Using the Transactions Dialog

Note:  Many common questions related to Transactions have been answered in our newsletters -- be sure to check the Newsletter Category Index (click this link) to see if your question is answered there.

This section goes into detail for the Transactions dialog, once you get to it.  For the basics of how to get to this dialog, refer to the Transactions topic in the Working with Reservations chapter.

No matter how you get to the Transactions dialog, it will already show any previous transactions for the reservation, customer, or previous unbound transactions in the same session (see those sections for details).  These will be shown in the transaction grid on the dialog, and will have a white background to show that they are old transaction.  Any new transactions entered will be shown with a light yellow background.  

Viewing More Details

If you need to see more details about the transaction, hold the mouse over the Type or Total for the transaction.  A pop-up tip will show the date and time it was made, the operator it was made by, and any reference or payment method information.  For more details, or to edit details like the reference information, click the Show Details checkbox located above the right side of the transaction list.

You can also check the Show Dates checkbox to show the date, which appear in the 2nd column.  This option will be remembered once you set it, so you can set it once to always show the date.  You can also edit the date if needed, e.g. to correct entries or back-date payments that were taken before using Campground Master, provided you have a high enough operator access level.

Adding Transactions

To add transactions, simply use the buttons to the left of the transaction grid -- either use the Select Rate(s) function, or select an individual transaction such as Charge, Payment, etc.  You can also use the keyboard shortcuts (Alt-S for Select Rates, Alt-A for Charge, etc.).  If you have Auto-rates enabled, there will also be a button to auto-calculate rate charges -- just click that button to calculate all of the appropriate charges for the reservation.

P.O.S. note -- If you have purchased the Point of Sale option, a P.O.S. button will be present at the top (near the Done button).  You can use that button (or press the F4 key) to access the point of sale function to enter merchandise sales into a reservation or customer's transactions.  After the P.O.S. transactions are entered, just click Done on the Point of Sale dialog to get back to here -- all of those transactions will be added to the transactions here. Then you can enter payment and print a receipt for everything at once.

Payment Method

The default is to not show a payment method selection field on the Transactions dialog, since it can be selected when you use the Payment button anyway.  Therefore you may not see this selection field on the Transaction dialog.  However you can show a Payment Method selection field here so you can select the method before entering the payment.  See Maintenance / Program Options / Prompts to enable this field.

Discount Used

If you have previously used a discount for this reservation/customer, or if the customer has a discount defined, that discount selection will be pre-selected for your convenience.  Otherwise, you should select the discount used by the customer before selecting rates.

Setting the Paid-Through Date

Any time a payment is made for reservations, you should verify that the reservation's Paid-Through date is updated appropriately.  To set this date, click on the Paid-thru field for the reservation in the top grid.  This is discussed further in the Reservation Transactions section.

Selecting Rates

For site rentals and many other common transactions, you will probably have a number of Rates defined to speed the entry process, and to avoid mistakes that can occur if you had to enter the value each time.  In fact this will probably be the most often used function in the Transactions dialog.

For more details, see the Selecting Rates section.

Entering Individual Transactions

Even with comprehensive rates definitions, you will probably enter most payments and deposits as individual transactions, as well as the occasional special charge, credit, refund, etc.  See the Transaction Types section for a description of each type.  

For more information on manually entering individual transactions, see the Entering Individual Transactions section.

Temporary Operator Override

If you're in the Transactions but you're unable to complete a function due to your Operator Access Level, you don't necessarily have to go all the way out to have a manager log in.  Just right-click in the caption bar, and select "Temporary Operator Override".  That will allow someone to log in for this function only -- after leaving this dialog, it will revert to the previous operator automatically.

Issuing Refunds

If you need to issue a refund to a customer, there's a recommended procedure to keep things in balance.  You must first reverse the charges to offset the charges for which you want to give a refund (e.g. for days not stayed or merchandise returned), and then enter a Refund transaction.  This will allow the transactions to balance out.  See the Refunds section for more details.

