Lodging Overview
Use this page to see how lodging works in Brother POS, where to find everything, and what to set up first.
At a glance
- Lodging is for campgrounds, RV parks, cabins, motels, B&Bs and hotels. Click Lodging in the top navigation to open the Lodging Dashboard.
- The first time, pick your property type (Campground, Hotel, Motel, B&B, Resort or Vacation Rental). It sets the words you see — Site or Room — and can't be changed later.
- Set up in this order: site types and sites, then rates, then take reservations.
- The tabs across the top — Reservations, Site Map, Housekeeping and more — hold everything else.
- Clerks work lodging from the register's Guests view: walk-ins, check-in, check-out and charges. See Front Desk on the Register.
- Guests can book themselves online. See Online Booking.
Common questions
A clerk can't open the Lodging pages. That's by design. Only admins and managers can use Lodging in the admin. Clerks use the register's Guests view.
We picked the wrong property type. There's no setting to change it. Contact Brother POS support.
How do I hide contracts or seasonal rates we don't use? Go to Settings → Edit Settings, open the Operations tab, and untick them under Lodging Features.
Where is the lodging report? On the Reports page, on the Lodging card. The dashboard's Lodging report button opens it too.
More detail: turning lodging on, and who can use it
Lodging is how a campground, RV park, cabin resort, motel, B&B or hotel takes bookings in Brother POS. You set up the kinds of accommodation you offer, add each individual site or room, and then take reservations — at the front desk, over the phone, or online from your website. On the day, guests are checked in, anything they buy can go on their bill, and when they leave the site goes to housekeeping for cleaning.
Everything lives under Lodging in the top navigation bar, which opens the Lodging Dashboard.
Turning Lodging On
Lodging is switched on for your store when it is set up as a lodging business. It can also be turned on or off with the Lodging & Stays button in the Features box of your Storefront page.
Once it is on:
- Lodging appears in the top navigation bar for admins and managers.
- The register gets a Guests view for the front desk. See Front Desk on the Register.
- The Reports page gains a Lodging card.
- Your public booking page at
/stayon your storefront address starts working. See Online Booking.
If lodging does not switch on, contact Brother POS support.
Who Can Use It
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Everything in the admin: set-up, rates, reservations, contracts, the site map, housekeeping and reports. |
| Manager | The same as an admin. |
| Clerk | Cannot open the Lodging pages in the admin — they see You don't have permission to access this page. Clerks work lodging from the register's Guests view instead: walk-ins, check-in, check-out and charges. |
| Driver | No access. |
Access to the Lodging pages follows the role itself, not a tick box in the permissions matrix, so it cannot be handed to a clerk.
More detail: your property type
Your Property Type
The first time you open the Lodging Dashboard, it asks What type of property are you? and offers six choices: Campground, Hotel, Motel, B&B, Resort and Vacation Rental. Click one.
The choice changes the words used across Lodging, the amenity list you pick from, and a few fields:
| Property type | A single space is a… | Its category is a… | The map is called… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campground | Site | Site Type | Site Map |
| Hotel | Room | Room Type | Floor Plan |
| Motel | Room | Room Type | Property Map |
| B&B | Room | Room Type | Property Map |
| Resort | Room | Room Type | Resort Map |
| Vacation Rental | Unit | Property Type | Property Map |
Before you choose, the screens say Unit and Unit Type. This guide uses the campground words — Site and Site Type — throughout; if you run a hotel, read "Room" wherever it says "Site".
Some fields only appear for the property types that use them:
- Campground (and a store that has not chosen yet) gets the Extra Vehicle Fee and Electric Metered fields on a site type, and the electric meter fields on a site.
- Hotel, Motel and Resort get a Floor column on the site list.
The property type picker disappears as soon as you pick one, and there is no setting to change it afterwards. If you picked the wrong one, contact Brother POS support.
More detail: the tabs and the dashboard
The Tabs
Every Lodging page has the same row of tabs across the top:
| Tab | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Today at a glance. Described below. |
| Site Types | The kinds of accommodation you offer and their prices and policies. See Site Types & Sites. |
| Sites | Every individual site, room or cabin. See Site Types & Sites. |
| Site Map | A picture of your property with a pin on every site. See Site Map. |
| Reservations | Every booking, with search and filters. See Reservations. |
| Contracts | Seasonal and long-term stays. See Seasonal Contracts. |
| Seasonal Rates | Date-range prices and blackout periods. See Rates & Seasonal Pricing. |
| Housekeeping | Cleaning and maintenance tasks. See Housekeeping. |
Contracts is shown by default for campgrounds, resorts and vacation rentals, and hidden for hotels, motels and B&Bs. Seasonal Rates is shown for every property type. You can switch either one off — see Lodging settings below.
The Lodging Dashboard
The dashboard's heading is Lodging Dashboard — "Manage accommodations & bookings" — with a New Reservation button in the top corner.
Until you have created a site type, the dashboard shows Get Started and a Create Site Type button instead of the numbers.
The four figures
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Occupancy Rate | Sites marked Occupied as a share of all your active sites. |
| Available Sites | Active sites that are not Occupied, Reserved, Cleaning or in Maintenance. |
| Today's Check-ins | Bookings due to arrive today that are still Pending or Confirmed. |
| Today's Check-outs | Guests who are checked in and due to leave today. |
The two lists
- Upcoming Check-ins — bookings arriving in the next seven days (today included), with the date (Today for today), the guest, the site and a Pending or Confirmed badge. View opens the booking. View All opens the Reservations list filtered to confirmed bookings. When there are none: "No check-ins in the next 7 days."
