In this article we will show that there are two options to fix the Guest Folio if you accidentally charge a guest upon check-out instead of transferring their charges to the City Ledger (ie: Direct Bill).
- Option 1 – reverse the incorrect payment on the Guest Folio and use the “City Ledger Transfer” feature to transfer the transactions to the City Ledger.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This option is only available if City Ledger billing was setup properly on the guest reservation (ie: the Corporate/Group/Wholesaler had a City Ledger Account attached for direct billing). If City Ledger billing was not setup properly, the “City Ledger Transfer” button will not appear on the Guest Folio and you must therefore go with Option 2.
- Option 2 – reverse the incorrect payment along with all the charges that were suppose to transfer to the City Ledger. Then go into the City Ledger and repost all the charges manually on the correct City Ledger Account.
Option 1:
In this situation, the guest was accidentally charged for room & tax but it was suppose to go to the City Ledger Account and the “City Ledger Transfer” feature is available. The first step is to reverse the payment by right clicking on the payment transaction and selecting “Reverse”.
Use the “Auto Apply” button if you wish to select all the transactions in the list below, or use the “Add Transaction” button to select specific transactions that you would like to transfer.
You have an option below to transfer the charges to a “New Invoice” or to transfer the charges to an Existing Invoice (Other Invoice).
Select the “Transfer” button below to complete the transfer.
A message will appear confirming that the transfer was successfully completed.
The transactions have now been transferred to the City Ledger.
Option 2:
In this situation, the guest was accidentally charged for room & tax but it was suppose to go to the City Ledger. Billing was NOT setup properly and therefore the “City Ledger Transfer” button is NOT available.The following is how you would manually fix accidentally billing a guest for charges that should have been transferred to the City Ledger.
STEP 1: Reverse the incorrect payment made on the Guest Folio. Locate the guest reservation and reserve the payment that was accidentally made on the Guest Folio. To reverse the payment, right click on the payment and select “Reverse”.
A box will appear allowing you to enter the reason why you are reversing the payment that was originally posted to the Guest Folio. Select OK to process reversal.
The payment has now been taken off the Guest Folio and there is now have an outstanding balance of $603.72. Since it is bad accounting practice to have an Unbalanced Folio in your PMS, our next step will be to reverse the Room Charges to bring the folio balance down to $0.00
STEP 2: Reverse all the charges that were suppose to have been transferred to the City Ledger. Right click on the Room Charge (or whatever charge was suppose to have been transfer to the City Ledger but did not) and select “Reverse”.
NOTE: If the guest has a long list of charges that need to be reversed, you may want to print the Guest Folio prior to doing the reversals so you can track which charges you have reversed. This will then come in handy when reposting the charges later in the City Ledger. However, if you do forget, you could also look at Folio 9 as this will show the charges you reversed.
After you select reverse, a box will appear allowing you to put an explanation for the reversal. Select OK to process the reversal.
Continue to reverse all charges that were suppose to have been to transfer to the City Ledger. The balance of the Guest Folio should now be at $0.00. If the balance is not $0.00 then you either a) have not reversed all the charges that will be transferred to the City Ledger or b) the remaining charges belong to the guest and you must post a payment to balance out the account.
STEP 3: Manually post charges to the appropriate City Ledger Account. Go to Operations -> City Ledger to enter the City Ledger Module. Locate the City Ledger Account where the charges were suppose to be transferred. Double Click on the City Ledger Account (or click on the account name once and then select the “View Details” button) to open the City Ledger Account Master.
NOTE: If the City Ledger Account does not appear on the screen it could be because it is either “Closed” or has a Zero Balance. Use the filters at the bottom of the screen to help locate the City Ledger Account. Once in the City Ledger Account Master, proceed to the Invoices tab. Select the “New Invoice” button to the right of your screen to create a new invoice.
Once in the City Ledger Account Master, proceed to the Invoices tab. Select the “New Invoice” button to the right of your screen to create a new invoice.
The new invoice will appear at the top of the list, click on the new invoice (ensure the black arrow is pointing towards the correct invoice) and select the “Invoice Detail” button below.
At this point, you may use the “Change Invoice Name” button to change the name of the Invoice if you wish.
In this example, the Invoice has been renamed to reflect the name of the guest and their Res ID. Select Save to apply the change to the invoice.
Next, select the “Post Charge” button at the bottom of the screen.
Enter the following information into the charge screen:
- Transaction Code – select the appropriate transaction code that corresponds with the charge you are reposting
- Reference – allows you to enter additional information regarding the charge
- Charge Amount – enter the amount of the posting. Taxes and total will automatically calculate.
- Select “OK” to post the charge
Continue to post all the charges that were reversed in Step 2 and that belonged in the City Ledger.
NOTE: If you need to post several Room Charges you may do a lump sum posting or you may post each charge individually. The decision is up to you!
Once you have posted all charges, they can be viewed under the “Charges” tab. You have now successfully manually transferred the charges from the Guest Folio to the City Ledger.