Deleting Transactions

Assuming you're logged in with a sufficient operator Access Level (Manager by default), it's very easy to delete transactions, both old and new.  While this is handy if you click on the wrong transaction type button when adding transactions, it can also be a dangerous thing.  To delete a transaction, all you need to do is click on any part of it in the grid and click the Delete Selected Item(s) button.  You can delete multiple items at once as well, using Ctrl-click or Shift-click to select multiple lines.

You will get one warning prompt, so be sure to answer "No" to the prompt if you don't mean to delete anything.  In particular, old transactions can be deleted just as easily as new ones, and you cannot get them back using the Cancel button.

Note: If you want to give the customer a credit or refund, don't just delete transactions to do it!  This can result in incorrect reporting, and of course gives no indication of what transpired.  It's better to use the refund procedure described above.

Old transactions (any that were added in a previous shift or previous day) can only be deleted by Manager-access operators.  In addition, auto-rate transactions cannot be deleted without manager access once the reservation is checked in.  If you need to clean up auto-charges, you can undo the check-in (from the Reservation Details dialog), delete the charges, and then check it back in.

Reversing Charges

If any Charges, Discounts or Taxes are selected in the grid (and only those types),  a "Reverse Charges" button will appear at the bottom.  Click this button and it will add equivalent transactions with negative amounts, effectively reversing those charges in one step.

Editing Category Allocations

If the option to allow category allocation for payments is enabled (Maintenance / Program Options / Prompts), and assuming you have sufficient access to edit transactions, then this button will appear whenever a single Payment or Refund transaction is selected.  This can be used to manually change the allocation of the payment to specific transaction categories.  While this is not usually necessary, your particular accounting needs may require it.  See the Payment, Deposit, and Refund Transactions section for more details.

Don't Re-Use / Do Re-Use This Card

If you have selected a single Payment or Deposit transaction which has credit card details, a button will appear at the bottom allowing you to exclude the credit card used in that transaction from being retrieved and re-used for future payments (assuming you have retrieval enabled in Credit Card Security Setup).  Click that button and confirm the prompt to flag the transaction to ignore the card. It does not completely remove the card information, since the information must still be available for Void or Refund transactions, or to re-enable usage.  If it has already been marked as "Don't Re-use" in this transaction, then the button will allow you to reverse this and "Do Re-use" it for future payments.  

Be aware that it only flags that transaction -- if the same card was also used in other transactions on that Reservation or Customer, or is in the Guarantee info, then it will still be found.  You must flag all transactions that would have the card you want to avoid re-using (at least until you do a transaction with a different card).

Transaction Details

Normally the transactions list just shows the basic information -- type, category, qty, description, and amounts.  However it's sometimes useful to refer to other information, particularly for seeing the dates, reference info and other details of prior transactions.

To see the dates of the transactions, check the Show Dates checkbox above the list (below the Cancel button).  To see more details for the transactions, check the Show Details checkbox.  New columns will be added to the list for all of the other details (you will probably need to scroll to the right to see them).  These  include the Payment Method and Discount Used (when applicable), Check # / Reference, the time and operator when it was made, a Receipt #, reservation date (if applicable), and Shift (if enabled).  The Receipt # is an internal number assigned to each transaction session (only or transactions added after version 1.2 of the program will have a receipt #).

If you have Manager access, you can edit some of the data (Check #/Ref, Payment Method and Discount Used).  If you have Administrator access, you can also edit the date, time, and Receipt #.  The Operator and the Reservation date cannot be changed.

Transaction Color Coding

Some color-coding is used for the entries in the Transaction dialog, to aid in spotting certain types.  Since all new transactions for the current session are yellow, the real color coding only applies to "old" transactions.  

Any auto-calculated transactions will be shown in blue.  This helps distinguish charges that were not part of the auto-rates calculations (e.g. manually added charges), and also indicates that those charges cannot be deleted once the reservation has been checked in (except by a manager).  If auto-charges need to be re-done, you need to undo the check-in, delete the auto-charges, and then check it back in.

Any payments, deposits or transfers "in" to the reservation will be shown in green (assuming they are positive amounts).  Any refunds, transfers out, or negative payment/deposit values will be shown in red.

Memo transactions will be shown with either blue or red text -- printable memos will be shown in blue, non-printable memos in red.

