Can I change the reservation type after the booking is made?

No. The type controls which fields are compulsory, whether the room leaves inventory and what cancellation policy applies, so it is fixed at creation. If you picked the wrong one, cancel the booking and take it again with the right type.

Why is Save Guest greyed out when the form looks complete?

Because a required field is on the other tab. The guest drawer splits its required fields between Personal Details and Contact Details , and the line along the bottom of the drawer lists exactly which ones are still empty.

Are the prices shown per night or for the whole stay?

For the whole stay. The from price on each room type, the rate rows underneath it and the room lines in the booking summary are all totals for every night together, before tax.

Do I have to assign a room number?

No, and usually you should not. Leaving Room Number on Auto-assign lets whoever is on the desk at check-in choose, which keeps the most flexibility. Pin a room only when the guest has specifically asked for one.

Why will Confirm Payment not press?

The reason is printed directly underneath the button. It is almost always a required custom field further down the page that has not been answered, or, on a deposit booking, a due-date rule that works out to a date in the past.

What is the difference between a tentative booking and a courtesy hold?

A tentative is a real booking with a guest attached that expires if nobody confirms it, and it appears under Reservation requests for someone to accept or decline. A courtesy hold has no booking behind it and just keeps a room off sale for a short while; it is covered in Blocked dates, holds, and rooms out of service .

Creating a reservation - Prostay Help

Most of your bookings arrive on their own, through a channel or the booking engine. This screen is for the ones that do not: the phone call, the walk-in, the regular who emails you directly. It is a five-step form with a running total pinned to the right, and it will not let you finish until it has what it needs.

The whole thing takes about a minute once you know it. What follows is what each field is for, and which handful of them actually change the outcome.

Before you start

Have three things to hand: the dates, the guest's name and email, and a phone number. Those are the fields Prostay will refuse to move past. Everything else, address, passport number, company details, can be filled in later from the reservation itself.

You can start a booking from Create New on the reservation list, from the same button on the calendar, or by clicking an empty night in the calendar grid, which fills the dates and the room type in for you. All three land in the same place.

Step 0: choosing a reservation type

The Select Reservation Type screen, listing Standard, Advance Purchase, Corporate, Group Block and Complimentary, with a panel on the right describing the selected Standard type. — The type is picked before anything else, and it is the hardest thing to change later.

The list of types. Set up by your property, so yours may differ. Standard is the ordinary case and is selected for you.
The detail panel. What the highlighted type actually does. Read it before you commit; it is the only place this information appears.
Create Tentative. Starts a booking that expires on its own if nobody confirms it. Covered further down.
Create Reservation. Starts an ordinary booking and takes you to step one.

The detail panel for the Standard reservation type, showing a Phone chip under Required at booking, a Deducts inventory chip under Room inventory, no cancellation policy, and the default terms and conditions. — What the type actually does. These four facts change with every type in the list.

Required at booking. Extra fields this type makes mandatory on the guest form. Standard asks for a phone number; a corporate type usually also demands a full address.
Room inventory. Deducts inventory means the room comes off sale the moment you confirm. A type that does not deduct, a group block, typically, holds the room against an allotment instead, and the room stays sellable.
Cancellation policy. The policy attached to bookings of this type. None means no automatic penalty.
Terms & conditions. The wording the guest is agreeing to, and the wording that goes on their confirmation.

Step 1: stay and availability

Step one of the reservation wizard after a search, with the five-step progress bar, the search bar, a results bar reading six room types over two nights, an expanded Standard Double row showing four rate rows, and an empty booking summary on the right. — The whole of step one. The right rail is the running total and it stays there for all five steps.

The step bar. Five steps. You can click back to a step you have already completed, but not forward past one you have not.
The search bar. Dates and source. Explained below.
The results bar. How many room types came back, and two controls for narrowing them down.
The room types. One row each, cheapest first.
The booking summary. Empty until you add a room, then it follows you through all five steps.

The stay and availability search bar, with fields for Reservation Source, Booking currency showing USD as base, Arrival, Departure, and a blue Search button. — Four fields before you see a single room. The currency locks once a room is in the cart.

Reservation Source. Where the booking came from: a phone call, the website, a travel agent. There is no default, and nothing forces you to set one.
Booking currency. Your property's own currency unless you change it. Once a room is in the cart this field greys out, because every price already quoted would otherwise be wrong.
Arrival. The night the guest arrives.
Departure. The morning they leave. Two nights means arrival on the 15th and departure on the 17th.
Search. Nothing appears until you press this, and it has to be pressed again after any change to the dates.

Choosing a room and a rate

The results bar reading six room types and two nights on the left, with an occupancy filter set to Any occupancy and a sort control set to Price low to high on the right. — Count on the left, two controls on the right. Neither of them re-runs the search.

The count. How many room types have something free for those dates. A room type with nothing available does not appear at all.
Occupancy. Hides room types too small for the party: Sleeps 2+, 3+ or 4+. Set it to four and the doubles disappear.
Sort. Price low to high, or high to low. Low to high is the default and is usually what you want when a guest asks for your cheapest room.

