Page Comparison

Documentation This page is a documentation around the use of linear agreements in Maxxton Software.

...

The linear agreements are focussed on the French market and because of that it is designed and developed with the French market in mind.

Its main purpose is too to be able to invoice the linear agreement separately from the customer reservations and it depends on the NF525-legislation implementation for invoicing.

Main difference between Allotment & Linear

Similar to the allotment method used by partners, linear reservations also use the allotment feature, but the main difference is invoicing. Invoices for linear are typically paid in January. 

• Allotment bookings: Bookings have actual rates which are invoiced to DC, minus commission, via Agent Settlement module. Typically done after checkout.

• Linear bookings: Linear cost should be invoiced to a partner. Invoice is independent from guest stay and is typically invoiced at the beginning of the (fiscal) year (commonly even before arrival).

...

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#Initial1210482714/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.

...

• 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:

...

You could change some optional settings now too, like translations for the reservation category or the color of the reservation category. The last one isn’t that important since linear contracted rate reservations are never shown in the planning chart.

Configuration of a linear distribution channel (first-time use)

If you are setting up a new distribution channel for use with linear for the first time, follow this path to create a new distribution channel: 

...

1. Click Create distribution channel

2. In the following modal window, please enter the following data:

   1. Parent: the parent distribution channel, useful to be able to inherit settings

   2. Name: free type field for the name, important to recognise the channel. This will also be used on invoices.

   3. Code: short language-independent identifier. You can choose the code. It needs to be unique and shouldn’t contain any whitespaces.

   4. Description: (optional) free description of the channel, place to be able to include details if necessary.

   5. Currency: choose the mandatory currency

   6. Type: Choose the type of the distribution channel. Please note that if you want to use the channel for linear agreements, it needs to be either 'Touroperator' or 'Comité d’entreprise'

      1. Once one of these types is selected, you can select the option to configure the channel to be of the type linear. Don’t forget to enable it, this can only be done during the creation of the distribution channel.

   7. Allotment use: As soon as you have selected the type linear, it will automatically select ‘Book only from allotment’ since that is the only combination allowed.

   8. Select Next step

      

3. Select applicable rate types for this distribution channel
   Please note; that this will be the rate type that will be used for creating the reservations for customers, so this will commonly be a rate type that will have 0 rates since the stays are paid as part of the agreement instead of per reservation.

4. Configure inventory for the new distribution channel
   It would be up to you to decide how to configure the inventory, all the options offered in the workflow are supported for the linear channel as well. However, best practice would be to create a distribution channel group ‘Linear’ and add all the linear DCs in that group. If that distribution channel group is already added to the representation of (some, all, many) accommodation types, that would mean the suggested approach for adding another Linear channel is to use the distribution channel group to configure the inventory for the new channel. This would avoid a lot of manual work.
   

...

5. Select reservation categories
   Now it is important to select at least two categories here; one linear and one regular for the guest stays.

6. Press finish to create the distribution channel
   You are now done, but please note that depending on the selections made in the inventory step, it might take some time to fully complete the process. It will run in the background though so you don’t need to wait for this.

Configuration of a linear agreement

Prerequisites

• 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#Configuration-of-a-linear-channel-(first-time-use)

Access

There are several permissions required to be able to configure a new distribution channel for a linear agreement:

• Channel Manager permission

• Channel Manager - Distribution Channels permission

Conceptual flow

...

With each linear agreement that you make with a channel, you will need to go through the allotment flow. In case the distribution channel is configured to be a linear distribution channel, the flow for the allotment will work slightly different compared to the normal allotment flow. However, the allotment still plays an important role.

In the flow diagram above you can see the different steps that need to be taken. The blue steps are user actions and the yellow steps are the automatic (behind-the-scenes) actions that follow from this action.

Important to realise is that in a linear agreement there are three different types of reservations that play an important role:

• linear contracted rate reservation; this type of reservation is used to store the financial agreement, the amount that the channel will pay for keeping the inventory available to the channel (regardless the usage of these periods). It is also the starting point for the invoice generation. It does not hold availability and does overlap with the allotment reservation or guest reservation. It will not show in the planning chart.

