Non-reservation charge postings

apaleo uses external folios to record all POS transactions that are not added to a guest reservation. For example, suppose someone orders drinks and food at the bar and settles immediately by cash or card, rather than adding it to their reservation or someone who is not staying at your hotel orders a drink at the bar. In that case, these charges and payments are added to the external folio.

External folios

The hotel can decide whether the POS needs to create an external folio for each POS outlet or have a separate POS outlet (property).

If the POS is an external entity (not owned by the hotel), it is recommended that the POS outlet is created as separate property so that it is easy to separate the revenue and operations from the core operations.

Custom sub-accounts and external folios

If you want to create an external folio for each POS outlet, then you can name it like “SDXE-SKYBAR-20220526” and create sub-accounts to which you can post the charges.

You can create custom-accounts such as “Skybar Food”, “Skybar Alcohol”, “Skybar Beverages”, and so on.

External folios work the same as folios for reservations. You can create one by calling,

POST /finance/v1/folios

and specifying external as the type and adding your custom code so that it is easy to find it later. After that, you can post charges and payments.

Once you have created the external folio to use, you can perform different actions. The most useful being:

POST /finance/v1/folio-actions/{folioId}/charges
POST /finance/v1/folios/{folioId}/payments

The folio balance should always have a zero balance.

Post charges

Post a single charge with the correct amount, VAT, and service type on the external folio. It has to be aggregated per day by VAT type and product group (sub-account).

You must post the charge to the current or previous business date (you can post to the previous business day only until 6 AM local time), and you cannot add charges to the future dates.

You must not post on-the-room charges here. They are only posted to the guest folios.

You can post charges for food, alcoholic beverages, and non-alcoholic beverage as follows:

Food:

{
   "serviceType":"FoodAndBeverages",
   "vatType":"Normal",
   "subAccountId":"SDXE-3100",
   "name":"Food - SDXE-3100",
   "amount":{
      "amount":"800.0",
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "businessDate":"2022-06-19"
}

Alcoholic beverages:

{
   "serviceType":"FoodAndBeverages",
   "vatType":"Normal",
   "subAccountId":"SDXE-3101",
   "name":"Alcoholic Beverage - SDXE-3101",
   "amount":{
      "amount":"2600.0",
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "businessDate":"2022-06-19"
}

Non-alcoholic beverages:

{
   "serviceType":"FoodAndBeverages",
   "vatType":"Normal",
   "subAccountId":"SDXE-3102",
   "name":"Non-alcoholic Beverage - SDXE-3102",
   "amount":{
      "amount":"4500.0",
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "businessDate":"2022-06-19"
}

Tip:

{
   "serviceType":"FoodAndBeverages",
   "vatType":"Without",
   "subAccountId":"SDXE-3107",
   "name":"TIP - SDXE-3107",
   "amount":{
      "amount":"300.0",
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "businessDate":"2022-06-19"
}

When posting the charges, make sure that they are posted in an aggregated manner at the end of the shift. Aggregate the charges by VAT type and product group (sub-account). If the shift ends at 2 AM, you can explicitly specify the previous day as the correct business date for which the charges and payments should be counted. Post the amount aggregated per day over the payment method on the payment endpoint.

You can post to the previous business day only until 6 AM.

Post payments

First, You need to map POS payments methods with apaleo. Then you can use the following endpoint to post payments to the external folio.

POST /finance/v1/folios/{folioId}/payments

Folios can’t handle large numbers of charges or payments, so it’s best to limit them to 100.

You can post payments for each payment method as follows:

Amex:

{
   "method":"Amex",
   "amount":{
      "amount":3300,
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "receipt":"SDXE-SKYBAR-20220526",
   "businessDate":"2022-06-20"
}

Cash:

{
   "method":"Cash",
   "amount":{
      "amount":1500,
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "receipt":"SDXE-SKYBAR-20220526",
   "businessDate":"2022-06-20"
}

MasterCard:

{
   "method":"MasterCard",
   "amount":{
      "amount":3700,
      "currency":"EUR"
   },
   "receipt":"SDXE-SKYBAR-20220526",
   "businessDate":"2022-06-20"
}

End of shift/day report

The external folio on the hotel property or POS property needs to account for all the aggregated (combined- not individual) charges and payments at the end of each day or shift.

You can also add a code to the folio so that it is easy to find. For example, the code could be DAY20200618 for the external folio related to June 18th, 2020.

The hotel defines the shift timings in the POS. If the shift ends at 2 AM, you can explicitly specify the previous day as the correct business date for which the charges and payments should be counted. Post the amount aggregated per day over the payment method on the payment endpoint.

You can post to the previous business day only until 6 AM local time. For example, you can post charges and payments for 20-02-2021 till 6 AM on 21-02-2021.

Close a folio

When the folio becomes very large, it’s best to close it. After closing, no more charges can be added or changed in the folio, and it becomes a document.

PUT /finance/v1/folio-actions/{folioId}/close