General System Settings

Juss Reyes

Updated May 28, 2024 16:09

The General System Preferences in the System tab allows you to customize your property according to your needs and preferences. This article goes over the Preferences tab and explains the use of each one of the available options.

Looking for the System notifications preferences instead? Click here.

Access and use

Property Owner has access to General System Settings by default. Other users must be given permission to manage Hotel Profile inside Roles. Learn more: Roles and Permissions

In your Account menu, go to the Settings Page and click on the System section
Click on Preferences.

To select or enable/disable your preferences, follow the instructions below, depending on the setting format:

Settings drop-down menus (Format Preferences): To enable or disable a Format Preference, select the preferred option form the drop-down menu and save your changes.
Activation/deactivation toggles: To enable or disable a setting, simply click on/off the corresponding toggle and then save your changes.

Settings overview

Format preferences

Settings	Functionality
Application Language	Changes the language of your Cloudbeds PMS system (Applicable to all the property users). Learn more about how to set up System Languages and the Languages Supported.
Property Time Zone	For security purposes, this setting can only be changed by the Cloudbeds team. Reach out to our Support Team, and specify the new time zone for your property. Find the available time zones below. If your time zone isn't listed, choose the closest large city to your property or check this map to identify your time zone. GTM 00:00 GTM +01:00 GTM +02:00 GTM +03:00
Application Currency Format	Changing your default Application Currency Format affects all rates, reservations, and channel connections. Read carefully the involved risks of performing this action before proceeding: About changing the Application Currency Format
Application Date Format	Select between the Default (from language), dd/mm/yyyy (Gregorian Date Format), and mm/dd/yyyy (USA Date Format)
Application Time Format	Select between the Default (from language), 23:59 (24 hours time format) or 11:59 PM (12 hours time format)
Application Currency	Changing your default Application Currency affects all rates, reservations, and channel connections. We highly recommend you only change this when first setting up your account. After setup, all previous reservations will be in the original currency. Read carefully the involved risks of performing this action, and your next step to follow.

Automation preferences

Read about the Important Preferences Settings considerations below.

Settings	Functionality
Allow additional bookings when property is at full occupancy	This is applicable when the property is at no less than 100% occupancy, where one of the room types is already overbooked, but another still has availability. Enabling this will open availability for the room type that still has availability. Disabling it will close availability for all room types.
Auto change status to No-Show for reservations not checked in	When enabled, reservations not checked in by the end of arrival date will automatically be changed to no-show status and the accommodation(s) will become available for other bookings. Learn more about this feature in the section below: About the Auto Change Status to No-Show
Auto Assign Reservations	If enabled, all new reservations will be auto-assigned to the first available accommodation within that room type, without needing to go to the calendar or reservation screen and assigning each reservation individually. Note: When operating close to full occupancy, the system will not rearrange previously assigned reservations to fit the new reservation. The reservation will be added to the queue to be assigned manually. When clicking on the toggle, the system will ask if you would like the application to automatically assign accommodations to existing/current and future reservations or to new reservations only. Assign to all existing and new reservations - This will automatically assign any current and future reservations in the Cloudbeds PMS that are not assigned. Assign to new reservations only - This will only assign any new reservations regardless of source that come into the system after auto assignment feature is turned on Get more details about the Auto Room Assignment
Allow same-day bookings on the Booking Engine and channels	Enable this feature to display same-day inventory on the Booking Engine and all of your connected channels.
Same-day bookings until	Guests will not be allowed to book for a same-day arrival after the specified time. Get more details about this feature here: About Allowing Same-Day Bookings
Auto Checkout Date Extension	When enabled, if guests are still present at the property and have not checked out on the check-out date, the system will continue to extend the reservation automatically by a night until they have checked out. Find more details in this section: About the Auto Checkout Date Extension
Use Default Country for Guest	When turned on, the country field for guest details will be pre-filled with the property's country. In case additional guests are included during the reservation creation process, Cloudbeds will autofill with your property's country. If these additional guests are added after the reservation creation (via the Guest Details tab), the country field will not be autofilled.