The expanded Standard Double row, showing a photograph, sleeps three, four rates, thirty-two available, a from price, steppers for rooms, adults and children, and four rate rows each with its own price and a blue Add button. — **One room type**, expanded. The rate you press Add on is the rate the booking gets.

The header row. The room type's name, how many it sleeps and how many rates it has, then two numbers on the right: 32 available is how many rooms of this type are free for the whole stay, and the from price is the cheapest of its rates for the whole stay, not per night. Click anywhere on this row to fold the type open or shut.
Rooms, adults and children. Change these before you add, because they change the prices underneath. Two rooms means two lines in the summary, not one line at double the price.
The rate rows. One per rate plan, each with its own price for the whole stay. Details beside a rate name spells out what makes it cheaper, usually a cancellation restriction. Add puts that rate in the summary.

The booking summary

The dates. Arrival, departure and the night count, so you can check the stay without scrolling back.
The room line. One per room, with its occupancy, its nights and its price before tax.
Edit rate. Overrides the price for this room, night by night if you want. Only available at step one, and only if your role is allowed to change prices.
Split stay. Moves the guest between rooms partway through. Use it when nothing is free for the whole stay but two rooms together cover it. The booking then shows as two segments.
Remove. Takes the room out of the booking. No confirmation.
Grand Total. Rooms, plus extras, plus every tax. This is the number to quote.

The tax lines between the subtotal and the grand total are not editable and are not optional. They come from the tax rules configured for the property, and each one applies to a different base: a percentage tax on reservations is worked out on the room subtotal, a per-person-per-night fee multiplies out by guests and nights, and an item tax only touches add-ons. That is why the sales tax line sits at zero until you add an extra.

Step 2: guests

The Add Guest Details drawer open on the Personal Details tab, with an existing client search, a Make Lead Guest checkbox, first and last name, date of birth, gender, birthplace, country, tax number, an address block and a company block. — The guest drawer, personal half. Four of the five required fields are on this tab.

Add Guests opens this drawer. If the guest has stayed before, use Existing client at the top and the rest fills itself in, worth trying every time, because it keeps one guest record instead of creating a second one with the same name.

Field	Required	What it is for
Existing client	No	Searches guests you already have. Picking one fills the whole form and links the stay to their history.
Make Lead Guest	No	Whose name the booking is under. The first guest you add becomes the lead automatically.
First Name, Last Name	Yes	As they appear on the identification the guest will present.
Date of Birth	Yes	Often a legal requirement for guest registration. Typed as year, month, day.
Country	Yes	Nationality, not where they live. Some tourist-tax rules key off it.
Gender, Birthplace, Guest Tax Id Number	No	Only needed where local registration rules ask for them.
Address block	Depends on the type	Optional for a standard booking, compulsory for a type whose detail panel said an address is required at booking.
Company block	No	For invoicing a company rather than the guest.
Email	Yes	Where the confirmation goes. Checked for a valid shape when you save.
Phone	Depends on the type	Required whenever the reservation type says so, which most do. Spaces, dashes and brackets are all accepted.
Mobile	No	A second number.

The Contact Details tab of the guest drawer, holding only Email, Phone and Mobile, with a line at the foot of the drawer reading Still required: First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Country, Email, Phone. — The other half. The line at the bottom is what the greyed-out Save Guest button is waiting for.

The required fields are spread across both tabs, which is why Save Guest can stay grey when the tab in front of you looks complete. The line along the bottom of the drawer lists exactly what is still missing, and it updates as you type. When it disappears, the button turns blue.

The guest list with one row: Marta Keller, assigned to a Standard Double on auto with a LEAD badge, Germany, and the check-in and check-out dates. — One row per guest. The LEAD badge marks whose name the booking is under.

Saved guests land in a table. Room Assign. shows which room they are attached to and whether it has a number yet, Auto means the front desk will pick one later. The blue LEAD badge marks the lead guest, and the three dots at the end of the row edit or remove them.

You need at least one guest to move on. Add one per person only if you need their details on file; for a couple, one guest record and an occupancy of two is normal.

Step 3: add-ons

Extras attach to a room, not to the booking, which matters when there is more than one room. Pick the room from the strip at the top, then add to it.

The Add Add-ons dialog with a Search Addon box and a table holding one chosen extra, Breakfast Buffet at 18 US dollars, with a delete icon beside it. — Pick extras here. The price shown is the unit price, not what it will cost.

Add Add-on opens this dialog. Type into Search Addon or open it to see everything available for this room type and these dates; the catalogue is set up in settings, and an extra only appears if it is valid for both. Choose as many as you like, then Save.

The add-ons table for the Standard Double, showing Breakfast Buffet at 18 US dollars, quantity one, charge type Per Guest Per Night, and a total of 36 US dollars, with the booking summary alongside now reading a subtotal of 516 US dollars. — **Charge type** is what turns an 18 dollar breakfast into 36 dollars. Quantity is not the multiplier you think it is.

