Guide

What is a hotel PMS?

A hotel PMS — property management system — is the software that holds your reservations and runs the front desk. Everything else in the hotel's software either feeds it or reads from it.

What a PMS does

At its core, a PMS answers three questions at any moment: which rooms are free, who is staying, and what they owe. Around that, a typical PMS handles:

• Reservations — creating, changing and cancelling bookings, usually on a calendar ("tape chart") with one row per room.
• Front desk — check-in, check-out, room moves and group bookings.
• Folios and payments — the guest's bill: room nights, extras, payments, deposits and invoices.
• Rates and availability — prices per room type and season, and restrictions such as minimum stay.
• Guest profiles — contact details, past stays and preferences.
• Housekeeping — which rooms are dirty, clean or out of service.
• Reports — occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR).

What a PMS usually doesn't do

Most PMS products leave several jobs to other software, each with its own subscription:

• A channel manager to send rates and availability to Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb and bring their reservations back.
• A booking engine and a website for commission-free direct bookings.
• Accounting — the monthly figures, bank deposits, cash and payroll.
• Guest messaging on WhatsApp or email.
• Selling tours, transfers and extras.

Each gap is another login, another monthly fee and another place where a booking has to be copied by hand. For a large hotel with specialists that can work. For a small team it is where mistakes come from.

What a boutique hotel needs from a PMS

1. Everything in one place. When the website, channels, extras and accounting read the same reservation, nothing is typed twice.
2. A real channel connection. Double bookings with an OTA cost far more than the software.
3. Extras, not only rooms. Tours, transfers and meal plans are often a boutique hotel's margin.
4. Automation. Confirmations, reminders and syncing should run without anyone clicking.
5. A phone version. Small-hotel staff are rarely at a desk.
6. Your data, yours. You should be able to export everything.

Common questions