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20.2. Automated Discounts, Fees and Promo Codes
Arctic offers a feature to automate discounts and fees that will allow you to tell Arctic when and how to apply discounts and fees. With this information, Arctic will evaluate each activity to determine if it meets any of the qualifications for the automated discounts and fees that are set up on your installation. Arctic also gives you the ability to create promotional codes so that the discount is only applied when the code is provided and if the activity meets the requirements specified. Automated fees are perfect for those items that have "Additional Guest" charge or need to have a "Security Deposit" assessed under certain circumstances.
Note: The ability to automate fees is disabled by default. If you would like to automate fees in addition to discounts, contact support and we will be happy to enable it for you.
To automate a discount or fee, you must first create an item template representing the discount or fee that will be added to the invoice. For more information about item templates and how to create them, see the previous page in the documentation.
Once the discount or fee has been created, you will see an "Automate" button appear next to the item on the "Browse Item Templates" page.
Step 1: Configuring your automated item
For our example, we will be automating a discount, however the same principles apply when automating a fee. Setting up the automated item is a two step process. When you click the "Automate" button, Arctic will take you to the "Configure Automatic Item" page. This is the first step in the process. where you will tell Arctic when and how to apply the discount, i.e. for online or back-office reservations/rentals or with a promotional code, and how to handle the details of the discount such it gets added to the invoice.
First, you will enter a "Name" and a "Description" for the automated item. Generally this name and description can be the same as what you used when you created the item template that you are automating. The description will appear to guests if they do not meet the requirements for the discount, and as a result, is a good place to describe the terms and requirements.
Next, you will tell Arctic when to apply the discount or fee. You can choose "Automatically Add in Back-Office", "Automatically Add Online", or "Manually with Code". If you select "Automatically Add in Back-Office", the discount or fee will be added to all qualifying activities booked through the back office automatically; no codes or input will be required. If you select "Automatically Online", the discount or fee will be added to all qualifying activities booked through the guest-facing site. Generally for automated fees and discounts that you want to be accessible to all guests, you will select "Yes" for both "Automatically Add in Back-Office" and "Automatically Add Online".
However, if you want to restrict a discount to just back office or online reservations, you can specify yes for just one of the options. For example, you could use this to offer a promotion just for guests booking online to encourage online reservations.
Alternatively, if you want to restrict a discount to a subset of customers, you can use a promotional code. Promotional codes are discussed later in this guide.
The "Active" field allows you to enable or disable an automated discount or fee. This is especially helpful for seasonal discounts like "Early Bird Specials" that you will use each year but only work during a small portion of the year. This is also helpful during the process of setting up a new discount, which you are not ready to make available to all users. Leave the automated item as inactive until you are happy with the configuration.
The "Expires" field is can be used in conjunction with sales or promotional codes. The automated item will become inactive once the date passes, and no newly booked activities will receive the automated discount.
The "Exclusive" field gives you the ability to specify whether a discount is "Non-Exclusive", "Exclusive" or "Does Not Effect Exclusivity". "Non-Exclusive" discounts can be used together with other "Non-Exclusive" or "Does Not Effect Exclusivity" discounts. If this option is chosen, Arctic will apply any and all discounts for which an activity qualifies. "Exclusive" discounts cannot be used with any other discounts or promotions. If this option is selected, Arctic will evaluate the activity and apply the discount that yields the most savings for your guest. If during it's evaluations, the best discount is a "Non-Exclusive" discount, Arctic will apply any "Non-Exclusive" discount(s).
Items that are setup as "Does Not Effect Exclusivity" will be added to qualifying activities regardless of any other added automated fees. For example, if you automate a fee that is added to some activities, you may not want that fee to interact with exclusive discounts.
Finally, there is the "Add Per" field. If your discount or fee is a "Dollar" discount or fee, you will specify whether the discount or fee should be applied per invoice (one discount for the whole activity), per guest (applied once per guest), per paying guest (applied once per guest with a non-zero cost), per full priced guest (applied per guest with the default pricing level) or per non-custom pricing level guest (applied once per guest with any non-custom pricing level). For all of the "per guest" options, you will also be able to specify whether the discount should be applied to every guest (Every 1 th guest) or, for instance, to every 6th guest (Every 6 th guest.)
