Motel Software - User Guide
Motel management software is a very simple and easy to use system.
The basic actions are:
  • Find available rooms
  • Check-in guest
  • Search guest in the system
  • Guest setup
  • Check-out of guest
  • Room setup - Enter room information
  • Reports
  • Backup the database

Find available rooms

When guest calls in or walks in, you would search for available rooms for a given "In Date". You can select today's date just by clicking on Clear button or pick a date by clicking on drop down list of "Date In". You can also select "In Date" by clicking on the ellipses button (with dots ...) which brings up a calender. After you pick "Date In" and "Time In", you would click on Availability button to see list of rooms available. This brings up window which has two views - Stay View and Today's View. The rooms which are available are in Green color, and which are occupied are red and rooms which are in maintainence are in yellow color. The 'Today View' also shows the 'Date In' and 'Time In' and has similar drop down and calendar for 'Date In'. If no suitable rooms are available, in 'Today View' you can change the 'Date In' in 'Today View' by clicking on drop down or the calender (ellipses button). Pick a green color room and click on 'Pick Room & Close'.

Check-in guest

You have already picked a room ('Availability' button) and now you would enter the number of days guest will stay or you can also enter the 'Date Out'. The 'Date Out' also has the ellipses button (dots) which brings up a calendar. Next you would enter the arrival remarks (if any), First name, Last name, room rate and click 'Refresh Balance'. Enter 'Amount Paid' if any and click on 'Save'. This will pop-up Guest Info window, enter guest ID-Type, ID Number and save. This will save Guest Info and also save the 'Reservation Info' in main window And print the guest receipt by clicking on Print.

Search guest in the system

If you want to search for guest in the system, first click 'Clear' button and then enter either the Room # or First Name or Last Name. You can enter any combination of room#, first, last. These fields are colored yellow color (search fields). You can enter very few letters of first or last name.
For example: You can enter 'NI' in first name and click 'Guest Find' and it will return all first names containing NI like ANIL, NISHANT, MARCONI. Another example: you can enter 'JO' and click 'Guest Find' to see 'JOHN DEERE'.

Guest setup

If you want to see credit card details about Guest, you would first do 'Guest Find' and then click on 'Guest Setup'.
Also you can use the 'Guest Setup' to update information about existing guest. You can update/change any of the fields of guest information.
This Guest Setup window automatically pops up when you do Save.

Check-out of guest

To check out a guest, first find the guest either thru 'Availability' or thru 'Guest Find'. Click on button 'Check Out'. Notice that the Date Out and 'Checkout Time' changes. The check out time is 11 AM and if the checkout time is greater than 11 AM the system will add extra day charge in Total Charges field. If you do not want to charge this extra day you can click on checkbox 'Grace' and click once again on CheckOut button. You would see the number of days charged near the Total Charges field. Lastly, you have to save this checkout, click on Save and say Ok to update existing guest row. And print the guest receipt by clicking on Print.

Room setup - Enter room information

Click on Room Setup to set up all the rooms in your motel. Also you can use this button to mark any room as not available (yellow color in Today View) by changing the Room Condition.

Reports

Click on 'House Keeping' button to generate the report showing the list of rooms which are being checked out today. Useful for cleaning rooms.

Backup the database

Backup the database on regular basis. You should make backup of the database very often, atleast once a week. Better backup every day if you have time.

MSWindows->Start->My Computer: Double click on Local disk C: and right-click on folder aldevdb, pick 7-zip->Add to archive->aldevdb_ddMMMYYYY.7z (give name for example aldevdb_24Sep2007.7z )->Click Ok

You should also copy the backup files to a flash drive. This is to protect against the computer hard disk failure or any hardware failure. Insert the USB flash drive to USB port and copy the aldevdb_ddMMMYYYY.7z which you just created to the flash drive.

You can buy USB flash drive from Best Buy, Walmart or other stores.