• Allotment reservation; this type of reservation is used to allocate the actual units/types for the distribution channel. An allotment reservation is visible in the planning chart but does not hold any financial information. It is holding the availability until a guest reservation is made, then it will go away (partially).

• (guest) reservation; this is actually a normal reservation that holds the guest stay. Important for guest registration, arrivals, departure and housekeeping. Could also be used to charge the additional costs to the customer (if any, like linen). It will show on the planning chart and will replace the allotment reservation.

Creating a new agreement from start

Configuring the allotment

Configuring a new linear agreement in Maxxton Software starts in the Channel manager from the details page of a distribution channel.

So to get started:
Maxxton Software home screen → Channel Manager → Distribution Channels → Select the distribution channel you want to add an agreement to.

From there you will need to take the following steps:

1. Scroll to the card ‘Allotments', this is the place where you will start with the configuration of the new agreement.

2. Press the ‘Add allotment’ button in the lower right corner of the card

3. Follow the steps in the wizard

   1. 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.

   2. 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.

   3. Press ‘Next step'

   4. 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.
      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.

   5. Press ‘Next step'

   6. Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement

   7. Now select the 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.

   8. Press ‘Next step'

   9. 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.

   10. Press ‘Next step'

   11. 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.

   12. Press ‘Add allotments’ to complete this part of the flow
       Please note: if you did configure the notification manager to actually sent a

Viewing the linear contracted rate reservation

Once you have configured the allotment, Maxxton Software will, at the same time, generate the linear contracted rate reservations. The purpose of the reservations is to be able to invoice the channel for the contracted amounts.

It is a new type of reservation, but still it is a reservation. That means that it is possible to open the linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager.

...

Please note that opening a linear contracted rate reservation requires the user to have permission to be allowed to view linear reservations. This can be configured using the following two permissions:

...

With these permissions, you can manage if a user is still allowed to make changes after it is invoiced (which uses the checked_out status).

There are two possible ways to view a linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager:

1. The first and most logical way from the current flow, is to open the reservation directly from the Channel Manager.

   1. Go to the allotments section of the distribution channel

   2. Select the allotment that you want to view the linear contracted reservation of

   3. The side panel with the details opens, showing details of the linear contracted rate reservation linked to the selected allotment

   4. By clicking on the reservation number, it will open the linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager
      Please note; since a linear contracted rate reservation is created per location and the allotments are created per accommodation type, you may notice that allotments of different types at the same location will refer to the same single linear contracted rate reservation.

   5. You can now see all the details of the linear contracted rate reservations
      Please note; as you can see, there are some changes made to the view of a reservation for the linear contracted rate reservation. There are less options available to avoid confusion from the user. An important difference to be mentioned is that there is no customer for a linear contracted rate reservation. Instead, you’ll find a distribution channel tab with the details of the distribution channel. These details will be used to invoice the channel.

2. The other way to open a linear contracted rate reservation is to be search it in the reservation manager. If the user has the mentioned permissions above, it will be able to find the linear contracted rate reservations as any other reservation, for example by reservation number. A suggested flow (but you can use the filters that you prefer or know at the time);

   1. Go to ‘Search Reservation’ in the Reservation Manager

   2. In the section ‘Reservation’ there is a filter ‘Type of reservation’, the option ‘Linear’ is added to only show the linear reservations.
      Please note: If you don’t see this permission, either the whole linear feature flag might be disabled or you don’t have the correct permissions to search for them.

   3. In the same section, you can find the ‘Distribution channel’ filter, that can be very useful for finding the linear contracted rate reservations for a specific channel.

   4. If you still have (too) many results, it can be useful to go to the ‘Dates’ section and apply some date filers, like stay dates

   5. In the result sections, select the reservation that you are looking for.

While looking around in a reservation, you’ll notice that there are less options available compared to a regular guest stay reservation. These are the things that are supported for a linear contracted rate reservation.

