applicable to when you are going to invest in a system although it will bring benefit to your company.
To do this, you need to consider your various operations, processes, functions, and distribution partners, as well as the desirable features for the software itself.
Once you have created a list of the different needs and the requirements for your property management system, you should also prior your needs. This can then serve as a list of priorities to search for when seeking out your PMS solution.
Tips 2: Invest within the budget
There are various Property Management System (PMS) in the market. Here is the list of Hotel PMS that is available for you to choose from. They are all having various features, interfaces, services and definitely with various pricing.
For the current market, there are only two types of pricing methods being used.
1. Room Based Method
- Charge by the number of rooms.
- Suitable for a hotel that less than 15 rooms.
Example: $3.99 per rooms/month
2. Subscription Method
- Charge monthly or yearly with a Fixed price.
- Price may vary with different subscription periods.
- Suitable for a hotel with more than 15 rooms and a hotel chain.
- Cheaper if you go for a yearly plan
Example: $38/month
Tips 3: Training & Support
Hotel businesses operate 24/7. It is highly recommended to get a vendor that provides 24-hours customer service as you will never know when your system will occur error and need technical help from your vendor.
Also, choose a vendor that provides ongoing training to their user. This important when you are on the fresh user period, it is also useful when you come back refreshed. Ongoing training is useful especially when there is a new feature added to your PMS. A vendor with video training is also a point to be chosen, as video training is better with the illustration.
Tips 4: Know Basic Feature
If you are going to invest in a PMS for your hotel, you may need to know some of the basic features that must be inclusive. These key features must be included as it is the basic need and a reason for a hotelier that invest in PMS.
Below are some basic features you have to include when investing in PMS:
- Should able to generate Night Audit Report & Invoices.
- Should able to set Housekeeping & Maintenance status.
- Should able to make a new reservation.
- Should able to perform check-in & out process.
- Should able to record guest detail and transaction.
Tips 5: Report & Analytics
Not all hotel fully utilize their PMS feature. Most of them only use to make reservations, check-in & out guests, and for housekeeping. A good PMS allows you to generate various reports such, revenue reports, night audit reports, shift functions, integrated with Channel Manager, and more. PMS is also able to help with analysis. It can show you a graph or table for you.
Tips 6: Vendor Update Constantly
As the internet world is growing at such a rapid pace, humans' demands are increasing from one day to another. To avoid leaving out of the bench, you should choose a vendor who does update and keeping add new features frequently to stand in the market.
Adding in the new feature is not the only thing for you to be looking at. A vendor should also update their system security to avoid getting from virus and hacking as PMS consist all the guest detail and your hotel's transaction.
Tips 7: Get A Free Trial Account
Most of the solution companies provide a free trial account for the hotelier to get a try on their PMS. As a hotelier, you should not waste the chance to get a try with the PMS you are interested in before you start your investment.
After getting your trial account, you must look at the interface and feature that you wish for. Choose the PMS that you feel comfortable with.
Tips 8: Read User Review
This is important especially when you had made your mind about investing with which vendor. You have to know what the current & past users talk about the vendor service. From reading the user reviews, you should be able to know their experiences for example in terms of customer support, system updates, and more.
You may visit Capterra or Get App to read the review on the system you had found interest in.
Tips 9: Get a Cloud-Based PMS
Refer to Tips 6 mention above, it is more recommend you get a Cloud-Based PMS. Since you were recommended to go for a vendor which is updated frequently, it is more suitable to look for a vendor that provides cloud-based PMS. One of the biggest benefits of cloud-based PMS is that the vendor can perform updates to their user directly. Maybe in just 20 minutes, the system can be updated. Unlike on-premise PMS, when the vendor releases the updated version, the user has to download the update pack and install it into their device.
Another point is that cloud-based PMS is more accessible convenient as you will just need a device with an active internet connection will do. Additionally, cloud-based PMS supports unlimited users while on-premise PMS only supports the use of a particular device.
