Hotel PMS — The Operating Guide

How to use this guide

Read the six sections in order if you are buying a system for the first time. If you already run a PMS, start with the implementation and contract sections; they are where most projects fail.

Use the guide to write your own requirements list. The vendor demo should answer your scenarios, not the vendor's script.

Common mistakes

The common mistakes are buying features instead of fit, skipping the data cleanup and treating the first month as an afterthought.

A PMS is not a project that ends at go-live. It is an operating system that has to survive the first month-end and the first staff change.

• No written requirements
• Untested interfaces
• Unclean data
• No named owner
• No first-close plan

What to read next

If you are buying, read the cost and comparison guides next. If you already run a PMS, read the integration and migration guides.

• Hotel PMS cost
• Hotel PMS comparison
• Migration guide
• Integration guide

How this guide is maintained

The guide is reviewed when the product, the pricing model or the interface set changes. The update date is visible on the page.

Reference project

A 120-room independent hotel with two outlets, a legacy PMS and two OTA connections is the reference project for this guide. The scope, the cutover and the first close are described in the article.

Use it as a comparison, not a template. Your property will have different interfaces, data and people.

• Two-week discovery
• Three-week configuration
• Supervised first audit
• First month-end review

Before you commit

Check the data, the interfaces and the first-close plan before you sign. The demo is the easy part; the operating commitments decide the project.

• Written requirements
• Named project owner
• Tested interfaces
• Reconciliation plan
• First-close support