Home → Arctic Reservations → Reservations → Creating a New Reservation
13.1. Creating a New Reservation
To create a new reservation in Arctic Reservations to the "Reservation" menu and choose "Create" as shown here:
This will bring you to the "Create a New Reservation" page shown here:
To start the new reservation you can either select a trip and reservation date first, or enter the guest's details first. For this guide we will start with the guest information. To enter the guest for your new reservation, click "Select Person". This will bring up the "Browse Person" page shown here:
Notice you can select from a list of existing people, search for a particular existing person or "Create Person".
If the guest you want to make the reservation for has been with you before and has been entered in the Person Database, you can type in guest's name in the search box or scroll through the Person Database until you find the right record.
Once you have found the record you want, click the "Select Person" button. The "Select Person" Button will insert your guest straight into the "Select Person Field" on the "New Reservation" page and you will be ready to move on to choosing the trip your guest is interested in.
If you are making the reservation for a new guest, you will click the green "Create Person" button on the "Browse Person" page. This will bring up the "Create New Person" page shown here:
On this screen you can enter all of the guest's contact information, how they heard about you, etc. Once you have completed the information on the "New Person" page, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Submit". Arctic will then create a new record in the Person database and enter your new guest into the "Select Person" field on the "Create New Reservation" page as shown here:
Now you are ready to select the trip that your guest would like to reserve. Click the "Select Trip" Button. This will bring up the "Select Trip" page as shown here:
Notice, that the "Select Trip" page has three tabs to choose from, the "Browse" tab, the "Calendar" tab, and the "Create" tab. Arctic will remember your preference and return you to either the "Browse" or the "Calendar" tab, depending on what you last used. On the "Calendar" tab, you will be able to navigate through your calendar to the dates and tours that your guest is interested in. For instance Big Bird is interested in "Tubing" trips in April. By clicking "Filter" you can add filters to help you find the trips that meet your guest's requirements quickly and efficiently. When you add filters, the "Select Trip Calendar" tab looks like this:
When filtering your calendar you can filter trips by business group, start dates, end dates, duration, trip types etc. This will help you sort through all of your trips quickly and efficiently making it easier to find those trips that meet your guest's requirements. Arctic displays the filters currently being applied to the calendar in the "Filter" box. If you need to edit these filters or add a filter, click the "Filter" button or the drop down arrow next to the word "Filter". The drop down arrow brings up quick options for filtering the data by Business Group or Trip Type as shown here:
The "Filter" button is for more in-depth filtering. It will allow you to sort by a specific date range, as well as trip types and business groups. When you click the "Filter Button" the following is displayed:
If you had previously filtered your calendar, you will see those conditions displayed in individual blue boxes for each condition you had previously used. You can modify these conditions for your new search if they apply, or you can delete them from the "Filter Conditions" by clicking the "x" in the blue box next to the condition you want removed.
To add conditions to the filter, click the green "Add Conditions" button. This will bring up all of the possible conditions that you can use to filter your calendar. Once you have added all of the conditions you wish to use click "Submit" to save your changes, and the calendar will update showing only the trips matching your filter
************************************************************************************************************************
Note: If you filter the calendar by a particular date or date range once the calendar has been filtered you will have to go to the appropriate month to see the trips that apply to that date or date range. Arctic assumes that you will filter first then go to the date you need second. If you have already gone to the month that the guest is interested in and then filter the calendar, Arctic will return to the current days date and you will have to go to the month that your guest is interested in again. So to save yourself some hassle, remember to filter first then look at the calendar.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
When you search by filters, Arctic will only show those trips that meet the conditions of the filter you created. This will help immensely with being able to find the right trip for your guest especially if you have a really full activity calendar.
You can also choose the "Create" tab or "Browse" tab. On the "Create" tab, you will be able to create a new trip and add it to your calendar. Once the new trip is completed Arctic will automatically put it in the "Select Trip" field on the "Create New Reservation" page. If you click the "Browse" tab, you will be shown a list of all of the trips on your calendar starting with the today's date. Arctic will by default show the first 50 trips available, you can expand or decrease the number of entries shown by clicking the drop down menu as shown here:
If you created a filter for the data for your calendar tab, the "Browse" tab will have the same filter applied to it and will show all of the trips that meet the filter conditions in a list format.