- Pending Housekeeping — up to ten tasks still waiting, most urgent first, each with its priority. View All opens the Housekeeping board.
Reports & exports
Below the lists, Reports & exports — "Occupancy and revenue, or your data as a spreadsheet." — has:
| Button | What you get |
|---|---|
| Lodging report | Opens the Lodging report on the Reports page. See Reports below. |
| Bookings (CSV) | Every booking as a spreadsheet: site, type, guest, party size, guest names, check-in, check-out and status. |
| Sites (CSV) | Every active site, with who is holding it, their booking number and dates, and a Nothing Holding It column. See Site Types & Sites. |
Booking Widget
Once you have at least one active site, a folded Booking Widget section appears at the bottom with Get the code for your website. It holds the code that puts your booking form on your own website. See Online Booking.
More detail: lodging settings
Lodging Settings
Go to Settings → Edit Settings, open the Operations tab, and find Lodging Features — "Turn off anything you never use, so it stops appearing on the booking form."
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Seasonal / long-term contracts | Adds contract dates, a negotiated rate and a renewal note to the booking form, and shows the Contracts tab. Untick it if you only take nightly stays — it only hides the contract section and pages, and does not change any prices. |
| Seasonal rates | Date-range pricing and blackout windows per site type, and the Seasonal Rates tab. Untick it if you charge one flat rate all year. |
| Let guests pay on arrival | Only shown to stores that have the newer booking controls switched on. Adds a "pay when you arrive" option to online bookings. See Online Booking. |
Click Update Settings to save.
When Seasonal rates is off, the Seasonal Rates pages are closed — opening one sends you back to the dashboard with "Seasonal pricing is switched off for this store." Any seasonal rates, blackout periods and minimum stays you had already saved stop applying to prices and bookings. They are kept, not deleted, and apply again if you switch the setting back on.
Two more settings affect lodging but live elsewhere on the Settings page, in the Notifications tab:
- Require signed waiver before lodging check-in, in the Liability Waiver section. See Liability Waivers.
- Enable SMS notifications — when it is on, guests with a phone number also get their arrival reminders by text, and guests who book online get their booking confirmation by text too.
More detail: booking and site statuses
Booking Statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Not yet confirmed. A pending booking does not stop the site being booked by someone else. |
| Confirmed | Booked. The site is held for those dates. Every booking taken in the admin, at the register or online starts here. |
| Checked In | The guest has arrived. The site shows Occupied. |
| Checked Out | The guest has left. The site goes to Cleaning and a housekeeping task is created. |
| Cancelled | Cancelled by staff or by the guest from their confirmation email. The site is free again. |
| No Show | The guest never came. Set with Mark no-show on the reservation once the check-in date has arrived. The site is free again. See Reservations. |
Site Statuses
| Status | Colour | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Green | Free to book. |
| Reserved | Yellow | A booking is holding it. Set automatically when a booking is made. |
| Occupied | Red | A guest is checked in. Set automatically at check-in. |
| Cleaning | Blue | The guest has left and it needs cleaning. Set automatically at check-out. |
| Maintenance | Grey | Out of service. Sites in maintenance are never offered for booking. |
Reserved and Occupied follow the bookings — you never set them by hand. When a stay ends (checked out, cancelled), the site's Reserved or Occupied label is cleared automatically as long as nothing else is holding it.
More detail: the lodging report, and best practices
Reports
The Lodging report is on the Reports page with every other report, on the Lodging card — "Occupancy, revenue and every booking in the period". It is also the Lodging report button on the dashboard.
Pick a Start date and End date (it starts at the first of the current month) and click Apply. The report shows:
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Occupancy | How many sites are in use right now, out of how many. |
| Revenue | The total of stays checked out in the period, "from N completed stays". |
| RevPAR | Revenue divided by (active sites × days in the period). |
| Marked taken, not held | Sites that read as taken but have no booking behind them — "still bookable by anyone". See Site Types & Sites. |
| By site type | Sites, in use, occupancy and revenue for each type. |
| How they booked | Bookings made in the period by source (walk-in, phone, online and so on), their share, revenue and average stay. |
| Bookings checking in during this period | Every booking with a check-in date in the range. |
Export CSV downloads that last list as a spreadsheet, and Sites CSV downloads the site list.
Best Practices
- Pick your property type before anything else. It sets the wording staff see everywhere, and it cannot be changed later from your side.
- Build site types, then sites, then rates — in that order. A booking always starts from a site type.
- Turn off what you do not use. A park that never lets seasonal sites should untick Seasonal / long-term contracts so the contract section stops sitting on every booking form.
- Check the dashboard each morning. Upcoming Check-ins and Pending Housekeeping are the two lists the front desk needs first.
What's Next?
- Site Types & Sites — set up what you rent out.
- Rates & Seasonal Pricing — weekend, weekly, monthly and seasonal prices.
- Reservations — take and manage bookings.
- Front Desk on the Register — walk-ins, check-in and check-out at the till.
- Online Booking — let guests book from your website.