• Overview page

  • It shows all the accommodation types / units part of the agreement

  • It shows all the reservation memos and gives to 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 sent a confirmation of the agreement automatically, this would be the way to manual 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 details

    • If 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#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 too

  • It is possible to upload a document if required

• History page

  • It shows all the changes made in the reservation

Changing the payment terms

When you are in the middle of the process of creating the invoice, you might want to decide to change the default payment terms. That is possible too and can be done from the linear contracted rate reservation in the Reservation Manager.

1. Find and open the reservation
   See https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/edit-v2/1210482714#Viewing-the-linear-contracted-rate-reservation for details on how to do this

2. Go to the ‘Finance’ tab/page

3. Scroll down to the ‘Instalments’ section

4. Press the button ‘Change payment terms’ if you want to manually decide the new terms

   1. 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

5. Select another payment term set from the drop down in the top left corner if you want to use an existing payment term set

Adding (a) new unit(s) to the agreement

Once you have a linear agreement in the system, it will be stored as a combination of linear contracted rate reservation(s) and allotment(s) (depending on the number of accommodation types and locations).

By going to the list of the allotments, you can select one and add a unit to that agreement. This can be done by following these steps:

1. Go to the ‘Channel Manager’

2. Go to the module ‘Distribution channels’

3. Find the distribution channel of the linear agreement that you want to add a unit to

4. Scroll down to the ‘Allotments’ card.

5. Find the correct allotment
   To do so, please note that the default filter is only showing the current year, please change that if necessary. You can use the other filters to find your allotment.
   In the table, you can see for what location and accommodation type an allotment is.

6. Click on the row of the allotment that you want to add an unit to

7. A side panel will show with the details, to add a unit click on the ‘Add units’ button

8. First a summary of the allotment is shown, just to inform you that you are adding something to the correct allotment. Only thing required here is to validate that it is indeed the correct one.

9. Press ‘Next step’

10. Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement
    It is not strictly necessary to use the exact same dates as the original agreement, you can use different dates if required.

11. Now select the 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.

12. Press ‘Next step'

13. 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.

14. Press ‘Next step'

15. 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. Removing an existing unit from the agreement

Changing the period of an agreement

Once you have a linear agreement in the system, it will be stored as a combination of linear contracted rate reservation(s) and allotment(s) (depending on the number of accommodation types and locations).

By going to the list of the allotments, you can select one and shorten the period of that unit in the agreement. This can be done by following these steps:

...

Go to the ‘Channel Manager’

...

Go to the module ‘Distribution channels’

...

Find the distribution channel of the linear agreement that you want to add a unit to

...

Scroll down to the ‘Allotments’ card.

...

Add (invoice) address for a distribution channel

Since linear contracted reservations won’t have a customer, the distribution channel details will be used to send the confirmation or invoice to. To make sure that this is possible, please configure the address of the distribution channel. The NF525 invoice will automatically be sent to the invoice address and if that is not configured, it will fall back to the (normal) address.

Steps to take:

1. Go to Channel Manager → Distribution channels

2. Open the distribution channel

3. Click on the ‘Address’ button

4. A side panel will show;

   1. Click ‘Create new address’ for a new mailing address and follow the steps

   2. Click the toggle button next to ‘Configure address’ in the Invoice address section to configure an invoice address

Setup payment terms for the distribution channel (optional)

Per distribtuion channel, it is possible to configure payment terms which decide when payments (also called installments) need to be made by clients or partners.

More information on Payment Terms can be found here https://maxxton.atlassian.net/l/cp/Z6a0Q9x5

Specifcally for the linear future, technically, 2 seperate payment terms would be required, one for the partner and another one for the guest reservations (made on the same Distribution Channel).

However, since linear contracted rate reservations do not contain guest data or information, it is possible to not configure any payment terms at the distribution channel level specifically for the partner payments and simply create / modify the default rules within a linear contracted rate reservation to fit with the payments expected from the partner.

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/1210482714/Linear+agreements#Changing-the-payment-terms .

Configuration of a linear agreement

Prerequisites

• 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/1210482714/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:

• Channel Manager permission

• Channel Manager - Distribution Channels permission

Conceptual flow

...

With each linear agreement that you make with a channel, you will need to go through the allotment creation flow. In case the distribution channel is configured to be a linear distribution channel, the flow for the allotment creation will work slightly different compared to the normal allotment flow. However, the allotment still plays an important role.

In the flow diagram above you can see the different steps that need to be taken. The blue steps are user actions and the yellow steps are the automatic (behind-the-scenes) actions that follow from this action.

Important to realise is that in a linear agreement there are three different types of reservations that play an important role:

• linear contracted rate reservation; this type of reservation is used to store the financial agreement, the amount that the channel will pay for keeping the inventory available to the channel (regardless of the usage for these periods). It is also the starting point for the invoice generation. It does not hold availability and does overlap with the allotment reservation or guest reservation. It will not show in the planning chart.

• Allotment reservation; this type of reservation is used to allocate the actual units/types for the distribution channel. An allotment reservation is visible in the planning chart but does not hold any financial information. It is holding the availability until a guest reservation is made, then it will go away (either partially or fully, depending on the period for which the guest reservation(s) is / have been made).

• (guest) reservation; this is actually a normal reservation that holds the guest stay. Important for guest registration, arrivals, departure and housekeeping. Could also be used to charge the additional costs to the customer (if any, like linen). It will show on the planning chart and will replace the allotment reservation.

Creating a new agreement from start

Configuring the allotment

Configuring a new linear agreement in Maxxton Software starts in the Channel manager from the details page of a distribution channel.

So to get started:
Maxxton Software home screen → Channel Manager → Distribution Channels → Select the distribution channel you want to add an agreement to.

From there you will need to take the following steps:

1. Scroll to the card ‘Allotments', this is the place where you will start with the configuration of the new agreement.

2. Press the ‘Add allotment’ button in the lower right corner of the card

3. Follow the steps in the wizard

   1. 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.

   2. 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.

   3. Press ‘Next step'

   4. 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.

   5. Press ‘Next step'

   6. Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement

   7. 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.

   8. Press ‘Next step'

   9. 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.

   10. Press ‘Next step'

   11. 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.

   12. 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.

Managing a linear agreement

Viewing the linear contracted rate reservation

Once you have configured the allotment, Maxxton Software will, at the same time, generate the linear contracted rate reservations. The purpose of the reservations is to be able to invoice the channel for the contracted amounts.

It is a new type of reservation, but still it is a reservation. That means that it is possible to open the linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager.

There are two possible ways to view a linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager:

1. The first and most logical way from the current flow, is to open the reservation directly from the Channel Manager.

   1. Go to the allotments section of the distribution channel

   2. Select the allotment that you want to view the linear contracted reservation of

   3. The side panel with the details opens, showing details of the linear contracted rate reservation linked to the selected allotment

   4. By clicking on the reservation number (it will show in blue, similar to a link), it will open the linear contracted rate reservation in the reservation manager.
      Please note; since a linear contracted rate reservation is created per location and the allotments are created per accommodation type, you may notice that allotments of different types at the same location will refer to the same single linear contracted rate reservation.

   5. You can now see all the details of the linear contracted rate reservations
      Please note; as you can see, there are some changes made to the view of a reservation for the linear contracted rate reservation. There are less options available to avoid confusion from the user. An important difference to be mentioned is that there is no customer for a linear contracted rate reservation. Instead, you’ll find a distribution channel tab with the details of the distribution channel. These details will be used to invoice the channel.

2. The other way to open a linear contracted rate reservation is to search it in the reservation manager. If the user has the mentioned permissions above, they will be able to find the linear contracted rate reservations as any other reservation, for example by reservation number. A suggested flow (but you can use the filters that you prefer or know at the time);

   1. Go to ‘Search Reservation’ in the Reservation Manager

   2. In the section ‘Reservation’ there is a filter ‘Type of reservation’, the option ‘Linear’ is added to only show the linear reservations.
      Please note: If you don’t see this permission, either the whole linear feature flag might be disabled or you don’t have the correct permissions to search for them.

   3. In the same section, you can find the ‘Distribution channel’ filter, that can be very useful for finding the linear contracted rate reservations for a specific channel.

   4. If you still have (too) many results, it can be useful to go to the ‘Dates’ section and apply some date filers, like stay dates

   5. In the result sections, select the reservation that you are looking for.

While looking around in a reservation, you’ll notice that there are less options available compared to a regular guest stay reservation. These are the things that are supported for a linear contracted rate reservation.

• 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 details

    • If 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/1210482714/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 too

  • It is possible to upload a document if required

• History page

  • It shows all the changes made in the reservation

Changing the payment terms

When you are in the middle of the process of creating the invoice, you might want to decide to change the default payment terms. That is possible too and can be done from the linear contracted rate reservation in the Reservation Manager.

1. Find and open the reservation
   See https://maxxton.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TP/pages/1210482714/Linear+agreements#Viewing-the-linear-contracted-rate-reservation for details on how to do this

2. Go to the ‘Finance’ tab/page

3. Scroll down to the ‘Instalments’ section

4. Press the button ‘Change payment terms’ if you want to manually decide the new terms

   1. 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

5. Select another payment term set from the drop down in the top left corner if you want to use an existing payment term set

Adding (a) new unit(s) to the agreement

Once you have a linear agreement in the system, it will be stored as a combination of linear contracted rate reservation(s) and allotment(s) (depending on the number of accommodation types and locations).

By going to the list of the allotments, you can select one and add a unit to that agreement. This can be done by following these steps:

1. Go to the ‘Channel Manager’

2. Go to the module ‘Distribution channels’

3. Find the distribution channel of the linear agreement that you want to add a unit to

4. Scroll down to the ‘Allotments’ card.

5. Find the correct allotment
   To do so, please note that the default filter is only showing the allotments for the current year, please change that if necessary. You can use the other filters to find your allotment.
   In the table, you can see for what location and accommodation type an allotment is made.

6. Click on the row of the allotment that you want to add an unit to

7. A side panel will show with the details, to add a unit click on the pencil icon ( Image Removed )

8. You will now be guided through a (short) wizard

   1. You can see the current start and end date and can use the date picker to choose a new start and/or end date.
      Please note: when you’re shortening the period it is always possible to do so, please keep in mind that it is also possible to extend the period. This is not always possible due to other reservations or allotments. If it is possible or not, can be seen by the status badge. This indicates if the unit is available for the newly selected period

   2. Since the linear agreement is always a unique agreement and it is likely that with a change of the period, the contracted amount will change too, there is the possibility to directly change the amount. The current amount is visible and it is up to the user to select the new value.

9. Press the ‘Save changes’ button to confirm your changes
   Important note; this change in the allotment will automatically be reflected in the linear contracted rate reservations. In case the linear contracted rate reservation is already invoiced, then you would be able to generate a credit/new invoice from there or else this will be done at night automatically. This is done to avoid many new invoices when you are making several changes.

Changing the amount of a linear agreement

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#Changing-the-period-of-an-agreement where you would only change the amount and not the start or end date.

Generating the invoice

The idea behind the linear agreements is that the phase of configuring the allotment and actually invoicing the allotment will be two different flows with the main reason that this will typically happen at different times as well.

For example, if you would configure the linear agreement in Sept 2024, for stays in July / August 2025, then the expectation is that invoicing is typically done in Jan 2025.

Important to know is that the invoice should be generated only in the same fiscal year as the stay.

Generating an invoice is using the implementation for the NF525 legislation and it is working based on the reservation status change, when the reservation goes to the status checked_out the invoice is generated.

Since this is typically done before departure of the stay (and even often before check in), the button has been renamed to ‘Confirm and generate invoices’

Dependencies & Impacts

Dependencies

• Linear is depending on the NF525 feature flag

...

1. ‘Add units’ button

2. First a summary of the allotment is shown, just to inform you that you are adding something to the correct allotment. Only thing required here is to validate that it is indeed the correct one.

3. Press ‘Next step’

4. Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement
   It is not strictly necessary to use the exact same dates as the original agreement, you can use different dates if required.

5. Now select the 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.

6. Press ‘Next step'

7. 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 amounts will be used to create the linear contracted rate reservation(s) and eventually the invoices.

8. Press ‘Next step'

9. 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.

Removing an existing unit from the agreement

To remove a unit from the linear agreement, the steps are quite similar to the ones shared above for adding one. This can be done by following these steps:

1. Go to the ‘Channel Manager’

2. Go to the module ‘Distribution channels’

3. Find the distribution channel of the linear agreement that you want to add a unit to

4. Scroll down to the ‘Allotments’ card.

5. Find the correct allotment
   To do so, please note that the default filter is only showing the allotments for the current year, please change that if necessary. You can use the other filters to find your allotment.
   In the table, you can see for what location and accommodation type an allotment is made.

6. Click on the row of the allotment that you want to add an unit to

7. A side panel will show with the details, to remove a unit click on the ‘Remove units’ button

8. Select the date range that you want to add to the agreement
   It is not strictly necessary to use the exact same dates as the original agreement, you can use different dates if required.

9. Now select the units of the selected types that you want to include.
   You can use the filters again to find the right units for the agreement.

10. Press ‘Next step'

11. Once the units that you wish to remove has been selected, the system checks if the removal of these units will cause a split in the existing allotment periods. This is displayed via an informative message to the user.

12. If there are no split periods found the user can simply proceed with the removal of the units by clicking on “Remove unit”.

13. However, if split periods are found, the user will need to fill in the unit contract amount for each resulting period in order to continue.
    This makes sure that the new periods of the linear contracted rate agreement that resulted because of the unit removal are still financially accounted for.

Changing the period of an agreement

Once you have a linear agreement in the system, it will be stored as a combination of linear contracted rate reservation(s) and allotment(s) (depending on the number of accommodation types and locations).

By going to the list of the allotments, you can select one and shorten the period of that unit in the agreement. This can be done by following these steps:

1. Go to the ‘Channel Manager’

2. Go to the module ‘Distribution channels’

3. Find the distribution channel of the linear agreement that you want to add a unit to

4. Scroll down to the ‘Allotments’ card.

5. Find the correct allotment
   To do so, please note that the default filter is only showing the current year, please change that if necessary. You can use the other filters to find your allotment.
   In the table, you can see for what location and accommodation type an allotment is.

6. Click on the row of the allotment that you want to add an unit to

7. A side panel will show with the details, to edit the allotment period click on the pencil icon ( Image Added )

8. You will now be guided through a (short) wizard

   1. You can see the current start and end date and can use the date picker to choose a new start and/or end date.
      Please note: when you’re shortening the period it is always possible to do so, but please keep in mind that it is also possible to extend the period. This is not always possible due to other reservations or allotments. If it is possible or not, can be seen by the status badge. This indicates if the unit is available for the newly selected period

   2. Since the linear agreement is always a unique agreement and it is likely that with a change of the period, the contracted amount will change too, there is the possibility to directly change the amount. The current amount is visible and it is up to the user to select the new value.

9. Press the ‘Save changes’ button to confirm your changes
   Important note; this change in the allotment will automatically be reflected in the linear contracted rate reservations. In case the linear contracted rate reservation is already invoiced, then you would be able to generate a credit/new invoice from there or else this will be done at night automatically. This is done to avoid many new invoices when you are making several changes.

Changing the amount of a linear agreement

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/1210482714/Linear+agreements#Changing-the-period-of-an-agreement where you would only change the amount and not the start or end date.

