What is a PMS and what is it for?
It is the system where the truth about your property lives. If two programs say different things about a room, the PMS is the one that wins.
Main functions
- Bookings: creating, amending, cancelling and the history of every stay.
- Availability and rates: how much is free each day and at what price.
- Planner: which room is taken by whom and until when.
- Front desk: arrivals, departures, who is in house and the guest register.
- Housekeeping: what has to be cleaned today and what state each room is in.
- Invoicing: turning a stay into an invoice.
Difference between a PMS and a channel manager
The PMS runs the inside; the channel manager runs the distribution. The short way to remember it: the PMS knows which room Mr Serra is sleeping in; the channel manager knows Booking.com has two doubles left.
Difference between a PMS and an ERP
An ERP runs the whole company — purchasing, stock, payroll, cost accounting — and works for any sector. A PMS runs a property and understands concepts an ERP does not have: room nights, allotment by room type, minimum stay, board basis or the guest register.
What separates a good PMS from one that gives you trouble
It is not the feature list, which is much the same everywhere. It is how the plumbing is built:
- One single path to touch inventory. If OTA bookings and manual bookings take availability off in different places, sooner or later they disagree.
- Auditable automation. If the system moves a rate, you have to be able to see which rule moved it.
- The country’s own regulation included. In Spain, the guest register and certified invoicing should not be two separate products.