If you are currently paying for an astronomical cost for you PMS, even during not a good performing month, then there's something wrong. The cost of your PMS should be tied to your hotel's performance, after all one of your key goals is to profit, not worry about high PMS fees.
The market for PMS (Property Management Systems) is about to get disrupted.
The current big PMS names are expensive, to say the least. Moreover, what you see in many cases, is not what you'll be paying. There are multiple hidden fees, which can double really quickly your expenses. This makes it extremely hard for small and mid-sized hotels to have in their hands a great tool that can propel the growth of their operations to new heights.
Yet of course, for any problem, there exists a solution as well. Before looking into that one, let's check the case of the more known PMSs in the market and the many fees and true cost a hotel has to pay for them. The first and "acceptable" cost to some extent, is the purchasing fee for the software (if it is a realistic cost). It hurts our eyes just looking at price tags of the major PMS softwares in the market, let alone think of it, but if that is a bearable cost, here comes the real wave of additional expenses.
Naturally, you'll need to set everything up. Many of this software need in-house servers to store and access all the generated data, as well as the purchasing of a few computers to use the actual PMS. This, like many of the fess below, feels like a time bomb, more data, more servers, more costs. Following setup costs, you will need to train your staff, to know how to use the new software. That can really take quite some time, often months to fully understand the entire functions of the program and the actual training by the software company is an entirely different cost on its own. Since we are dealing with machines here, who knows, they might break once or twice, they to get tired like us, and to fix them up in this case, you'll need some technical support, + an additional cost.
We are not over, there is more to the full picture. Often monthly subscription fees are applied (another burned on your finances, an extra liability). Furthermore, there might be licensing and support costs. Lastly one more cost which is an indirect one, is when updates occur. They might take up to 10 hours to finish and require a freeze of all operations to happen, each minute is worth money, you are losing 600 minutes in this case and experience tells that you can lose even more than that.
I bet you might have noticed that the words fees and costs were mentioned quite often so far. Sadly, that's the landscape of the current major PMSs in the market; so let's turn our attention instead to a great new approach that already exists. Reception by Softmogul, is a cloud based mobile PMS that is totally tied in with your hotel performance instead of pointless, unexpected and hidden fees. You'll never pay for the multitude of the costs mentioned above. And focusing on the "catch", the way Softmogul works, is that it gives you Reception in exchange for your payment processing business.
What does that mean?
Basically, Softmogul charges a percentage-based fee each time you accept a credit or debit card payment (Softmogul can accept all kinds of modern payment methods), a fee which you are already paying to the bank. You are changing your POS for Softmogul's POS, losing not a single dime in the process. It's a simple way of working, based on the principle: the more the customer wins, the more do we as well. This model ensures the customer that Softmogul in this case, will do all it can to help his/her property succeed and grow, for it is in their own benefit as well; building a robust relation in the process.
If you want to learn more about Reception, click here, while there, check Softmogul's full suite of products designed to empower businesses, enhance their services and mostly importantly help them grow.
