How to cancel the Group Management functionality

Gabriela Garcia

Updated July 31, 2024 15:24

Preliminary Actions Before Cancellation

Before you request to cancel your Group Management functionality, you must complete the following steps:

Step 1 - Balance transactions

You have different options for balancing Group Folios. Whether you can choose one or another depending on your preference, if you are expecting a payment from the Group and how soon, etc.

You have the following options:

Option 1: Un-route transactions

This option is best for cases where reservations are for a future date, and payment is not expected anytime soon. If routed transactions exist, you can un-route them back to the reservations to clear out the Group Folio from all or part of the transactions.

You can refer to the section Unroute transactions from a Group Folio of this article for more details.

Things to consider with this option:

Un-routing must be done one by one, as there is no bulk un-routing available. This was intentionally designed this way because un-routing creates a balance on the corresponding Reservation Folio and needs to be carefully tracked.
Manual un-routing should be done only to posted routed transactions, not pending.
You should remove routing from the Group Profile settings to disable routing for future (pending) transactions. If routing is not removed, it will be automatically disabled when the Groups module is disabled. This could lead to additional balances on the folios for in-house and future reservations.
Un-routing is NOT recommended for reservations with Checked-Out status, as this will create balances on those Reservation folios. For Checked-Out reservations, Option 2: Collect payments is recommended.
Before un-routing, it is recommended that you either take a screenshot of the folio or email it to yourself for record-keeping purposes

Option 2: Collect payments

This option is best for reservations that have already been checked out or are currently in-house and if payment has been received or is expected soon. If balances exist, you can collect and apply the payment from the Group to balance out the folio.

Refer to this article for more details on how to post payments to a Group Folio.

Option 3: Apply adjustments

You may also adjust the posted transactions on the Group Folio instead of unrouting or applying payment. This is not recommended, but there may be situations when you choose to do so.

Find more information about making adjustments here: Add or adjust reservation charges.

You must select the best option from the ones above to balance your Group Folios so that when the module is disabled, you don’t have any outstanding balances.
Even after the Groups module is disabled, all transactions will continue to appear on the corresponding reports. This procedure is necessary to ensure that the accounting is not affected.

Once you disable the Group Management, here is what happens to the transactions:

All pending routed transactions will be unrouted, meaning they will no longer be posted to the Group Folio but to the corresponding Reservation folio. This applies in most cases to in-house and future reservations.
All posted routed and manually posted transactions will remain in the Group Folio but won’t be accessible as the Groups tab will be hidden.
All transactions that “remain” in the Group Folio will appear on the reports as when the Groups module was enabled.

This is how posted transactions will appear on reports:

Note that the RES # field has a hyperlinked group name; clicking on it will take you to an information page explaining that the Group Management functionality is disabled.

If, for any reason, you have failed to balance Group folios after the Group module is disabled, you will see the transactions on the reports and will be able to track what is out of balance. You can then apply the necessary payment (or an adjustment) to a House Account or a fake reservation for accounting balancing purposes.

This is an example of a Transaction report, but here’s the full list of reports that will contain those:

Step 2 - Void authorized payments

The Groups module can authorize payments. To avoid holding funds for an extended period without the ability to release them, you must void all previous authorizations that haven't been charged, which means authorizations without funds being withdrawn and payment applied.

Check the article Authorizing a Card with the Payment Gateway Feature to learn more about how to void the existing authorization and release the hold.

Step 3 - Allocate all payments

In addition, ensure that all payments are allocated in Group Folios if you are using the Payment Allocation functionality.

Check this article for detailed explanations about payment allocation: Payment Allocation Overview.

Actions to take depending on your package status

To check the status of your package, you must:

Go to Account
Click on Billing Portal

At the top of the page, you will see the Account Status, Next Billing Cycle, and Amount Due. Below are the tabs for Invoices, Subscription, and Billing settings.

Active package

Canceling the Cloudbeds package subscription is only possible if the Product is still in the Trial Period. Once the Trial Period ends, the Product will become Active, and you will be charged for the subscription.

To cancel an Active Package/Product, please email billing@cloudbeds.com to request cancellation.