If your discount or fee is a "Percent" discount or fee, you will specify whether the discount or fee should be applied for all guests, for all guests and add ons, for every n-th guest, or once per primary guest. The "Every" field will only be available for the "for every n-th guest" option.
Promotional codes
To set up an automated discount to use a promotional code, you will complete the form above as described, but you should set the "Automatically Add in Back-Office" and "Automatically Add Online" to "No" and "Manually with Code" to be "Yes". It is important that the "Automatically Add in Back-Office" and the "Automatically Add Online" are set to "No". If they are not set to "No", Arctic will apply the discount to qualifying activities regardless whether the guest supplied the promotional code, defeating the purpose of the promotional code.
Notice, when you select "Yes" for "Manually with Code" that Arctic adds a new field for you to enter the promotional code you wish to use with the discount. Promotional codes can be any combination of letters and numbers. They cannot be longer than 16 characters and cannot contain spaces. If the provided code does not meet these requirements, you will receive a warning when saving the form.
Step 2: Adding conditions
Once you have completed the "Configure Automatic Item" form, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Submit". This will complete step 1 of the automation process. In the next step, you will specify the conditions that an activity must meet before having the discount or fee applied.
When you click "Submit" on the "Configure Automatic Item" form, Arctic will display the following screen.
This screen is just warning you that until you complete "step 2" and create conditions that tell Arctic the requirements for the automated discount or fee, the system will not be able to apply the discount or fee. Even if you want the discount and fee to apply to all items, you must complete this additional step.
To complete "step 2", click the green "+ Add Set of Conditions" button and choose the activity type. If this fee or discount will only apply to reservations or rentals, select that option. Alternatively, select "Any Activity" if you want it to apply to both. This decision determines the options available when specifying conditions.
Arctic will take you to the "Create New Automated Item Condition Set". Here you will be able to add the conditions to determine what activity qualifies for the automated discount or fee. Add the conditions using the same set of tools available when filtering the browse pages in Arctic (for details, view the related article about how to filter the "Browse" pages in the reporting section).
Once you have added all of your conditions, click "Submit" to save your settings. Now, Arctic is ready to start applying your automated discount or fee based on the configurations and conditions you specified.
It is strongly recommended that you test all automated items to be sure they are working as expected.
Adding additional automated item condition sets
If your automated discount or fee can apply to multiple scenarios, you can create more than one "Automated Item Condition Set". As Arctic evaluates the activity for qualifying automated discounts and fees, it will look at each condition set and add the discount or fee if it matches any of the sets of conditions. This means that, even if, a reservation or rental doesn't meet the qualifications in the first set of conditions, but it does meet the qualifications in a subsequent set on the same automated discount or fee, Arctic will apply the discount or fee to the invoice. This is really helpful if, for instance, you offer a 10% discount for multiple situations or apply a security deposit to different types of rental circumstances. Using multiple condition sets will keep you from having to create a new automated item for every scenario.
To add additional "Automated Item Condition Sets", you can click the green "+ Add Condition Set" button from the "Browse Automatic Item Condition Sets" page.
Again, be sure to test every condition set to be sure your automated discount or fee is being applied as expected.
Editing automated items
If, during your tests, you realize you need to make adjustments to your automated item configuration or the condition sets, you can edit the settings and conditions by going to the "Browse Item Templates" page and clicking the "Automate" button next to the automated discount or fee. This will open the following screen.
From this screen, you can edit your configuration including expiration dates, promotional code, and change an automated item to be "Active" or "Inactive" by clicking the "Edit Configuration" button.
If you need to adjust the conditions that tell Arctic what qualifies for the discount or fee, you can click the "Edit" icon next to the "Condition Set" that needs to be edited. Arctic will then open the conditions you set up and allow you to add, remove, or change the conditions specified.
If you have trouble setting up an automated discount, promo code, or automated fee, feel free to contact support and we will be happy to help. You can email or call us at 601-ARCTIC-9 (that's 601-272-8429).