How to choose the best hotel software

The best hotel software allows you to integrate all your essential services, such as bookings, invoicing, accounting, guest management, price setting, inventory and much more. Often cloud based to provide on-the-go access to your databases, it is vital that you select the right type of software that is easy to use and covers all your needs.

Even if you are ready to upgrade your software management system, it can be difficult to identify the right hotel management software for your needs.

 So to help you make the right decision for your hotel’s needs here are five features that you might find essential.

1. Matching your hotel’s needs: Whilst most hotel software packages feature an online booking engine, as well as invoicing, accounting and reservation databases, you might want to integrate other services as well. These may include separate databases for the restaurant, bar and spa, however not all software will allow you to integrate different services. This is why you need to thoroughly research the available software before making your final decision. 
2. Scalable software: You need hotel software that will scale up as your business grows. This ensures that you don’t need to migrate to a new system, simply because your existing software can no longer cope with your level of business. For example, you might need to integrate third party services or increase the storage space required by your databases, and you would expect your software to accommodate these growing needs.
3. Multiple channel management: One of the best ways to grow your revenue is to integrate with online travel agencies and the global distribution system, so that travellers can access your latest accommodation rates and inventory and you can keep everything up to date. This means that you need to manage multiple channels and you need your hotel software to synchronise your inventory, prices and discount offers in real time with your bookings.
4. Security and ownership of data: Since you deal with the personal data of your guests, your hotel software must be secure. This means that your data must not only be stored in a secure database, but that you also own your data. Many companies who sell off-the-shelf software retain the rights to not only their software when you purchase it, but also to the data that is collected. This can be extremely problematical for hotels, particularly if the parent software company is sold to another company. It’s important to ensure that your hotel owns the software and the data that is collected.
5. Easy to use and customise: Whilst it’s a good idea that customer support is available for your hotel software, you don’t want your software to be too difficult to use or customise. In fact, you want it to be very user-friendly and easy to customise, so that it continues to suit your growing needs. With a fairly high employee turnover rate, you don’t want to spend all your time retraining employees on using your software, instead you want it very intuitive and quick to learn. 

If you make sure that the hotel software you select has the above five features, then you can look forward to a very successful future indeed.