What is Hotel Master Billing (HMB)?
Convention centers and five star hotels often have an in-house AV Company that provides equipment to clients (i.e. projectors, speakers, microphones, lighting, whiteboards, TVs etc.). In addition to providing equipment, the AV Company may also provide services such as a technician to setup, test and configure the equipment, then pack it away when the event is finished. The hotel and the AV Company agree on a contract to allocate the revenue that’s received from the client. These contracts are collectively referred to as Hotel Master Billing. Other terms used are; Master Billing, MB or HMB.
Billing Scenarios Available
RentalPoint supports four different billing scenarios for in-house AV companies.
The diagrams included in the scenarios are examples of key events and interactions and are designed to be read in a top-down direction. Actual events may differ slightly from company to company.
Master Billing
In this scenario:
- The client contacts the hotel and orders equipment and services.
- The hotel contacts the AV Company and provides the details of the order.
- The AV company quotes the event and sends the details to the hotel.
- The hotel adds the AV equipment and services to the Master Bill for the client
Venue Billing (aka. Alternative Billing, Commission as a Discount)
The Venue Billing scenario is:
- Essentially the same as the Master Billing scenario.
- The only difference is that the AV Company removes the hotel commission before sending the invoice to the hotel.
- The commission is deducted from the invoice price as a discount.
- At the end of the month a Master Billing report shows the amount payable to the AV Company
Direct Billing
- In some hotels the client contacts the AV Company directly and orders equipment and services
- The AV Company invoices the client
- Then at the end of the month, the AV Company pays a commission to the hotel based on the value of the client invoice
Sales and Promotion (S&P)
- Sales and Promotion scenario is when the hotel orders equipment and services from the AV Company at a heavily discounted rate.
- The is no commission involved.
- Discounts can be offered via a special price set, a booking discount or line item discounts; allowing for flexible pricing options to meet a range of needs.
- The amount of S&P billed to the hotel is reflected on the Master Billing report.
Configuring Hotel Master Billing
Pre-requisites
Before jumping into HMB, first ensure that the following items are configured
| Locations | Locations are one of the core elements of HMB. Ensure all your locations are entered in location setup. |
| Inventory | Products are another core element of HMB. Ensure your product inventory is configured before starting. Although you can enter inventory at a later date, it's much easier to get HMB up and running when you already have your inventory entered. |
| Taxes | Tax defaults can be configured for each Master Billing entity and are selected from existing taxes set up in the system |
| Price Sets | Hotel commission works with Price Sets. A price set enables you to include commissions into the invoice price when billing the hotel and/or the client. |
| Customer | A 'Bill To' customer is used when configuring Hotel Master Billing. Set up the customer you will bill to before configuring HMB |
| Rooms | Set up at least one room for each location where Hotel Master Billing should be tracked. These rooms are then designated in the Venue tab of each new booking. |
Enable HMB Parameter
Enter Product Types
Product Types allow you to charge different commission rates on different products. You can also configure different commission rates depending on if the products are AV Owned or Hotel Owned (see entity commission and defaults below for more information). You can access the Setup Master Billing Product Types window via Pricing Parameter #18 or via the Setup Master Billing window.
Entity Commissions and Defaults section below addresses how the commissions are used in Master Bill entities.
Reload software settings before proceeding to ensure your latest changes are available throughout the software.
Apply Product Types to Groups
Now that you've configured your product types and commissions, you can apply those product types to your inventory. Navigate to Inventory Setup, edit the Group properties and set the Master Billing Product Type accordingly.
If the Master Billing Product Type is set to Not Used then the commission rates are pulled from the default commission rates
Product Ownership
Next, you'll need to configure your products to be either AV owned (you own them), or Hotel owned (the hotel owns them). The ownership of the product affects the commission calculations. The default ownership is AV company.
Hotel Master Billing Entities
Navigate to Master Billing Setup. This is where you'll configure your Hotel Master Billing entities.
The entities represent the different locations, hotels or venues with which you do business. Once you've added your entities you can use the checkbox in the Enabled column to enable or disable them in the future as needed. When unchecked the entity is excluded from master billing options and from the master billing report.
Entity Commissions and Defaults
Within the Setup Master Billing Entities window, use the Action buttons to the right of each entity set set up entity commissions.
In this window the commission percentages can be configured for both hotel owned and AV owned equipment. In the example below, if the AV Company rents equipment that the hotel owns (Rental Hotel), the hotel gets 60%, the AV Company gets 40%. If the AV Company rents their own equipment (Rental AV) then the hotel gets 10%, the AV Company gets 90%.