You can also search for a trip by putting query terms in the "Search" box of the "Browse" tab. All of these options are designed to help you find the trips for your guest quickly and efficiently.
Once you have found the trip that meets all of your guest's needs, you can choose the trip by clicking the trip name shown on the "Calendar" tab or clicking "Select Trip" next to the trip name on the "Browse" tab. When you have selected the trip your guest wants to reserve, Arctic will add it to the "Select Trip" field on the "Create New Reservation" page.
The "Create New Reservation" page will now show the name of the guest making the reservation in the "Select Person" field and the name of the trip in the "Select Trip" field as shown here:
If either one of these is incorrect you can change them by clicking the "Select Person" or the "Select Trip" buttons which allows you to reselect the correct guest or trip for the reservation you are making.
Notice, that Arctic has added several fields to the "Create New Reservation" page.
The first addition is that Arctic has pulled all of the invoices that are open (meaning unpaid) in the system for the guest you entered. This will allow you to add the current reservation you are creating to an existing invoice. If your guest is booking multiple activities and/or rentals, you can put them on a single invoice easily (note that consolidating invoices offers other benefits when dealing with packages or other consecutive activities). The other additional options that have been added all pertain to the trip your guest has chosen to reserve. Arctic has pulled the pricing levels associated with the Trip as well as any optional add-ons that can be selected. If the trip has required add-ons, Arctic will automatically assign these items to the reservation, so you will not have to manually add them during the reservation process.
Arctic will also display any "Trip Specific" fields you created for this specific trip or group of trips on your Reservation Registration Form. These are listed below the other custom "Reservation Form Fields" that you created on the "Built-In" forms. (For more information on "Reservation Registration Forms" and "Built-In Forms", see the Forms Editor chapter).
The next field on the "Create Reservation" page after the "Select Customer" & "Select Trip" fields is the "Bill To" field. This field will allow you to bill a different person if applicable. The default setting is "Automatically Select" which means Arctic will bill the guest making the reservation. If you would like to change this to a different person, click "Select Person" next to the "Bill To" field. Again, you can choose a person already in your Person Database or you can choose to "Create a Person" if the person paying for the reservation is not currently in your database.
As mentioned above when you entered your guest in the "Select Customer" field, Arctic pulled any open invoices in the system associated with that guest. Obviously, if this is a new guest making their first reservation with you, there won't be any open invoices for Arctic to pull. Arctic will also pull the open invoices for the "Bill To" person, if this is different from the guest. Only those open invoices associated with whoever is paying will show. This will allow you to add the current reservation to any open (meaning unpaid) invoice that your guest or "Bill To" customer may have. Arctic automatically chooses "New Invoice" by default. If you want to add the current reservation to an open invoice and either your guest or "Bill To" person has multiple open invoices, make sure that you know which invoice number you want to add to before you select an invoice to make this addition to. If you are unsure the best bet is to leave the selection on "New Invoice" and let Arctic create the current reservation on a new invoice for the guest or "Bill To" person. Most likely you will only have one or two open invoices to choose from for any particular guest or "Bill To" person making it easy to group all of a guests multiple activities or rentals on the appropriate invoice.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
Tip: Arctic always lists these additional invoices from newest to oldest. So most likely the invoice you will want to add to will be the invoice selection directly next to the "New Invoice" selection.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
Now, you are ready to enter the guest details for the reservation. The next field is the "Guest Composition" field. Here is where you will assign all guests to the appropriate pricing levels. If you have an adult and a youth price you will enter the total number for each in the "Number of Guests" field next to the appropriate pricing level. If you only have one pricing level you will enter the total number of guests for the reservation in the "Number of Guests" field. If this guest is getting a special pricing level that is not generally offered to your other guests because they are a large group or perhaps because they have been using your services for years, you can enter a new "Custom Pricing Level" by clicking "Add Custom Pricing Level" as shown here:
Arctic will then add an additional line to the "Guest Composition" box as shown here:
Notice, you can enter a description for the pricing level (Arctic pre-fills the description with "Custom"), the price per guest, and then enter the number of guests who are getting this "Custom Pricing Level".
