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The initial setup only needs to be done once for a distribution channel or partner. See https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714?draftShareId=8f69a08f-5544-476a-b87e-923dc2810a50#Initial-1210482714/Linear+agreements#Initial-setup for more details.
The next step would be to do the setup of the actual linear agreement, this needs to be done for each new agreement and can be repeated as often as necessary. During this flow the user allocates the units/types for the agreement for the agreed periods and a linear contracted rate reservation is created to prepare the invoicing flow.
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The feature flag ‘Linear distribution channel’ should be enabled
Feature flags can only be enabled by Maxxton employees, if it is not yet enabled at your environment, please contact Customer Success to get this enabled.The feature flag ‘NF525 Compliancy’ should be enabled.
Linear agreements are mainly developed for the French market and it depends on the NF525 flow for generating invoices. For that reason, it is a requirement that this feature flag is enabled. Feature flags can only be enabled by Maxxton employees, if it is not yet enabled at your environment, please contact Customer Success to get this enabled.The parent distribution channel that you want to use needs to already exist
Usually distribution channels are created in a tree structure and they all use this parent / child structure. Although not strictly necessary, it is advised to have a parent available for this.The rate type that you want to use for the customer reservations needs to exist
Please note; in most scenarios this is expected to be a 0 rate since the reservation is already paid for with the linear agreement. It is required to have a valid rate type to be able to make the reservation.The reservation category that you want to use for the linear reservations need to exist
Please make sure that this reservation category should be an explicit reservation category configured to be for linear agreements. Since this is a very specific step, it is included at this page as well; see https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714?draftShareId=8f69a08f-5544-476a-b87e-923dc2810a50#Configure1210482714/Linear+agreements#Configure-a-reservation-category-for-use-for-linear-contracted-rate-reservations
Access
There are several permissions required to be able to configure a new distribution channel for a linear agreement:
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In order to reduce manual configuration efforts, it is also possible to configure a dedicated payment term set at the Distribution Channel level with a lower priority, meaning a higher priority number (so as to not apply this rule by default for customer reservations made on that same Distrubtion Channel. By default, the set with the lowest priority is applied). The user could then simply select this lower priority payment term from the list of available terms within the linear contracted rate reservation. More information can be found further down on this page https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714#Changing1210482714/Linear+agreements#Changing-the-payment-terms .
Configuration of a linear agreement
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This flow can only be started from a distribution channel that books from allotment
This flow can only be started from a distribution channel that has the linear setting enabled. This can be done for a touroperator or CSE distribution channel. See https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714?draftShareId=8f69a08f-5544-476a-b87e-923dc2810a50#Configuration1210482714/Linear+agreements#Configuration-of-a-linear-distribution-channel-(first-time-use)
Access
There are several permissions required to be able to configure a new distribution channel for a linear agreement:
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Scroll to the card ‘Allotments', this is the place where you will start with the configuration of the new agreement.
Press the ‘Add allotment’ button in the lower right corner of the card
Follow the steps in the wizard
Enter the name of the allotment or agreement
This is used as the names of the individual allotment pieces that will be created depending on your selection. This makes it easier to find them if you would need to change something in the future.Choose if you want to specify the contract on accommodation type level or on unit level
Important note: both options are supported for a linear distribution channel, however, if you combine this together with individual owners of the units and you would choose for type level, then it is not possible to use the value of the linear agreement to decide the pay-out to the owner. You should either use a purchase/sell setup (where there is no direct relation of the linear agreement and the amount the owner gets and you would configure the owner amount in the contract rules) or you should choose to use unit level.Press ‘Next step'
Select the accommodation types that should be part of the linear agreement
Please note: you can use the filter options on top of the page to find the accommodation types of your liking. For example, use the location, accommodation kind, quality level or (if applicable) accommodation type groups to find the right accommodation types.
Important; it is not possible to link accommodation types that are linked to an accommodation kind that is configured for the use case of work orders. Those accommodation types won’t be available in the list.
