Current approach
As of now, when you want a reservation to be guaranteed by a company and don't automatically capture the outstanding amount, you would set the 'Company' guarantee type on the rate plans:
Then you would attach the rate plans to the companies via a corporate code and when booking such rate plans using the corporate code, you would have a reservation with the 'Company' guarantee type.
There is an issue with this approach: consistency. You could basically not attach the rate plans to any company, or the company cannot check-out on AR (meaning that the company guest cannot check-out without paying the invoice).
New approach
Instead, that's what we thought: when you want to have some reservations guaranteed by the company, you would need to:
- Check the box "Can check out on accounts receivables" in the Company profile
- Add the rate plans to the respective company profiles (without using the 'Company' guarantee type on the rate plans).
These rateplans are now only visible to someone using this or another (another company which is linked to the same rate plan) company code. If you would like this rate plan to be bookable by other guests and not only companies, please copy the rateplan and do not attach it to any companies. Another option is to create one fictional company, which is linked to a rate plan, and this companies corporate code can be used to give one time company rates to a guest of your choosing.
Then when booking such rate plans,
- the reservation would be connected automatically to the company,
- the debitor of the main folio is automatically set to the company and
- the guarantee type would be derived from the company's settings: "Can check-out on accounts receivables".
If the company is not allowed check-out on AR, the guarantee type of the reservation would be the original guarantee type of the rate plan.
If instead, the company can check-out on AR, the guarantee type of the reservation changes to 'Company'.
Note: When changing the settings of the company to "Can check-out on accounts receivables", the guarantee type of all reservations with that company attached, would immediately change.
When switching the debitor of the main folio to the primary guest or booker, the guarantee type is automatically adjusted to match the guarantee type of the rate plan.
With the new approach, the guarantee type would be consistent with the company settings and external systems could easily rely on it.