All other transactions will be shown with the normal white background.  If you're using auto-rates, a typical reservation will have only blue and green transactions (auto-charges and payments), possibly with a white Deposit Applied transaction and perhaps white Memos.

Open Cash Drawer

If you have a cash drawer installed (and set up through Maintenance / Cash Drawer Setup), then there will be a button to Open Cash Drawer.  You can click this any time to open the cash drawer, assuming your operator access level us high enough according to the Access Levels setup (by default, all Clerks can do this).

In addition, the cash drawer can be configured to open automatically when you print a receipt, provided there was some kind of payment received or refund issued that would require the drawer to be opened (so just re-printing a prior receipt or invoice won't open the cash drawer).

Note: If you're not planning to enter transactions but just need to open the cash drawer, a quick way to do this is to open a Transactions window (e.g. click on the cash register icon or press F4) and the click the Open Cash Drawer button.

Send E-mail Form / E-mail Confirmation

If you have the SMTP Setup completed, then this button will be shown.  Just click this to send an E-mail confirmation, receipt or other defined custom E-mail form to the customer (using the currently entered transactions -- note that this may be different than the result from Quote/Confirmation if charges have not yet been added).  Note that if you have more than one Form defined as an E-mail type form, then it will show a list of these forms allow you to select the one you want to send.

Send Text Form

If you have the Text Messaging Setup completed, then this button will be shown.  Just click this to send a text message, receipt or other defined custom Text Form to the customer (using the currently entered transactions -- note that this may be different than the result from Quote/Confirmation if charges have not yet been added).  Note that if you have more than one Form defined as a Text type form, then it will show a list of these forms allow you to select the one you want to send.

Print Window Tag

If the option is enabled to show this button, then you can simply click the button to print a window tag.  Unlike the other printing functions, this won't shown a preview or print dialog -- it will immediately print the tag without further prompting.  See Maintenance / Program Options / Functions to enable or disable this button.  Note that if more than one linked reservation is shown in the reservation grid at the top of the dialog, then you can print tags for individual reservations (sites) by selecting a reservation in the grid before printing the window tag.

Finishing Up Transactions

When you're finished entering transactions, you may want to print a receipt (which is also commonly used as a reservation ticket for the office files), or you may be finished and ready to move on.  Obviously you can just click one of the Print buttons to print a receipt, or Done if you're finished, or even Cancel if you don't want to save any of the new transactions.

First it should be noted that there are two separate things happening on this dialog -- the transactions and the reservation information.  If you change any of the reservation paid-through date(s) at the top, those must be saved as well as the new transactions. So remember this if you click Cancel.  The software will ask you if you want to abandon "changes" if you have made any date changes, or if you want to abandon the new "transactions" if you or added transactions, so you will have a pretty good clue as to what would be canceled. But if you made both date changes and added transaction, then it will only ask about the new transactions.

Now, assuming you are done and/or want to print a receipt, some validation will be done before continuing.  For example, it will not allow any transactions without an Each amount. (It will warn you and move the cursor to the transaction amount that needs to be filled in.)  It will also check to make sure you have selected a Pay Method if you have any transactions that need one, and a Discount Used if there are any Discount transactions

For more information on printing receipts, invoices and letters, refer to the Printing Receipts section.

Recalling Transactions

There may be times when you want to see what you just did, after closing the Transaction dialog.  To bring it back up, use "Edit the Last Transaction Viewed" under the Transactions menu, or simply press Ctrl-T on the keyboard.

To bring up other transactions, you can locate the customer or reservation related to it and get to it from there, or you can go to the Transactions tab view.  The Transactions tab view shows all transactions for the day by default.  If you want to bring one up in the Transactions dialog again, just locate it in the list, right-click on it, and select Transactions.

Shortcut Keys

The following function keys can be used as shortcuts:

F2 - Select Rates (or Auto-Calculate, if the auto-calculate button is present)

F3 - Enter Deposit

F4 - POS Sale (if POS option is present)

F5 - Enter Charge

F6 - Enter Cash Payment (Enter Payment, automatically selects Cash)

F7 - Enter Credit Card Payment (or Other Payment if credit card processing is not enabled)

F8 - Print

F9 - Open cash drawer

F10 - Done