Informal Specification of Requirements

The requirements for the hotel booking system were specified by three distinct subgroups of the hotel. These groups are the front desk, accounting, and room service staff. These specifications are not, however, mutually exclusive, and each will depend on each other in order for the system to work as a whole.

System Requirements for Front Desk Staff

The front desk staff will perform a variety of jobs including taking reservations, checking room availability, and general inquiries. The requirements for the system are as follows.

First, there needs to be records of guests/reservations that include:

Name
Address
Credit card type
Credit card number
Credit card expiry date
Identifying element on photo I.D. (i.e. driver's license number)
Arrival date
Duration of stay
Check-out date
Room number
Number of occupants
Payment method
Booked by (employee identification)

Also, there must be records of rooms with the following information:

Room number
Availability status
Type (single, double, deluxe)
Date

You should be able to inquire as to room availability based on any combination of these 4 fields. If there are rooms available, then of course reservations may be made. Besides creating a new reservation, one should also be able to search for reservations and display them, change them, and/or cancel them. There should be some sort of security measures, such as passwords, used so the reservation system is only accessed by approved hotel personnel. One important thing is that a person MUST have credit card information to make a reservation. This is standard hotel policy. Another thing to include in the system should be a report telling which rooms are due to be checked into on certain dates so the hotel staff can properly prepare the rooms.

Also, there needs to be a quick and efficient check-in/check-out process. When a guest checks in, any information not gathered during the reservation is asked for. There should be some confirmation of arrival in the records as well. If a person does not show up for a reservation on the given date, the reservation should be automatically deleted the next day.

When checking out, the billing described in this specication must be integrated into the process. As well, a report is required showing which rooms have been check out of on a given date, so the rooms can be prepared for the next guests.

System Requirements for Accounting Staff

The accounting staff requires that the hotel booking system keeps track of:

Room Rate
- Single $60.00
- Double $75.00
- Deluxe $100.00
Payment Method
- Credit Card
- Cash
- Cheque
Cancellation Fee
- $30.00
Miscellaneous Charges
- Room Service
- Video Rental
- Phone Bill
Hotel 451 Accounting Report (Quarterly)

In the Accounting department the room rate for a single, double and deluxe is specified. The payment type is also tracked by cash, credit card, or check payment. When a customer checks out the total bill is determined by multipling the number of days by the room rate plus the current GST for that bill. If the customer orders room service , calls long distance, or rents a movie those charges are added to the total bill before GST. At the end of each period of time a report may be generated called a Quarterly Report showing the period a room was used , the type of room, room cost, movie cost, phone bill, and tax. Totals can then be generated for a given period of time for all of those rooms occupied in a given period of time.

This is a sample of the invoice we use to track the expenses of each customer:

Hotel 451 Invoice
Name: Address: Credit Card Number: Method of Payment: Date Paid:
(room number) for (check-in date) to (check-out date) (type of room) @ (room rate) for (duration of stay) Miscellaneous Charges -Food Orders -Movie Rentals -Phone Calls Hotel Tax @ (tax rate) GST TOTAL CHARGES	$---.-- $--.-- $--.-- $--.-- $--.-- $--.-- $----.--

If a guest books more than one room under his/her name then each room will appear on a single invoice. We must be able to change the hotel tax rate and GST rate if the need arises. If a guest does not appear for his booking a $30.00 cancellation fee is applied to their credit card. The totals and taxes are automatically calculated. All we should do is bring up the cutomer file and enter the check out date for a specific room. All other charges should follow.

This is an example of the quarterly report prepared in order to separate revenues:

Hotel 451 Quarterly Report
From: (start period)			To: (end period)
Room Type	Room Cost	Food Orders	Movie Orders	Phone Calls	All Taxes
Single	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Double	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Deluxe	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
TOTAL	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00

This report should be flexible enough that we can specify any FROM and TO dates and it is automatically created. It would be nice if we could also see that total for each type of room.

System Requirements for Room Service Staff

The booking system also keeps track of room services. This includes ordering food items, as well as a wake-up service. With respect to food services, the system must record which item(s) was (were) requested by what room, including special preparation instructions. The cost of the menu item must be available, as well as the total cost for all items requested throughout the guests' stay, where applicable. The time ordered, delivery time requested, and time delivered must be recorded. Also, the system must keep track of the employee responsible for delivering the food to the room. The other room service provided is the wake up call. The system must record the requested wake-up time, if any.