The table is where the arithmetic becomes visible. Price is the unit price and can be overridden with the pencil beside it. Charge Type is the rule that turns that unit price into a total, and it is set on the extra itself rather than chosen here:

Charge type	Multiplied by	Typical use
Per Reservation	Nothing. Charged once.	An airport transfer, a welcome bottle.
Per Night	Nights	Parking.
Per Guest	Guests in the room	A one-off spa entry.
Per Guest Per Night	Guests × nights	Breakfast.
Per Room/Bed	Rooms on the line	A cleaning fee on each room.
Per Room/Bed Per Night	Rooms × nights	A nightly cot hire.
Quantity	The quantity you type	Anything counted, such as late checkouts.

So an 18 dollar breakfast on Per Guest Per Night comes to 36 dollars for one guest over two nights, and would come to 72 for two guests. The Quantity stepper multiplies on top of whatever the charge type already worked out, so leave it at one unless you genuinely want two of the thing.

Step 4: summary

Step four of the wizard, with a reservation summary panel, a payment details panel, a room assignment panel offering auto-assign and a lead guest, and a room summary table. — The last screen before money. Read the left panel out loud to the guest.

Reservation Summary. Dates, nights, source, and the lead guest's contact details in one block. This is the one to read back over the phone.
Payment Details. The same figures as the summary on the right, itemised. Balance Due is what is still owed; with nothing paid yet it equals the grand total.
Room Assignment. The only part of this screen you can change.

The room assignment panel, with one Standard Double row offering a Room Number selector set to Auto-assign and a Lead Guest selector set to Marta Keller. — Leave it on auto-assign unless the guest asked for a specific room.

Room Number. Auto-assign leaves the choice to whoever is on the desk at check-in, which is almost always the right answer. Pin a specific room only when the guest has asked for one; a pinned room is one less room the desk can shuffle.
Lead Guest. Which of the guests on the booking this particular room is under. With one guest there is nothing to decide.

Below the panels, Room Summary repeats the booking as a table, one line per room, with guests, nights, dates and total. An add-ons block lists the extras. Both are read-only.

Step 5: payment

Step five of the wizard, with a payment information panel holding payment type, payment method and amount, a multi-currency prices link, an upload payment proof box, and a custom fields panel with Arrival Information and a required Purpose of Stay. — Payment, proof and whatever your property decided to make mandatory.

Payment Information. How the guest is paying. Payment Type offers Fully Paid, and Deposit as well if your property uses deposit policies. Choosing Deposit adds a card underneath for when the deposit and the balance fall due. Payment Method and Amount record what you actually took; both can be left empty if you are taking nothing now.
Multi-Currency Prices. Only appears when your property sells in more than one currency. Opens the equivalent in each.
Upload Payment Proof. Attach a receipt, a bank transfer screenshot or a signed authorisation. It stays with the booking.
Custom Fields. Extra questions your property added. Anything with a red asterisk has to be answered before you can confirm.

The foot of the booking summary on the payment step, with a greyed-out Confirm Payment button and a line underneath reading Still required: Purpose of Stay. — When Confirm will not press, the reason is printed directly underneath it.

Confirm Payment creates the booking. If it is grey, the line under it says why, usually a required custom field further down the page, or a deposit schedule whose due date works out in the past. Fix what it names and the button comes alive.

Tentative bookings

A tentative is a booking with a clock on it. The room is held, the guest is pencilled in, and if nobody confirms before the expiry date the hold lapses and the room goes back on sale. Use it for the group organiser who needs to check with their committee, or the guest who will ring back with a card number.

Start one with Create Tentative on the type picker, or New Tentative in the Create New menu. The wizard is the same one, with a single difference at step five: where an ordinary booking offers Upload Payment Proof, a tentative offers Tentative Preferences instead, holding two fields.

Tentative Expiry Date is compulsory. The booking lapses at the end of that day. Prostay refuses to save without it.
Deduct from room inventory decides whether the held room comes off sale in the meantime, across the room count, the channel manager and the booking engine. Answer Yes if you genuinely expect the booking to land; No if you would rather sell the room to the first person who pays and risk having to disappoint the enquirer.

Tentatives appear in the Reservation requests block at the top of the reservation list, with a live countdown, where they can be accepted or declined.

Things that catch people out

The source is empty unless you set it

Worth repeating, because it is the single most common thing to get wrong here and the most annoying to fix later. Nothing in the wizard insists on a reservation source, and a booking without one is missing from every report that splits revenue by channel.

Changing the dates after adding a room does not re-price it

Prices are worked out when you press Add. If you then change the arrival or departure date, search again and add the room again rather than trusting the figure already in the summary.

The currency cannot be changed once a room is in the cart

Booking currency locks as soon as the summary has something in it. If you picked the wrong one, remove every room, set the currency, and add them back.

Two rooms means two lines, not a bigger number

Setting Rooms to two before pressing Add puts two separate lines in the summary. Each can be assigned to a different room number and given a different lead guest at step four. That is deliberate, and it is what makes a two-room family booking work.

Add-on quantity multiplies on top of the charge type

A breakfast on Per Guest Per Night at quantity two charges two breakfasts per guest per night. If the total in the right-hand column looks twice what you expected, quantity is the first place to look.

Creating a reservation