The following article reviews what to do when charges that were meant to be billed to a City Ledger Account were billed directly to the guest by mistake.
There are two options to fix the Guest Folio if the guest was accidentally charged 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, therefore Option 2 will need to be used.
- 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.
City Ledger Transfer
Next, select the City Ledger Transfer button.
Choose Transactions
Use the Auto Apply button to select all the transactions in the list below, or use the Add Transaction button to select specific transactions to transfer.
Choose Invoice
There are two options below; to transfer the charges to a New Invoice or to transfer the charges to an Existing Invoice (Other Invoice). Choose the desired option, and click Transfer to continue.
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.
Step 1: Reverse the Payment
Locate the guest reservation and reverse the payment that was accidentally made on the Guest Folio. To reverse the payment, right click on the payment and select Reverse.
The Reversal box will appear. Enter the reason for the reversal, and click OK to proceed.
Step 2: Reverse the Remaining Charges
Once the payment has been removed from the folio, there will be a balance in the amount of the remaining charges. To correctly balance the folio, all charges that were meant to be billed to the City Ledger should be reversed, until the folio is at a zero balance.
NOTE: Leaving the charges on the bill will create an Unbalanced Folio, which will cause errors in the Essential Balancing during Night Audit. The charges must be reversed.
NOTE: If the guest has a long list of charges that need to be reversed, it may be beneficial to print the Guest Folio prior to doing the reversals, in order to track which charges were reversed. This will become a useful reference when re-posting the charges later in the City Ledger. Alternatively, after all the reversals are made, referring to Folio 9 will show a list of charges that were removed.
Check Folio for a Zero Balance
Continue to reverse all charges that should have been to transferred to the City Ledger. If the balance of the Guest Folio comes to $0.00, then the folio is properly balanced. If the folio still has charges on it that were NOT meant to be transferred to the City Ledger Account, then a payment will need to be taken for those charges only. Once complete, the folio balance should be at $0.00.
Step 3: Re-post Charges to the City Ledger Invoice
Go to Operations > City Ledger. Locate the City Ledger Account where the charges need to be posted to. Open the Account by double clicking it in the list (or highlight the Account and click View Details).
NOTE: If the account does not appear in the list, the Show Zero Balance Accounts box at the bottom may need to be checked.
Create New Invoice
Once the Account Master is open, proceed to the Invoices tab, and click the New Invoice button to create a new, blank invoice. The charges will be posted to this new invoice.
Open Invoice
The new invoice will appear at the top of the list, double click on the new invoice (ensure the black arrow is pointing towards the correct invoice), or select the Invoice Detail button below.
Rename the Invoice
The invoice will be made in the name of the Account it was created on. To change the Invoice Name to the Guest's Name, click Change Invoice Name.
It is recommended that the Invoice be renamed to reflect the name of the guest and their Res ID. Select Save to apply the change to the invoice.
Post Charges
Next, select the Post Charge button to re-post the charges to this invoice.
Enter the following information:
- Transaction Code – select the desired transaction code
- Reference – Enter additional information regarding the charge. It is recommended that if the charge being posted is from a previous date, the original posting date should be noted here
- 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 required charges. NOTE: If posting several night's of the same charge, it is possible to do both a lump sum posting, or post each charge individually.
Review Posted Charges
Once all charges have been posted, they can be reviewed under the Charges tab. If all required charges are showing here, the process is complete.