Next you will enter the guest count for each optional add-on associated with the trip your guest has chosen. Remember, any required add-ons for the trip are handled automatically, so you do not have to worry about those.
If you have multiple optional add-ons for your guest to choose from Arctic will show all of the ones that apply to their trip choice. Each add-on will have the name and description that you entered during the "Trip Type" creation process. Arctic will also show you whether the item is shared and if so how many guests can use each item. It will also show you how many, of each item, are still available for this trip date and time. If you have chosen one of the add-ons to be the "default" choice, Arctic will automatically adjust the quantity as you adjust the number of guests in the reservation. If the guests are happy with the default choice then you can move on with the reservation. If they would like to make changes to the selections make sure you adjust the default selection total appropriately.
Notice that in the example, the "Premium Tube" add-on can be shared by 2 guests. In such situations, the quantity always refers to the number of guests NOT the number of items needed. So if the reservation is for two guests and they want to share a "Premium Tube," then you will enter a quantity of "2" (Arctic will only allocate one premium tube based on the add-on configuration).
Continuing the example, if the reservation is for four guests and two want to share a "Premium Tube" while two want just a "Tube" (which cannot be shared) you will enter "2" as the number of add-ons for the "Premium Tube" because two guests are sharing it (Arctic will allocate one premium tube because it is configured to be shared by up to two guests) and "2" as the number of add-ons for the "Tube" (Arctic will allocated two, because this item cannot be used by more than one guest).
If the optional add-ons have an additional cost associated with them, as shown above, this cost is displayed so you can tell your guest the prices associated with each add-on selection. Arctic will add the appropriate amounts to the reservation invoice based on the quantities entered. Each option will be itemized on the invoice so your guest is clear about what they chose and how much each selection cost.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
NOTE: The costs shown on the new reservation page are simply the primary costs. They do not reflect taxes or any automatic discounts the guest may qualify for.
******************************************************************************************************************************************
Now that you have completed the "Guest Composition" and "Add-On" fields you are ready to proceed to the next section of the "Create New Reservation" page. If you have created custom "Reservation Form" fields either for the whole system or this particular trip type, these appear under the "Guest Composition" and "Add-On" fields. The requirement level you chose for the field will determine whether or not the question must be answered or whether it can be skipped. (For more information on custom form fields, see the Forms Editor Guide.) If it is required and you do not enter the information needed, when you click "Submit", Arctic will give you a warning indicating you missed a mandatory field and will not let you move forward with the reservation until this information is entered.
Next you will notice boxes with the following headings, "Notes", "Group Mode" and "Booking Agent". If you have notes that need to be entered for the reservation you will click the blue "Notes" heading. This will open the "Notes" field as shown here:
Notice there are three different note boxes in the "Notes" field. The first is "Backend Notes". This, as its name implies, is strictly for in-house or office notes, these notes are not seen anywhere outside of the Arctic system. The next is "Roster Notes". Again, as the name implies, this is for any notes that need to go on the trip rosters for your guides and trip coordinators to see. The third is "Notes for the Guest". These are for any notes that you want to send to your guest with their confirmation.
The "Group Mode" field is where you can tell Arctic if this reservation is a group that will be paying in multiple invoices. (For more information on "Group Mode" reservations, see the Group Mode Reservation Guide.)
If this reservation is associated with a Booking Agent, you will click the "Booking Agent" field and then select the Booking Agent by clicking "Select Person" and selecting them from your Person Database. (For more information on "Booking Agents", see the Booking Agent Guide.)
Once all of the necessary fields are completed, click "Submit" to save the reservation. After you click, "Submit", Arctic will display take you to the "Reservation Details" page. For further instructions continue to page 2 of the "New Reservation Guide" to learn about the "Reservation Details" page and all of the features that are accessible from there.