Add or refund payments, add or adjust charges, and more in the Reservation Folio. This article offers a general overview of the actions that can be performed in this section, for a efficient reservation management in your daily operations.
Access and overview
The Reservation Folio in Cloudbeds PMS stores the financial details of your guests' reservations, including information about room rates, pending or posted transactions, and any additional items that have already been added. It also includes several options to manage your guests' financial information, add payments, adjust charges, or apply refunds.
To access the reservation folio:
- Look for the corresponding reservation. You can use the search bar in the Top menu of your Cloudbeds account
- Click on the Folio tab
Learn more about all the Reservation Details tabs.
Reservation Folio filters
In the Reservation Folio tab, the filters allow you to refine your search and easily review guest transactions, making it faster to find the necessary information. By using these filters, you can save time and effort in navigating through the Reservation Folio:
- Guest name, room #: Add the corresponding guest name or room number. This filter is particularly useful when there is more than 1 guest in the reservation
- Dates and time: Filter the transactions by date and specific time
- Reservation ID: When there is more than 1 room in the reservation, the system shows different reservation IDs (separated by a hyphen). Use this filter to select the preferred reservation ID (for example, 9989192205687 and 9989192205687-2)
- Description: Filter by debits (charges) and credits (payments)
- Group: By user, date, room, and other filter criteria
- Sub-group: Streamline your search by adding the sub-group filter
- Transactions: Filter by pending or posted transactions
Remember to click on Apply once your filters are correctly selected.
Transfer to Accounts Receivable option
If you have the Accounts Receivable (AR) feature enabled, you’ll see the Transfer to Accounts Receivable button when a folio has an outstanding balance (e.g., after a guest checks out). For more information, go to: How to work with accounts receivable.
How to get started with the Folio
| Reservation Folio article | Description |
|---|---|
| Add reservation payments as a record | This guide explains how to add (post) reservation payments as a record in the Reservation Folio (without using Payment Gateway processing). |
| Refund reservation payments | Refund a guest's payment in the Reservation Folio (without using Payment Gateway processing). |
| Add or adjust reservation charges | Add or adjust reservation charges, such as items, taxes or fees, and room revenue. |
| How to void transactions | This article explains how to void (cancel) transactions from the guest's Reservation Folio. |
| Add and use Room Revenue in the Reservation Folio | Use this option to add, use, and manage Room Revenue within a reservation. |
| Manage Split Folio in reservation | Learn how to use the Split Folio feature, add folios, move transactions, and more. |
Frequently asked questions
How can I post a day-use service on Reservation Folio?
- Create a House Account named Day Use. This account will be available for you to use on future reservations. Learn how here: Create and edit House Accounts
- Post the day-use on the Reservation Folio as a Room Revenue. Learn how: Add or reservation charges
- Create a room block on the Calendar and allow guest to go to their room. Learn How to block room availability
Don't forget to delete this room block right after this guest has checked out so you will make this room and date available again.
If you don't want to block your rooms but keep them available on channels, keep in mind that internal management will be necessary to avoid overbookings (in case you receive a last-minute booking and the day-use guest is still active). Learn more about overbookings here.
Why is the guest name in the folio changed, and why does a random name appear on the folio?
Reason: Autofill function
The autofill function is useful when you have a repetitive guest, so when adding a new reservation, you can just start typing the name or email, and the system will suggest to autofill the guest's details. However, if the wrong guest profile is selected by mistake, it can cause issues.
Example:
- Let's suppose that you are adding a new reservation for a guest called John Doe.
- When you start typing the guest's name (John), the system will suggest all the existing guest profiles named "John" that previously stayed at your property.
- If John Doe (the new guest) has never stayed at your property before, you shouldn't select any of the system's suggestions because the system will fill in the information of the selected guest profile. Even if you accidentally select the name from the suggested ones, the system will suggest that you create a new customer in case the selected guest information is not correct.
- In this case, click on the +New Customer given option and fill out the correct information about your new guest.
What should I do if I created the reservation using the wrong guest profile?
If you have selected a suggested guest profile and saved/created a reservation with the incorrect name, the reservation becomes connected with the guest profile you selected.
Since the guest profile is connected to all previous and new reservations created with the same guest profile, when you edit the name (or any other info, such as email) for the newly created reservation, the system will also change it for past reservations associated with the guest profile.
Currently, it is not possible to disconnect the guest profile from the reservations. To avoid changing guest information from past reservations, we recommend you to delete the newly created reservation and add it again, without using the autofill function. Here is an article with the details on how to delete a reservation.
Also, if you noticed that the name on the invoice is different from the guest's name, you can refer to this article for help.
How can I fix the posted room rates?
We can suggest two options to fix posted room rates:
- Applying a discount: Follow the steps to add or adjust reservation charges
- Add an extra charge: Follow the steps to add and use room revenue
What is the difference between the Transaction date and the Service date in the Folio?
Typically, the service date usually is the same as the transaction date. However, if changes to past transactions are necessary:
- The service date will represent the date the transaction is intended to apply to (e.g., a past date).
- The transaction date will always show when the record was actually updated in the system.
- This approach ensures safe, immutable, and auditable records for accounting while corrections to past transactions can be made without compromising the integrity of the accounting records.
Comparison Table
| Aspect | Transaction Date | Service Date |
| Definition | Current or future datetime | Stable date in property time |
| Modification | ❌ Cannot be modified | ✅ Can be modified (with proper permission) |
| Time Restrictions | Current or future only | Can be in the past |
| Primary Use | Accounting purposes | Financial reporting purposes |
This is how it looks in the folio:
Only users with permission to modify past-date transactions can do so. They are allowed to change the service date to back-date a transaction; however, the actual transaction date will be recorded at the time the transaction occurs.
You must go to Roles to change the user permissions. Learn more here: Roles and Permissions.
Transaction Date and Service Date in usage examples
- A reservation with a check-in date for the future November 30th was imported today (November 14th)
- The transaction date will be November 14th (imported today);
- The service date will be November 30th.
- The room rate is updated today (November 14th) for this future check-in:
- The transaction date will be November 14th - the day the action changing the rate was recorded.
- The service date will be November 30th - the day that the room rate will be applied as a service.
Comments
How do we change back to this version of Folio? The new folio Ui won't let us charge guest cards!
When will we receive updates on the new folio configuration and any changes to the navigation of reservations in the future? Is there a way to revert the new folio view to the one shown above?
The folio recently changed to a pop-out window and has, honestly, made it more cumbersome to manage payments/refunds/adjustments, etc. There didn't seem to be any sort of announcement of this change and just so happened to go live during one of our busiest weekends of the year which required an impromptu staff training on the fly. Not ideal but we figured it out.
Thanks for any info you can provide!
Hello, Front Desk and Dylan Houser,
Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback regarding the recent updates to the Folio UI.
To ensure your questions are fully addressed, we have opened individual support tickets on your behalf. A member of our Support Team will reach out to you as soon as possible to review your specific requests and see how we can best assist.
Please rest assured that your comments—including your feedback on the new pop-out window and your interest in a revert option—will be escalated directly to our Product Team.
Thank you 🙏🏼
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