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Item Allowance setup and processes
Item Allowance setup and processes
Item allowances is a functionality that lets the organization reserve and even pay for a reservation 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).
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 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.