Development Release 10/09/2018
Bookeasy successfully released the below changes into the live production system overnight. Should you require any further information in regards to any of the below features, please reach out to our friendly Bookeasy Support team who will be more than happy to help.
What's New?!
USER INTERFACE ENHANCEMENTS FOR MAKING PAYMENTS & REFUNDS
Enhancements have been made to the Bookeasy Staff Console screens when making payments and refunds. This includes making Gateway payments, recording payments and recording refunds. These screens have all been streamlined to use the same layout, and now also provide the end user the optional ability to manually allocate what portion of a part-payment being recorded is to be allocated between each booking/sale item on an itinerary.
To view more information regarding making payments, click here there is also a quick help solution article to share with your team here.
ENHANCED OPERATOR RETURNS RECONCILIATION SCREEN
The process of running your operator return reconciliations has been enhanced and streamlined. The Run a New Return, Run Return On One Itinerary, Run Return by Operator and Run Return On Multiple Bookings left menu options and screens have been merged into one screen and left menu item, labeled Run Operator Return Reconciliation.
The enhanced process provides your familiar return options, including a wizard-like user interface and features such as the ability to run a custom return based on various filters, better transparency when operators owe you money, and the ability to preview your return before you save it.
To view more information regarding this new feature, click here .
BOOKEASY PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNTS
Bookeasy has introduced an exciting feature that will provide destination partners the ability to apply promotional discounts to the products of their connected operators. The crux and benefit of this functionality is that it enables you, the destination, a way to very quickly create discounted product without any intervention or steps required by the operator (i.e. it’s all done via your Bookeasy Staff Console).
There are various setup options, the most prudent being the ability to set your promotion's discount in 2 distinct ways, that being:
- Centre Margin Discounts
It means the promotional discounts you provide will be worn by you, the Centre (not your tourism operators). Your Commission will be calculated on the booking value before discounts are applied. Your operator will be paid the full booking value before discounts are applied, minus your commission. This means that each discount applied will reduce the commission you earn.
For example, if you charge your operator 15% commission and your promotional discount is 5%, the commission you earn will be reduced to 10%. For this option you must be wary not to provide a promotion discount greater than the commission you will earn.
Centre Margin Discounts have zero impact on the return that you pay to your member operators, nor do they impact the commission value you actually charge your operators. The way this specific method works is that in the end, whatever discount you decide to implement in your promotion reduces your centre's physical profit margin. - Operator Provided Discounts
These are discounts your tourism operators have agreed to supply you. Operator Provided Discounts work a little differently to Centre Margin Discounts. Operator Provided Discounts are very similar to operator created specials, except they are setup and managed by you, the centre. Bookeasy makes the assumption that if it's used by you, then you've made arrangements with your operators to discount the rate they supply you (as this option will impact what's paid to them by your organisation).
Your Commission will be calculated on the booking value after discounts are applied. Your operator will be paid the discounted booking value, minus your commission. So the way it works is that Bookeasy basically receives the cost/rate supplied by the operator, and then applies your promotion discount to that supplied rate (whereby it's then advertised and booked at the discounted rate).
For both promotion options (i.e. Centre Margin Discounts and Operator Provided Discounts), from a customer's point of view they're displayed similar to how an accommodation operator's special is. You can also setup your promotion so that the discount is only applied when a promo code is entered.
So the biggest advantages are that they're all setup and managed by you, the destination, without any intervention required of your operators, and can also be applied to tours and ticket product!
YESBOOKIT PARTNER INTEGRATION
Expanding on Bookeasy's existing partner integrations with Rezdy and LIVN, Bookeasy has successfully released a new 3rd party partner integration with YesBookit! As a result, accommodation operators and property managers who use YesBookit as their PMS will be able to have their real-time rates and availability fed directly into Bookeasy via Bookeasy's partner connection API.
This release now makes the final stage of certification with YesBookit possible. Once completed, Bookeasy will then commence connecting select pilot destination partners to their regional YesBookit accommodation operators, with a complete rollout to follow thereafter.
NEW AFFILIATE MANAGEMENT PAGE
A dedicated left menu item and standalone page in the Bookeasy Staff Console has been created, whereby destination partners can view all of their affiliates, inclusive of the ability to login and edit their affiliates. This new section is aptly named "Affiliates", and can be found in your Bookeasy Staff Console' left menu. It contains two sub-menus - "My Affiliates" and "Affiliate Commissions Report".
Improvements
ADDITIONAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION LOGGING
Due to reports received regarding email notifications not being generated and sent, additional logging has been introduced into Bookeasy in order to determine the scope of the issue.
OBE / ABE GOOGLE MAPS API KEY INTEGRATION
Google's new maps API pricing requires Bookeasy's destination partners to register and provide an API key so that maps correctly display on the beGadgets. Bookeasy has introduced a new field under Website Administration that allows destination partners to input and save their Google Maps API key. Once entered, Google Maps will correctly display for each destination partner's Operator and Affiliate Booking Engines.
PRINTING THE ITINERARY WITH VOUCHERS
Improvements have been made in order to ensure that page breaks are inserted where they need to be so that vouchers are always printed on a standalone page.
IMPROVED ERROR MESSAGE WHEN LIVN PARTNER CONNECTED PRODUCT UNAVAILABLE
Improvements have been made to advise if there are "No Seats Available" should LIVN partner connected product display available product in their cached availability, but no availability in their live availability. Previously this mismatch between LIVN's cached and live availability would present an undefined error message.
Bug Fixes
Google Map Location for Operators
Fixed a bug that prevented latitude/longitude coordinates from being saved when edited.
Editing 24 hour "On Request" Bookings
Fixed a bug where 24 hour bookings were being automatically confirmed when the booking was edited.
Part Payments for Retail POS
Fixed a bug that prevented part payments from being made for retail POS sales.
Custom Booking Locations
Fixed a bug that prevented custom booking locations from appearing in various search filters of the Bookeasy Staff Console, such as the Payment Location drop-downs on the Payments Today, Payment History and Detailed Payment Breakdown screens.
Default Currency on the Affiliate Booking Engine
Fixed a bug that was setting the default currency to AUD for all Affiliate Booking Engines, regardless of the default currency set. The default currency on page load will now be the currency set by the Bookeasy destination partner.
Auto Cancelled Rezdy Bookings
Fixed a bug where Rezdy bookings that had cost adjustments made were automatically cancelling after 30 minutes.
Room and Tour Manager Payment "Due" Values
Fixed a bug where the reservation calendar for Room and Tour Manager operators always displayed the "Due" amount as $0.00. The due amount will now properly reflect the payment still owing.
Random High Volume Bookings "Empty Cart" Race Condition When Making Bookings
Added validation to prevent an edge case issue that could cause a booking to be made when the cart had no available product at the time of booking. The probability of this edge case occurring only applied if booking volume/demand for the same product was very high.
Errors Booking LIVN/Rezdy Product When Special Characters Used in Pickup/Dropoff Instructions
Fixed a bug where LIVN/Rezdy operator reservations would fail and throw un unexpected error when special characters (e.g. <>&) were used in the pickup/dropoff instructions.