Property management system or PMS is the first of the ‘computer applications in front office’ that Jatashankar R. Tewari discusses in ‘Hotel Front Office: Operations and management’ (www.oup.com). PMS is used for doing all check-ins, guest accounting, checkouts and so on, he explains.
The system usually has modules for different functions such as reservations, rooms, cash, night audit, and back office. For instance, the rooms module ‘displays the entire layout of the hotel, showing a single floor/ wing at a time; provides latest room status information to both housekeeping and front office departments; schedules the maintenance work for rooms; automatically adjusts room inventory; and schedules linen change…’
The PMS becomes more effective when integrated with other systems within the hotel, such as: POS (point of sale) system in restaurants, bars, discotheque, health centre, where revenue is generated; call accounting system that bills for outgoing calls; energy management system, which is designed to shut down operations of equipments that are not in use as for instance when a guest locks his room with the electronic key; and electronic locking system that can become non-functional after the checkout time on the date of departure.
Focused inputs for the industry user.
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