Events and Conference Reservations

In this article

What needs to be set up

The Process

Troubleshooting

You can use the Bookings module to create event reservations and issue the Banquet Event Order (BEO) industry "standard" to keep track of event agenda, resource reservations and charging, food and beverage, and finally to notify the responsible parties.

The following functionality and settings are related to the BEO process:

  • Event Categories
    •  Responsibilities
  • Reservation Type
  • Status Settings
  • Reservation Card
    • BEO View
    • BEO Versions
    • Responsibilities 

What needs to be set up

  1. Define the Reservation Type for the main event types, that is Wedding, Large Event, Small Event, and so on. You must set the Reservation Type to use Banquet Category. The Banquet Event Order FastTab has more detailed settings.

  2. You must create Event Categories to define the "Chapters" of a BEO, that is Room Rental, Audio & Video Setup, and Food and Beverage, as an example. This setup controls the BEO view (sorting order), and which activities are included as Agenda.

  3. The template for assigning Responsibilities is assigned on the related Banquet Category.

  4. The Activity Resources that present the available conference rooms. Note: For joined rooms, you can solve by linked Resource settings. Resources to represent equipment and even human reservations might also be required.

  5. The Activity Products for Room Rental charges and reserving the resources. Activity Product for room rental might have additional charges for the food and beverage related to the event, or the user might have separate Activity products with predefined additional charges for the purpose of charging food and beverage. The Activity Product can have a default Banquet Category assigned.

  6. You must set the Status settings to issue BEO at confirmation or a specific status for issuing BEO.

The Process

  1. The user creates an event Reservation, and assigns the related reservation type.
  2. The Activities are created, to assign room rental and dining reservations.
  3. Additional Charges can be used for selecting food and beverage in detail, or any other additional product charges.
  4. The Reservation Comments can be used for entering detailed requests or general instructions for the event. For more specific instructions the user can enter Activity Comments, which could be included in the BEO section for the related Banquet Category.

Based on the above input, the Banquet Category is either automatically assigned for each charge line, or manually specified.

The user can edit the default responsibility assignments for each Reservation (event).

When details have been entered or copied from a preset template Reservation (using the Copy function on the Reservation Card), the user normally edits the responsibilities and can proceed by printing a standard Quote or using the BEO View to see the blueprint for the event. When all is approved by the customer and internally, the reservation can be confirmed, the first version of the BEO is issued, and a notification email is sent to the responsible employees and external contacts.

At any stage, the user(s) can edit the reservation and adjust quantity, pricing, comments, and resource assignments. If the changes affect the BEO view, a status change (normally Reconfirm) issues a new version of the BEO and keeps track of changes between versions. The relevant responsible persons are notified via email, if this is specified in the Responsibility section.

You can also print the BEO View as a BEO report, for which the Bookings module provides a standard layout. For specific requirements, LS Retail Partners or LS Retail Consulting can provide a new report layout.

You can view costs of the reservation by using the Cost view action, and costs are also visible in the BEO view. The latest version of the BEO view shows the latest cost price and the cost price % change since the previous BEO version. The Cost Update Process updates the cost prices in the reservation as well as on the last version of the BEO, so the last BEO version is showing the latest status of cost.
Note: When you open the Cost View page or the BEO view, cost prices are always automatically updated to the latest cost price, except when the reservation has been internal status Cancelled/Closed or when the reservation date is in the past.

Troubleshooting

Problem Solution
I don't see a Banquet Category field on the activity lines or the charge lines. You must specify to use Banquet Category on the Reservation Type you have assigned on the reservation.
I don't see any BEO View or BEO Version actions on the Reservation Card. You must set up to use Banquet Category on the Reservation Type you have assigned on the reservation.
When I confirm the reservation the BEO version does not get updated. The confirm status setting for Event Handling is not set to update the BEO version.
When I make changes and confirm the reservation again, the responsible persons do not get an email. Either the confirm status setting for Event Handling is not set to issue notifications, or the persons responsible for the Banquet Category either have no email address assigned or the notification settings for the persons are set to Off.