Ok, so the title of the post is lame but the new calendar booking interface is sooo not lame. In the recent round of updates (did you catch our “Bird Song“?), Arctic introduced the ability to offer a calendar booking interface in place of the traditional “list” style interface we have always sported.

Isn’t it just fabulous?

Of course, as expected with new Arctic gadgets, we give you lots of control, you can choose the “List” format, the “Calendar” format or even mix and match the interfaces to use what works best for the type of trip being offered. By default, Arctic is set to automatically select the interface that will be ideal for the trips being viewed but you can override this selection and choose a preference if you wish.

Note: If your installation predates January 2015 then your default booking interface will be set to the “Trip List” since this used to be the only option.

For more details on how to rock the new calendar interface, check out the new “Booking Interface” guide in your handy dandy documentation. It will give you all the pertinent info to get the most out of the new booking interface options, and as always if you get lost or into trouble just shoot us an email. We’re better than Mighty Mouse.

Version 2 introduced a subtle, easily overlooked accounting feature – the ability to track deposits and batches. Previously, Arctic would automatically assume all transactions were settled on the day they were run. This worked well for the most part but sometimes, especially when processing online reservations or online payments, a conflict would arise between the “End of Day Balance” report and the “Batch Report” from the payment gateway. Generally, this was caused because  payment gateways close batches at slightly different times. For Arctic a day runs from midnight to midnight, while the payment gateway may use a different time depending on their business hours or timezone. Sometimes you would find that Arctic was listing additional transactions that were not batched until the following day, or vice versa. This didn’t happen often but it made reconciling batches more time consuming and created small discrepancies in accounting reports.

In Version 2, we added a feature that allows you to tell Arctic which transactions run on any given day made it into your batch from your payment gateway thus ensuring the two reports always match. In light of this new feature, Arctic is, by default, set to batch credit card transactions. However, if you are unaware of this feature, it can cause problems with your financial reports and gift certificate available balances. When set to batch credit card transactions, Arctic will exclude transactions until the batch deposit is recorded, as it does not think the transactions have settled and that you have actually received the funds.

To figure out if you have unsettled transactions, go to the “Invoices” menu and click “Record Deposits”. If you open this page and find a lot of unsettled transactions, please contact us and we will be happy to settle these old transactions for you. You can do them manually but it is generally best to let us settle them for you as this will save you a lot of time and effort.

Going forward there are a few different options available for you for batching transactions depending on your installation configuration and your preferences. If you have Authorize.Net as your payment gateway, you can enable a special API that will batch credit card transactions automatically. If you are using a different gateway you can record your batches manually, or if you prefer you can disable credit card batching entirely. In addition, you can enable batching for manual transactions as well if you want Arctic to have very accurate accounting data.  All of these options are detailed in the “Transaction Batching” guide in your support documentation.

Again, if you find that you have lots of unsettled past transactions, contact support and we will be happy to settle them for you. Also feel free to contact us with any questions regarding batching transactions on your installation. You can email us at support@arcticreservations.com or call us at (601) ARCTIC – 9 or (601)272-8429.

This week we will be rolling out a rather substantial set of updates for Version 2. The updates include things like the ability to have multiple guest-facing sites, better guide scheduling tools including a combined view for scheduling all upcoming trips, the ability to create evaluations for rental items, the ability to browse evaluation responses per trip type, trip, guide or rental and the ability to create sets of rental items. There are also a lot of other little updates and fixes that will be rolled out as well but these are some of the more substantial features being added during this update.

The ability to have multiple guest-facing sites will allow you to maintain two different guest facing sites that will be governed by the business groups the sites are associated with. Each site will only have access to the trips and rental items contained in the business groups the sites are assigned to. This feature will be especially handy if you have different sites that control or sell different aspects of your business. For example, if you have summer and winter businesses that are run as two separate divisions of your company and have completely different guest facing sites, you will be able to assign those sites to the appropriate business groups making sure the summer site only lists the summer trips and rental items while your winter site only contains the trips and rental items you offer during the winter. Or if you offer horse back riding on one site and multi-day hiking trips on another then you can create guest facing sites for each of these different web sites.

