Overview

A point-of-sale (POS) system manages orders, process transactions and handles payments across a hotel’s revenue outlets such as restaurants, bars or SPAs. This guide shows you how to connect and set up your POS application with Apaleo, so you can post charges directly onto guest folios or external folios.

The POS integration flow

A POS integration built on Apaleo follows this sequence:

  1. Map sub-accounts and services — fetch the property’s sub-accounts with GET /settings/v1/sub-accounts and service types with GET /finance/v1/types/service-types. Map each POS product category to a service type, VAT type and sub-account.
  2. Map payment methods — fetch the methods enabled for the property with GET /settings/v0-nsfw/properties/{id}/payment-methods. Payments with other methods are rejected.

Then choose the flow depending on whether the sale belongs to an in-house guest or not.

Flow A: Charge to a guest reservation (room charge)

  1. Find the guest and folio — search in-house reservations using name and room number with GET /booking/v1/reservations and respect isOpenForCharges. Then retrieve the guest folio with GET /finance/v1/folios.
  2. Post the charge — post charges to the guest folio with POST /finance/v1/folio-actions/{folioId}/charges.

Flow B: Non-reservation sale (walk-in, paid on the spot)

  1. Create an external folio — call POST /finance/v1/folios with type external.
  2. Post charges and payments — post aggregated charges to POST /finance/v1/folio-actions/{folioId}/charges and aggregated payments to POST /finance/v1/folios/{folioId}/payments.
  3. Close the folio — at end of day or shift, make sure the balance is zero, then call PUT /finance/v1/folio-actions/{folioId}/close. You can post to the previous business date until 6 AM local time.

Key terms

Term What’s this?
POS It’s a system, combining hardware and software, that hotels use to take orders and payments from guests at their revenue outlets such as restaurants, bars, and spas.
Folio The billing account that records charges and payments. See type of folio below.
Transitory charge It is a charge posted to a guest’s folio that is not revenue of the property. It is most commonly used to record tips, but it can be used for any sale made on behalf of a third party.
Sub-account It’s a custom account that a property creates under one of its default accounts in the sub-ledger. It lets charges be booked and reported at a finer level to split revenue into categories that match the property’s accounting setup.
Business date The accounting day a charge or payment is counted against. You can post to the previous business date only until 6 AM local time. Posting to future dates is not allowed.

Types of folio

  • Guest folio: tied to a single reservation. It’s the default place for stay-related charges to land.
  • Booking folio: tied to a booking rather than a single reservation within it. A booking can contain more than one reservation, for example when a guest books multiple rooms for the same stay. Use a booking folio when a charge should apply across the whole booking, such as a group dinner.
  • External folio: not tied to a reservation. Use it for POS charges and payments that don’t belong to an in-house guest, such as a walk-in bar tab.

For more information about folios, we recommend checking out the end-user guide for folios.

Where to go next

Step Guide
Map sub-accounts, services, and outlets Setup and configuration
Post charges to a guest’s reservation Post charges to a guest reservation
Post charges not tied to a reservation Non-reservation charge postings
Certify your POS integration Get certified