In this article, we will be covering the following topics:
Offline bookings imported onto PayDocker
To manage your bookings that are currently not on the PayDocker website, you can simply upload your offline bookings via a CSV file. We highly recommend to proceed on only if you have imported and mapped the property before our system is able to recognise the bookings.
Here are the key functions we will be covering in this article:
Retrieving CSV template
1. Click Import (1), then Bookings (2)
2. Click Import (1) again, and download CSV template (2). Once completed, click Import CSV (3) to upload your file onto our system.
Successful imports will be found under Transactions.
Understanding the CSV file
We will break down the CSV into a few sections to try and understand what they mean.
- Booking ID: Booking ID is a unique identifier that you can create and assign any bookings. It should not be duplicated with any past bookings, and should be less than 150 characters
- Booking Date: The date of Booking created, in dd/mm/yyyy format. Booking dates can only be either on or before the date of upload.
- Category: Category can only be either "Payable" or "Receivable", case sensitive
- Buyer ID: Buyer that is purchasing the rooms (This is important if you are a supplier/wholesaler)
- Property ID: Property ID of the property that the booking belongs to.
- Property Name: Similar to Booking ID restrictions
- Property Country: 2-digit code of the country which the property is located in
- Property Email: E-mails which we could reach the property at, maximum 150 characters
- Guest Count: Number of guests for the booking. The system only accepts numbers in this field, with the maximum count of 99.
- Room Count: Number of rooms for the booking. The system only accepts numbers in this field, with the maximum count of 999.
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Check-in: Date of guest check-in, in dd/mm/yyyy format, that are on or after the booking date. You can upload bookings with Check-in dates up to 2 years in advance.
- Check-in dates must be before or on the same day of Check-out dates
- Check-out: Date of guest check-out, in dd/mm/yyyy format. Check-out dates must be on or after the same day of Check-in dates and up to 180 days after.
- Currency: 3-digit ISO code of the currency used in this booking
- Booking Amount: We accept only numbers, commas or dots and 2 decimal places only. The minimum accepted value is 1.00, and the maximum value is 999,999,999.00.
- Dynamic Percentage: Variable Commission rates in percentage, up to 2 decimal places.
- Dynamic Value: Fixed Commission values, up to 2 decimal places.
- Non Refundable Amount: Of the total booking amount, how much is non-refundable. Up to 2 decimal places, with values between 0.00 - 999,999,999.00.
- Refundable Amount: Of the total booking amount, how much is refundable. Up to 2 decimal places, with values between 0.00 - 999,999,999.00.
- Cancellation Days: Only numbers between 0 - 365 are accepted for this field
- FirstNight Amount: If Refundable amount is more than 0, you will need to key in a value between 1.00 - 999,999,999.00 in this field.
Validate or Edit uploaded Bookings
Once bookings have been successfully uploaded, you will need to check the details of each booking and then validate them. This can be found in Transactions. During this process, if the booking detail is not right, you can also edit it.
Click on the icons in Action (1) to view details picked up via our system. If the information is correct, select the respective bookings via the check box (2) and click Validate (3).
Bookings belonging to properties which have been successfully onboarded and mapped on PayDocker will go into Eligible while bookings belonging to properties that have NOT been mapped OR bookings with terms or model that do not match with property that has been mapped will enter Uneligible.
- For properties that have not been mapped: On the following day, we will send out an email with a report of all new uneligible correspondences set under your account, and also an email to the property to invite them for onboarding.
- For bookings with terms and models that do not match with mapped properties: We will treat this as a new property and follow the flow for properties that have not been mapped.
In both cases, you can choose to re-import these bookings with the correct information or onboard these properties onto the PayDocker platform.
Mirroring for bookings
Booking mirroring is an option when there's a 3-way cooperation in a single booking flow. Mirroring reduces the need for duplicated work to happen between the 3 parties for the same booking.
Mirroring would be especially helpful in situations where an agency pays the hotel upfront for a bulk block of rooms (at a discount) and sells them to buyers individually. With booking mirroring, the supplier would not need to duplicate the source transaction (Between hotel & supplier) for all the buyers.
Any booking changes for the source transaction would also be reflected for the mirrored transaction.
For mirroring to happen successfully, these are the important points you should take note of:
- All 3 parties are available on PayDocker
- Bookings from the source transaction is validated on PayDocker
- Mirroring has been enabled in the supplier's account.
- There is an existing partnership (Smart contract) between buyer & supplier
When the mirroring has been successfully activated for this booking, it would create an exact set of booking details (that the supplier has bought from the hotel). The bookings created will be tagged Mirror in orange.
Transactions that failed to mirror successfully would fall into the Uneligible section.
Enable Mirroring automation
1. Go to Settings > Automation > Data Import
Under Mirroring, select configure booking mirroring automation
Synchronise your bookings automatically
API
To synchronise your online bookings automatically on PayDocker you will need to set up either of these triggers depending on your connectivity with our other products.
1. Click Direct (1) and Push (2)
By setting this up, new, modified or cancelled bookings that will be pushed directly into your dashboard through our Booking API. These bookings will be tagged as Direct and source tagged as API in the booking details.
Once your bookings have been successfully uploaded, please follow the above steps to Validate or Edit uploaded Bookings.
If you are connected to RateDock and would like to synchronise your bookings with RateDock, please follow these steps to set up your API:
2. Click RateDock (1) and Push (2)
By setting this up, new, modified or cancelled bookings on RateDock that will be pushed directly into your dashboard through our Booking API. These bookings will be tagged as Direct and source tagged as API in the booking details.
Once your bookings have been successfully uploaded, please follow the above steps to Validate or Edit uploaded Bookings.
Automating Data Imports process (Import and validate entries)
Setting up automation is crucial to reduce the number of manual tasks required to run your business as a Demand Partner and as Property. The automation will cut down manual steps in:
Here's how to set up automation for this step of your business:
For Demand Partners
1. Go to Settings (1) > Automation (2) > Data Import (3)
These options will have the following effects on your business account:
| Options | Meaning |
| Don't configure |
No automation will be configured for your account |
| Configure bookings import automation |
All imported bookings in Transaction will be automatically validated. Once they have been validated as per flow the bookings will enter Eligible and will be automatically merged. |
| Configure bookings validation automation |
All bookings under Sales → Validation→ Individual and Grouping will be automatically validated. |
| Configure bookings import and validation automation |
Combination of the above 2 options |
For Property
1. Go to Settings (1) > Automation (2) > Data Import (3)
These options will have the following effects on your business account:
| Options | Meaning |
| Don't configure |
No automation will be configured for your account |
| Configure bookings validation automation |
All bookings under Sales → Validation→ Individual and Grouping will be automatically validated. |
Authorisation
For both methods, when bookings are imported manually and when the API is triggered, our system will also check if authorisation is granted if it is a valid the buyer's account on our platform. If there is no buyer's account data, our system will skip this step.
Authorisation can be granted either through a trusted account list, or given a authorisation code. To understand more about the authorization code, please refer to this article: Securing your Balances.
These are the following reasons why you might run into errors in this step:
- If the Partner ID is not present under the trusted account list
- If the Partner ID is present under the list but access is expired or suspended
- If Authorisation code is missing or the wrong code is used
- If Authorisation code is misspelled, expired, already redeemed or blocked.