It is possible to configure the linear agreement in one go for multiple locations, it will automatically create multiple linear contracted rate reservations of it.Press ‘Next step'
Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement
Now (based on your selection in step b), select either the quantity of units or the speific individual units of the selected types that you want to include.
You can use the filters again to find the right units for the agreement. Please note that there are two tabs available, by default you are looking at the fully available units and it makes sense to use those. However, if you need more or some specific units, don’t forget to look at the second tab that contains the units that are partially available for the selected period.Press ‘Next step'
Add the contract amount per type/unit
If you have chosen for a linear agreement at unit level, it is mandatory to set the contracted amount per unit too. However, the wizard gives you the option to set the value for all the selected units of the same accommodation type at once. After that, you can still choose to override a single units contracted amount. These amount will be used to create the linear contracted rate reservation(s) and eventually the invoices.Press ‘Next step'
You will now see a summary of your full configuration for you to review. Once you are sure this is as expected, then you can press the 'Add allotment' button to generate the linear contracted rate reservations (one per location, combining all accommodation types and units) and the required allotment reservations (one per accommodation type, combining the units if applicable) to allocate the units (or types) for this agreement.
Press ‘Add allotments’ to complete this part of the flow
Please note: if you did configure the notification manager to actually send a notification to the partner automatically once the allotment has been made, then this is the moment that the notification will be sent. The notification will appear in the linear contracted rate reservation, within the communication tab.
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Overview page
It shows all the accommodation types / units part of the agreement
It shows all the reservation memos and gives the option to add a memo
It shows all the instalments generated for this reservation
At the right it shows the (agent) bill with details about the contracted amount
It is possible to process a payment from here, for example if it was done with an offline payment method that is not automatically processed
Distribution channel page
It shows the contact details of the distribution channel
This is useful to know how to contact the channel in case of questions and to validate the details for invoicing.An option to go to the details directly in the Channel Manager
This would require the user to have permission to open a distribution channel in the Channel Manager
It shows an overview of the distribution channel memos
Plus an option to create a new distribution channel memo
Communication page
It shows all the communication sent to the distribution channel for this reservation
Please note: if you have configured the notification manager to send a ‘confirmation’ of the linear agreement automatically, it will show here once it is sent.It gives the option to send an email to the distribution channel using reports
Please note: if you do not want to send a confirmation of the agreement automatically, this would be the way to manually inform them about the details :Press the ‘Send email’ button
Find the report that you would like to use in the wizard
Please note; since a linear contracted rate reservation doesn’t have a customer, the report should use the distribution channel detailsIf it is a test, you can optionally use the ‘Send report to custom email address’ checkbox
Press ‘Email’ to actually send it
Finance page
It shows the full (agent) bill details
It shows the instalments
It is possible to change the instalments, for this see https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714#Changing1210482714/Linear+agreements#Changing-the-payment-terms
It shows the payments
It shows the reminders
It shows the invoices
It is possible to Create credit/new invoices from here. This is useful when the reservation has already been invoiced but a change has been made in the reservation. It will not change the original invoice, instead it will create a credit invoice for the same amount to be credited and a new invoice with all the details of the changed reservation.
Documents page
It will show all the linked documents to the reservation
This will include all the generated invoices tooIt is possible to upload a document if required
History page
It shows all the changes made in the reservation
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Find and open the reservation
See https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714#Viewing1210482714/Linear+agreements#Viewing-the-linear-contracted-rate-reservation for details on how to do thisGo to the ‘Finance’ tab/page
Scroll down to the ‘Instalments’ section
Press the button ‘Change payment terms’ if you want to manually decide the new terms
You can freely add or remove payment terms and decide each value as long as the total is equal to the total of the reservation
Select another payment term set from the drop down in the top left corner if you want to use an existing payment term set
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Changing the agreed upon amount of an agreement after it is configured is still possible, this can be done by following the steps from https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714#Changing1210482714/Linear+agreements#Changing-the-period-of-an-agreement where you would only change the amount and not the start or end date.
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