Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
How to Choose Software for Serviced Apartments with Nightly and Monthly Stays
Choose serviced apartment software by testing five things in a demo. Check the apartment chart, corporate rate contracts, nightly and monthly billing, flexible housekeeping, and how travel agent bookings arrive. GullySystem’s hotel product handles the chart, folios and corporate accounts, with monthly billing from its paying guest product.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 3 min read
Test the chart with your own apartments
A hotel chart is built around rooms. A serviced apartment operator sells studios and one or two bedroom units, sometimes across several buildings. Ask the vendor to load your real apartments, not a demo hotel.
Then try the hard cases. Extend a guest’s stay into a night already booked. Move a project team from one building to another. The software should refuse the clash and show you why.
- Apartment types as you sell them
- Several buildings on one screen
- Extensions checked against later bookings
- A hold that lapses if not confirmed
Check corporate rates and company statements
Much serviced apartment business comes from companies with agreed rates. Each company’s rate by apartment type and date range should sit on its account. Stays should be marked to that account at booking.
Ask to see a month-end statement for one company with several guests. Each line should show the guest, apartment, nights and extras. If the vendor builds it in a spreadsheet during the demo, note that.
Ask how monthly stays are billed
Nightly folios and monthly rents are different jobs. A long stay on an agreement needs a monthly bill, a deposit and a dues list. Many hotel systems bill only by the night.
Ask whether one system covers both, or whether monthly stays run in a second module. Either can work. What matters is that the desk knows where each stay lives, and that a guest moving from nightly to monthly is not entered twice.
See housekeeping and inventory on a phone
Serviced apartments are often cleaned on alternate days or on request, not daily. Floor staff should mark an apartment clean, dirty or blocked from a phone. The desk should see it at once.
Kitchen items, linen and appliances belong to each apartment. Ask how they are counted between stays and where a missing item is recorded.
- Cleaning schedule per stay
- Apartment status from a phone
- Linen and amenity issue
- Inventory checks between stays
Questions about channels, owners and data
Ask how online travel agent bookings reach the chart. Many systems depend on a separate channel manager that you run. Ask what happens when that link is down and a booking arrives for an apartment the desk has just let to a walk-in. Ask too whether a booking engine for your own website is included.
If you lease flats from owners, ask whether owner rent payouts are covered. In many products they are not. Finally, ask who owns the guest data and how you take a full copy.
Serviced apartment software test sheet
A sheet of ten tests to run in any demo, from a clashing extension to a company statement and an owner payout. Mark each test passed, failed or done in a spreadsheet. Compare vendors on the same sheet.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Is ordinary hotel software enough for serviced apartments?
Sometimes. If most stays are nightly and few run past a month, a hotel system covers the work. Long stays on agreements and owner payouts are where the gaps appear.
Can bookings from our own website reach the chart by themselves?
Not with every product, so ask directly. The hotel product named above has no booking engine for your website. Travel agent bookings reach it through a channel manager you run.
Does the software file foreign guest reports?
No. Guest ID details and a scan are kept on the stay record. Filing stays with your property, guided by your adviser.