Miscellaneous preferences

Settings	Functionality
Show Estimated Arrival Time	If enabled, the estimated arrival time for the reservation will appear when creating a new reservation, on the reservation, on the calendar, and when configuring the Booking Engine.
Enable GDPR Compliance Functionality	If enabled, tools to comply with GDPR such as Guest Data Extraction, Anonymization and Marketing Opt-In will be available to this property. You will still be solely responsible for complying with GDPR legislation.
Enable Payment Allocation	Enabling payment allocation means that when a user takes a payment, the user can specify exactly which charges that payment is for.
Require the full payment amount of the reservation to be collected prior to check-in	Select whether you would like the reservation to be paid for in full prior to check-in. Note: Selecting Yes will prohibit you from being able to check this reservation in until the full amount of the reservation has been paid.
Show Check-outs in Departure List on Dashboard	If enabled, a property can see guests who have already checked out in their dashboard's Departure List. If disabled, a property will only see guests who still need to check out.
Format for customer name in calendar	Select between the available options for name format: Name, Surname/ Surname, name
Breakfast (Channel Distribution)	This option tells channels if breakfast pricing is included in your nightly rates. This setting only affects rates being sent in channel distribution (for applicable channels) and does not affect rates set in the Booking Engine. You can select between: Not available Included in room/bed price Excluded from room/bed price (i.e., extra price) Important note: This setting only affects the rates being sent to the following channels: CTrip, HRS, Reconline and TripAdvisor. This does not affect the rates for Cloudbeds Booking Engine or other connected channels.

Important considerations

About the Auto Room Assignment

Currently, there is no algorithm in place to assign a reservation to a room in order to maximize occupancy. Rather, the reservation is assigned to the first available room.
The auto-assignment will only assign rooms for the same room type.
In order to auto-assign a reservation, the availability needs to be continuous in the same room.
There will be times when you might have to re-assign reservations in order to accommodate all the reservations for a day.
Any overbookings will not be assigned as there is no room available to assign.
This feature is available to all customers but is disabled by default.
Auto room assignments will display in activity logs as being made by System.

Check out the following articles related to Room Assignments:

About the Auto Change Status to No-Show

Reservations not checked-in including all past reservations in the system with statuses Confirmed and Confirmation Pending will be changed to No-Show and room assignments will be removed from them.
If a reservation becomes a no show, it will no longer be in your calendar and the room will be available again.

Booking.com reservations

The (Channel Distribution) Report no-shows to Booking.com when status is auto changed to No-Show? feature is currently available for Booking.com only. Select one of the three options:
1. Do not send automatically: Auto change status to No-Show on this system, but do not report no-show to Booking.com.
2. Send; waive cancellation fee: Yes, automate no-show reporting to Booking.com and always waive cancellation fee.
3. Send; do not waive cancellation fee: Yes, automate no-show reporting to Booking.com and never waive cancellation fee.
If you don't see the three options above, your user may not have the necessary permissions to manage the setting. Learn more about the user permissions and other details about the feature: How to report No Show reservations to the channels from Cloudbeds PMS

Learn more about other Auto Change Status options here: How to report No Show reservations to the channels from Cloudbeds PMS

About the Auto Checkout Date Extension

The system automatically extends the reservation check out date at 02:06 AM the next day.
The system will continue extending the reservation by a night until you change the status to Checked Out.
The room rate for the next day will be added automatically to the folio and the balance due will be updated accordingly.

Also see: Reservations - Reservation Extension Troubleshooting

About Allowing Same-Day Bookings

When the local time of your property reached the time specified in the cutoff time, Cloudbeds Channel Manager will auto-set the inventory to zero and close out the room for that same day.
Since Cloudbeds does not control the features in each channel, we suggest verifying with the channels (OTAs) if they have their own cutoff times.

Time range starts from 00:00 AM - 23:59 PM for the Allow same-day bookings feature.

About changing the Application Currency Format

Changing your currency setup on Cloudbeds PMS will only change the currency symbol, all of your existing reservation values and values within Reports will not change.
- Reservation values example: Prior to currency change = $20 (USD), post-currency change = €20 (EUR).
- Reports values example: Changing currency from EUR (€) to USD ($), if your reports were previously showing a total revenue of €100.00, the total revenue would now be $100.00.
We strongly recommend to create Channel Closeouts and temporary allotment for your Cloudbeds Booking Engine is brought to zero, prior to the currency change. That allows to make the necessary adjustments to the room rates before sending them to the connected channels, avoiding the update of incorrect rates due to the currency change.
After the change is made, all base rates, rate plans, and items will have outdated prices, make sure to update them to the correct values in the new currency, and prior to removing the channels’ closeouts and readjusting the allotments for Cloudbeds Booking Engine.

Our system will not convert any amount when the default currency is changed. If you still need to do this change, you must update the currency manually everywhere in the system, such as: