Accoministration 'try it out'

Welcome to the Accoministration 'Try it out' pages

Thank you for choosing to 'try out' our website. From here you can see all the pages of the actual site and change clients and bookings that have been set up ready for you to modify them, delete them, or add new ones.

How is this different to the 'real' website?

Virtually everything on these pages works in exactly the same way it would if you were using the system for your own property with your own clients. Everything is set up with clients, bookings, payments etc. so you can see how things will work once your own system has been up and running for a while. The only differences are where we have had to adjust things in order to make the examples actually work:

Client and guest names are made up.
Client addresses are all blanked out.
Client phone numbers and postcodes are just randomly made up.
Client emails are all virtually the same with a fictional address.
The date is always the 13th July 2013.

Can I change what I like or are there limits?

All of these examples are reset every day, so any changes you make will be erased - change what you like, this is the place to see how easy the system is to use and try things out. If you are already a user of Accoministration, you can of course use this to check changes you plan to make to your own set up, with no risk.

What do I need to know before I start?

Each of the links (the underlined text on the left) go to a different page and by clicking on any of them you can see the different details that are held. You may just want to start clicking and find your own way around, but we recommend you skim this page as it has a few more tips to help you get to know Accoministration as quickly as possible.

Where do I start? - with the pages that relate to individual clients...

The contents list to the left gives you access to all the pages of the site. Each page allows you to add, change or delete details as it would for your own company. The page you are reading is the first page - the 'Introduction' at the top, so to return here just click that word.

Most pages have a 'Help' button at the top - if you click it the page will show lots of additional pink text explaining how the page works: key fields, buttons and the page in general. The bright pink colour has been chosen specifically so that you can see at a glance what is help text and what is part of the normal page. The help works in the same way every time and the page still functions whether or not the help text is displayed - you can click help on and off while you fill in data or change things.

To hide the pink text, just click on the 'Help' button again.

Let's get started: First click on 'Clients' below - this is the same as if you clicked it in the contents list, but the one below has been set up to open a new tab (or window depending on your browser) so that you can swap between that page and this one. The new page will show a list of the clients that have bookings in the current year. Click the 'Help' button on that page and use that to guide you through how the page works.

Clients

Once you are familiar with the clients page, select a client and use the contents list or the 'Next' button to go go the 'Reservations' page where you can see the reservation(s) for the client. If you'd like to go through each detail for the client then 'Communication' shows you each time there's been contact with the client; 'Costs and charges' shows everything the client has bought; 'Guests' shows everyone staying in the accommodation; 'Pets' shows any pets, and 'Payments' is a record of payments that the client has made.

If you just want to see a summary of all this for the client then 'Client summary' is the place to go - an easily printed summary of one reservation for the client. Take a look at the print preview of the 'Client summary' and you'll see that it's been properly prepared - all the unnecessary things like the contents list and buttons are not printed.

If you need a bill for the client, then the 'Client bill' does just that - including all your company details and whatever else you need to add to the bill. Again, this is set up for printing.

How do I manage my business? - with pages summarising things so you know what's happening.

Below the client pages, the 'Reports' section allows you to see overviews of your clients and bookings.

Start with the 'Booking summary' report, this shows all your accommodation units with a colour-coded view of all the reservations that are active. Remember that the 'Help' is there to explain all the details of what this report can do for you.

The 'Next actions' report is your 'to do' list. It lists reservations by the date of the next action needed so you can see for example if you need to call someone, or are expecting a payment, or if they are due to contact you.

The list of bookings shows you a summary of bookings in the order they are due to arrive.

Why are some reports and pages indented to the right?

These are financial reports that you may wish to keep more private. If you do, then you can set up your own 'Client' users who can only see the client pages and summary reports mentioned above.

You can also define 'Company' users who can see the financial reports (like the 'Income forecast report'), but only you as the administrator can see the 'Configuration' pages listed at the bottom. This is all explained on the 'Users' page.

What about configuring things for my own company? How do I do that?

We have a specific page set up to take you through setting up your company for the first time, so rather than repeating it here just click on the 'Company Setup' page it will explain all the configuration screens to you.

Contents