How to setup Confirmation Messages

Beds24 sends a confirmation email automatically for every booking made on your own booking page, and shows a confirmation on screen. You can personalise both in Settings > Guest Management > Confirmation Messages. Customising is optional: the essential booking details are always shown and sent. Manually added bookings and channel bookings don't get this confirmation; use Auto Actions for those.

Table of Contents

1. Which bookings get a confirmation
2. Parts of the confirmation and their order
3. Set up the confirmation message
4. Deposit collection and double confirmations
5. Policies and cancellations
6. Check confirmation emails
7. Troubleshooting

Which bookings get a confirmation

For Auto Action emails, go to Settings > Guest Management > Auto Actions, see Auto Actions and the ready-made setup in Auto Action examples.

By default, emails to guests are sent from Beds24. To send from your own email address, connect your email account in Settings > Account > Outgoing Email (see Outgoing Email). To use different outgoing email addresses for several properties in one account, use sub-accounts.

Parts of the confirmation and their order

A confirmation can combine up to three kinds of message, so you can create specific messages:

• Confirmation Messages: the same text on screen and in the email
• Type Messages: per booking type, the same text on screen and in the email (see Booking Type Messages)
• Period Messages: for near-term bookings and exceptional periods, with separate texts for screen and email (see Booking Period Messages)

The parts are shown in this order:

The email subject is set separately; by default it's "Your Reservation for" followed by the property name. See Booking Email Subject.

Set up the confirmation message

In Settings > Guest Management > Confirmation Messages, enter Booking Confirmation Screen and Email Message (first part) and (last part). The text is shown on screen with the booking details when the guest completes the booking, and included in the confirmation email. You can use Template Variables to include information from the booking.

Tip: At the bottom of the page you can set how much space to leave between the sections.

Booking types: if you've defined booking types in Settings > Properties > Booking Rules or in rates, you can add a message for each type you use:

Booking periods: set up near-term bookings and exceptional periods in Settings > Booking Engine. Each has a screen text and an email text, shown or sent with the booking details when the guest books in that period. Both are optional and can contain template variables.

Deposit collection and double confirmations

If you've set up deposit collection in Settings > Payments > Payment Collection, the Instruction from the deposit collection settings is added to the confirmation message.

If Non Payment Booking Status is set to Request in Settings > Payments > Payment Collection, the guest can receive two confirmations:

1. The first when the guest clicks Confirm Booking, before they pay.
2. For offline payment, a custom gateway or credit card collection: a second message with the payment instruction, if an instruction for this method is entered in Settings > Payments > Payment Gateways (Offline Payment / Credit Card Custom Gateway). It's sent after the guest has paid, entered their card details or accepted to pay offline.

Tip: To send only one confirmation, set Non Payment Booking Status to Cancelled. See also Deposit Collection.

Policies and cancellations

• Enter your policies in Settings > Properties > Description. The template variables [PROPERTYLEGALPOLICY] and [PROPERTYCANCELPOLICY] add this text to the confirmation message. You can also link to the terms and conditions on your website instead.
• If you allow cancellations, add the template variable [CANCELURL] to the confirmation email, so guests can cancel through the system without contacting you.

Check confirmation emails

In Settings > Guest Management > Confirmation Messages > Simulator, see how the complete email looks. Enter a booking number to see the exact text. If you've activated several languages in Settings > Booking Engine > Internationalization, select the language.

To check whether a message was sent to a guest, open the booking and go to the Mail & Actions tab:

• The top section lists the emails. Below it, actions triggered by Auto Actions (SMS, booking changes, booking info codes, invoice and pending payments) are grouped by Auto Action ID.
• You see whether each Auto Action has triggered, when, and the reason if it hasn't triggered yet.
• In the last column you can trigger an action manually or resend an email: click Do Now or Redo.
• If an Auto Action includes an email and other actions, click Send Now or Redo for the email. The pop-up lists the other actions with tick boxes: untick the ones you don't want to run again, or leave all ticked to run them all.

Troubleshooting

Related Articles

• Booking Type Messages
• Booking Period Messages
• Booking Email Subject
• Outgoing Email
• Auto Actions