You can also use the Commissions window to configure entity defaults for:
| Taxes | This overrides all other default tax settings |
| Price Set | Each entity may have different commission percentages; it's necessary to create a separate price set for each entity so that it can be used in commission setup. |
| Scenario | This is the default master billing scenario that a booking will use. It can be changed in each booking as needed. |
Product types, configured in Pricing Parameter #18, can be accessed for each location as described below. To make a product type available for a location, select the Enabled checkbox beside the applicable product type.
Once enabled, the product type can be selected during Product Setup to apply specific commission rates to product groups used on any booking for that location.
Using Hotel Master Billing
For Hotel Master Billing to function correctly, each booking must meet the following requirements:
- Each booking must include rental equipment and services for one room and one day only.
- For events spanning multiple rooms or multiple days, separate bookings must be created for each room and each day.
This structure provides several benefits:
- It simplifies the movement of equipment between rooms during multi-day events.
- It enables client-facing quotations and invoices to display subtotals by both room and day, resulting in clearer and more detailed documentation.
When using multiple bookings for one event, all bookings associated with the same event must be assigned to the same project. This ensures that the individual bookings are linked together and can be managed and billed as a single event.
In a Booking
When creating a booking for a particular location (aka venue/entity), the Master Billing options are located in the Other Details tab.
In a Project
When activating Master Billing for a project, the project settings will override the booking settings
When printing a Fast Report for a project, users can configure different report templates for each scenario.
When the project document is printed, the system checks the Master Billing setting in the project properties and displays the list of report templates associated with the selected billing configuration. Users can then choose the appropriate template for the current printing scenario.
The Hotel Master Billing Invoice
You can invoice a master billed booking the same way as you would invoice a normal booking. Templates are required as outlined below.
| Venue Billed | The default templates are located in your Fast Report templates library labelled Alternative Billing Invoice and Alternative Billing Project Invoice respectively. |
Master Billed Direct Billed S&P | These scenarios do not require any additional calculations for commissions; you can use any invoice template. |
Invoice designs vary widely however here's an example of the Venue scenario where the hotel commission is deducted from the invoice as a discount, shown in red.
Subsequent pages show the equipment list pricing and sub totals
Running the Master Bill Report
The Master Billing report is located in the Reports-->Financials submenu. Simply select the entity to report on (Master Billing Name), select any additional scope or option and click print.
Here's how each scenario is handled:
| Master Billed | These bookings have been billed to the hotel. Each Master Billed booking is listed with a breakdown of commissions for the booking. A sub total is displayed for all Master Billed bookings and the commission is subtracted from the grand total owed to the AV Company. |
| Venue Billed | These bookings have been billed to the hotel, but the commission has been removed as a discount from the amount owed. The total of Venue billed bookings is added to the grand total owing to the AV Company. |
| Direct Billed | These bookings have been billed directly to the client. The total commission from these bookings is due to the hotel. The amount is subtracted from the grand total owing to the AV Company. |
| S&P | These bookings have been billed to the hotel; however there is no commission payable. The total amount of these bookings is added to the grand total owing to the AV Company. |
Hotel and Convention Rooms
A hotel or convention center may have a fixed number of rooms that they rent out, such as a ballroom, conference room or executive meeting room.
Access Room from the Setup-->List menu
Location refers to one of the locations already set-up in RentalPoint. This room is only available in the location that you select.
Each room may also have Sub Rooms, such as a large conference room that divides into smaller rooms with the use of divider walls. Enter the number of sub rooms that the larger room can be divided into.
To select a picture of the floor plan, first highlight the room then use 
Please note, once you have created a Room you can rename it but not delete it.
Using Rooms
Once there is a room added, the venue tab in the booking will no longer display the venue selection tab and will instead display the room tab. This is because all the bookings will be going to different rooms at the same venue (such as in a convention center).
- If multilocation is also enabled then the rooms can be entered for certain locations. Some locations may be hotels/conventions centres and not need the venue address while others are warehouse locations that ship equipment out.
- The room tab will appear instead of the venue tab as soon as there are rooms entered for the particular location (after the program is restarted). These rooms are stored in the table tblHccRooms
Room Schedule Report
The Room Schedule report details the equipment and bookings that are being scheduled in a particular room, on a particular day. This report is used in conjunction with Hotel Master Billing.
Running the Report
To run the report, click Rooms Schedule from the Reports menu, then select the All Other Reports tab.
Enter the selection criteria for the report before proceeding.
- Date to be used for the report
- Where that date can be found in the booking
- What booking status should be included
- Region and location for the booking
Where the information is found in the booking
Dates are found on the calendar tab
The booking status is found on the booking tab
The Other Details tab stores the Hotel Master Bill type and venue
The Venue tab stores the room