Generating the invoice

The idea behind the linear agreements is that the phase of configuring the allotment and actually invoicing the allotment will be two different flows with the main reason that this will typically happen at different times as well.

For example, if you would configure the linear agreement in Sept 2024, for stays in July / August 2025, then the expectation is that invoicing is typically done in Jan 2025.

Important to know is that the invoice should be generated only in the same fiscal year as the stay.

Generating an invoice is using the implementation for the NF525 legislation and it is working based on the reservation status change, when the reservation goes to the status checked_out, the invoice is generated.

Since this is typically done before departure of the stay (and even often before check in), the button has been renamed to ‘Confirm and generate invoices’.

This is separated from the flow of creating the agreement/allotments since usually this is done at a different time than the invoice generation.

Generating the invoice can be done in two different ways:

1. From the distribution channel in the Channel Manager
   When you are working with the details of a distribution channel already, it is likely that you already have the distribution channel in front of you in the channel manager. If you want to invoice one single linear reservation for this channel, then it is the best to use this flow

   1. Go to the ‘Allotments’ section

   2. Use the filters to find the allotment belonging to the linear reservation that you want to invoice

   3. Select the allotment by clicking on the row

   4. A side panel will open with the details of the allotment with a section about the linear contracted rate reservation

   5. Click on the reservation number of the linear contracted rate reservation

   6. The linear contracted rate reservation will now open in the reservation manager

   7. If the reservation isn’t invoiced yet, the status will be ‘provisional’ and at the overview page, there will be a button ‘Confirm and generate invoices’

   8. Press that button. It will change the reservation status to ‘Checked out’ and a background process will be triggered to generate the invoices

   9. Go to the ‘Finance’ tab in the reservation

   10. Scroll down to the Invoices section and there you can find the generated invoices
       Please note that the invoices are generated in a background process, it might take a short time for them to become available.

2. From the Reservation manager, using search reservations (can be done in bulk)
   This process/flow is very useful when you want to generate more than one invoice at once, for example in the beginning of the fiscal year / January, if you want to generate all invoices for the stays in that year at once. To be able to do this flow:

   1. Go to the 'Reservation Manager'

   2. Open the ‘Search reservation' module

   3. Use the filters to find the appropriate reservations

      1. Make sure to always search with the reservation status ‘provisional’ otherwise the change status function in the bulk update won’t be available

      2. Make sure to include the reservation type ‘linear’ in your filter to easily find the linear contracted rate reservations
         Please note: if you don’t have this reservation type in your filter list, then this can be a result of the feature flag that is not enabled or that you don’t have permission to see linear reservations.

      3. Optionally, use other filters like the distribution channel(s) and/or arrival/stay dates

   4. When the right set of reservations is found, select them (or a subselect of these that you want to invoice)

   5. Press the ‘More’ button at the bottom of the page

   6. Select ‘Update selected reservation(s)’

   7. Select the action ‘Modify reservation status’

   8. Select the ‘Checked out’ status and finish the wizard

   9. A background process will generate the invoices which can then be found in the ‘Finance’ tab of the selected reservations.

Templates used for invoice generation

The templates that are used for invoice generation are currently custom built by the Maxxton’s Templates team. Please reach out to Customer Success if you wish to set up or modify these templates.

Dependencies & Impacts

Dependencies

Please see below for a list of dependencies for the linear feature :

• NF525 feature flag

• Distribution Channel

• Location(s)

• Accommodation(s)

• Allotments (for blocking availability)

• Rentabiity (for guest stays on the created allotments)

Impacts

Please see below for a list of impacts related to the linear feature :

• Accommodation type / unit availability

• Prices

• Notifications (guest & / or Distribution Channel)

• Financial impact (once invoices are generated, they will appear in Revenue Distribution reports)

Conclusion

You are all set ! You are now ready to use the linear feature which allows to block accommodation type / unit availability for a fixed price, regardless of the number of reservations made. If you have more questions regarding this feature that are not covered in this article, please reach out to the Maxxton Customer Success team for more information.