Allowances

Item Allowance setup and processes

Item allowances are quantity and item-based allowances that let the organization reserve specific items, deals, or quantities as part of a package or reservation. The allowance can be reserved and even paid for before or after the actual consumption has taken place. The functionality also allows the consumption (inventory) and the revenue posting to be processed at the POS, where the consumption or pickup takes place, rather than at the payment location.

You can add Item allowances to package offers and as additional charges to any activity.

When using item allowances, invoicing or paying the package on a POS will always post allowance component lines as deferred revenue towards the Allowance Posting setting, either to the income expense account (G/L) or to the item set to present the revenue.

When the client then picks up the actual retail product or wants to consume the related hospitality item, the product or item will be processed as a normal sale on the POS. An exception is that at end of the sales process, the POS operator must refer to the related Activity Reservation by using the SELECTRES POS command, which assigns the Activity Reservation to the sale. This triggers the comparison of the sales journal to the issued allowance, assigns the related discounting and pricing (as the client has reserved), and balances the amount of the sale towards the package or the ordered price.

You can also select the reservation at the beginning of the sale (using SELECTRES), and then CHECKALLOWANCE must be done after the items have been assigned to the sale.
Note: Prior to charging to a reservation (CHARGE2RES), check that the allowance is automatically done prior to the charging process so items included in allowance are not charged again to the reservation.

At POS journal lines, this process adds additional deferred revenue journal lines, which balance the deferred revenue accounts, so the final amount will be 0, if no other items are in the sale. On the POS, you can also use the VIEWALLOWANCE command to view what products are included in the customer's allowance and its current consumption status. Also, the user can select the items or deals that might be included and add them to the POS journal lines. You can also use the CHECKALLOWANCE command to compare current journal lines to the active allowance reservation and issue the allowance prices or discounts and consume the allowance.

The setup of the posting of allowances is on the package offer components (specific for each component line), or it can be set up in general for an activity type (all additional charges are assigned on an activity product of a specific activity type).

Amount Allowance

Amount Allowances are a type of Item Allowance that allow a defined monetary value to be attached to a reservation and consumed at POS against eligible items. While standard Item Allowances are quantity and item-based, Amount Allowances cover the value of items rather than specific quantities or products.

Configuration

Amount Allowances can be configured with no item filters, in which case they cover all items, or they can be filtered by:

Item Categories
Special Groups
Retail Groups

Amount Allowances can be included in Package Offers or added manually to a reservation as an additional charge.

POS process

At POS, Amount Allowances can be handled in two ways:

1. CHECKALLOWANCE command

The CHECKALLOWANCE command automatically evaluates all active allowances linked to the reservation and applies eligible allowances to current journal lines. Allowances are applied in the following order:

Item Allowances
Deal Allowances
Selection Allowances
Amount Allowances

Amount Allowances are always applied after all quantity-based allowances have been processed. When multiple Amount Allowances exist on the reservation, CHECKALLOWANCE applies all applicable ones automatically in the order they are defined on the reservation (first come, first served - the allowance on top is applied first). The operator does not choose which Amount Allowance to apply; each one is evaluated and applied to its eligible items sequentially.

2. VIEWALLOWANCE command

The VIEWALLOWANCE command displays available allowances as selectable buttons. For Amount Allowances, the button shows the remaining monetary value. Only the Amount Allowance that the operator selects is applied to the current sale. No other Amount Allowance is applied unless the operator explicitly selects it as well. Each selected allowance only applies to items that are eligible based on its configured filters.

Consumption logic

Amount Allowances reduce based on the monetary value applied rather than by item quantity. Only eligible portions of items are covered based on the configured filters. If the sale amount exceeds the remaining allowance value, the remainder must be paid via other tender. The allowance balance updates immediately after application.

Prepaid Allowance

Prepaid allowances are issued when you sell activity products in bulk using the PRESELL command or via the web API. This is normally used to give customers a better price when they purchase and pay larger number of service(s) upfront. The prepaid allowance is then linked to the related client (member contact), and when the client makes a reservation, the system automatically detects the allowance issued, and marks the activity as Paid, or automatically deducts the amount and consumes the allowance via the POS/WEB API Customer Order(depending on the setup of prepaid allowances in the activity type).

Note: When you sell a specific activity product on the POS (in bulk), the system only allows you to select a price or quantity option that has Quantity larger than 1.

Price Allowance

Price allowances are issued through the membership subscription process. In the Membership module, the user can define Allowances on the membership type, which is a price allowance assigned to the client that is a member of that particular membership. Simply put, the organization is then promising the client to purchase certain activity products for X number of times for X price. The price allowance/commitment is then issued towards the client when the membership type is either purchased initially, or during the subscription invoicing process.

The use (or consumption) of the price allowance is then processed automatically when the client makes a reservation. The system will detect any outstanding allowances and assigns the specific (normally lower) price during the booking process. The deduction of available allowances for the client is done at the confirmation of the reservation or activity.

Group handling of allowances

Note: Both prepaid allowances and price allowances are only issued based on the Main Group Member in group reservations, and one allowance per group line. The item allowances and amount allowances are issued to every group member and work the same way in group reservations as in individual reservations.

It is not possible to mix a prepaid allowance and a price allowance, only one of those can be assigned to the related activity.

General status handling of allowances

1. When allowance is issued, the allowance gets status "Issued".

2. When the allowance is fully consumed, then the allowance status changes to "Closed & Consumed".

3. When the allowance has expired (and has expiry date), the archiving process will change all allowances which have status "Issued" to status "Closed & Unused".

Note this status is only applied if the allowance is not fully consumed, has expiry date, and the archiving process is executed.