The guide scheduling tools are getting quite a few new useful tools. These tools include the ability to enter “Start Dates” and “End Dates” as well as the ability to enter vacation dates for your guides. These dates will let Arctic know when your guides are available to work and when they are not. If a guide is not available, they will not appear in the list of guides when you are scheduling trips. Also there is a new “Guide” page found under the “Trips” menu that will allow you to schedule your guides on all of your upcoming trips from one page. You will no longer have to go to each and every trip and click the “Schedule Guides” button to schedule your guides. You can use the “Guide” page and schedule your guides for multiple trips all in one place. Both of these features will make managing your guides in Arctic much simpler and easier.

In this update, you will also now be able to create evaluations for rentals. This is particularly useful  for lodging rentals. To create a rental evaluation you follow the same steps for creating a trip evaluation. Once the form is completed you will assign it to your rental business groups by going to the “Settings” page and choosing the appropriate business group from the blue “Business Group” drop down menu at the top of the page. If you have only one business group or plan to use the same evaluation for all of your rentals you will leave it on the “System – Wide Settings” business group. Once the appropriate business group has been selected go to the “Rentals” section of the “Settings” page and click the “Pencil” icon next to “Evaluation”. This will open the “Configure Evaluation” page where you will select the evaluation form you created to use for this rental business group and then click “Save Setting” to save your changes.

We are also adding the ability to browse evaluation responses per trip type, trip, guide and rental. If a trip, guide or rental has an evaluation form associated with it, Arctic will display an “Evaluation Responses” button on either the “View Trip”, “View Person” (for guides) or the “View Item” page. When you click these buttons, Arctic will display the responses specifically associated with the trip, guide or rental, you were viewing when you clicked the “Evaluation Responses” button. You will also be able to see evaluation responses per trip type. To see the evaluation responses related to a particular trip type go to the “Trips” menu and choose “Types”. On the “Browse Trip Types” page, click the new “Wrench” icon as shown here:

Note, you will only see the “Evaluation Responses” option in the “Wrench” menu, if the trip type has an evaluation form assigned to it. As you can see there are also other handy tools in the new “Wrench” menu, such as the ability to create trips, find trips, browse the calendar or the ability to delete an existing trip type.  As with the “Evaluation Responses” button when you select the “Evaluation Responses” from the “Wrench” menu the evaluation responses will automatically be filtered for that specific trip type. This is also true of the “Find Trips” and the “Browse Calendar” options also found in the “Wrench” menu.

Finally, the last big new feature being added in this update is the sets of rental items feature. This new feature will allow you to create sets of rental gear that can be rented all together as one item. Arctic will track the inventory associated with each item included in the set to be sure you do not over extend your inventory. This works particularly well for things like camping gear packages that included a backpack, tent, sleeping bag and camp mat. With the rental item sets you will be able to make a single item called “Camping Gear” that will include all of the individual rental items and Arctic will allocate the appropriate number of each item in the set each time someone rents “Camping Gear”. If you would like to use this feature, you must turn it on by going to the “Settings” page under “Rentals” and clicking the “Pencil” icon next to “Enable Rental Item Sets”. Once the feature is turned on you will see a new tab on your “Create/Edit Rental Item” pages that will be called “Set Items”. This is where you will add the rental items that should be included in the Rental Item Set.

We will be adding support documentation for all of these features in the coming days but if you have any questions or encounter any issues using the new features, please feel free to contact technical support. You can email us at support@arcticreservations.com or call (601) ARCTIC 9 (that’s 601-272-8429).

We recently launched a new feature for tracking guest arrivals, whether they have a rental or a reservation. For outfitters with many simultaneous activities or large groups arriving, the check-in view provides a clear and concise location to see all upcoming activities, review status information and record when guests arrive.

The system is well suited to both tablets and computers. Each open copy of the check-in report stays synchronized, so if a group checks in with one employee, all other employees will be able to see that the group has arrived and is ready. This enables staff to establish multiple check-in “counters” within the office or at the put-in location. Each staff member can keep tabs on who has arrived and when trips are ready to launch by monitoring when all reservations have been marked as checked in.

In addition to providing a streamlined tool to track arrivals and begin trips or rentals, the check-in view highlights important notes for activities as well, such as missing waivers or any outstanding balance. This way, during the check-in process, staff members can collect any missing requirements and information from guests before the trip begins.

And the whole setup is highly customizable, as with many features in Arctic. The check-in view can include custom columns, activity notes and even be broken down by activity information, such as pickup location.

Overall, we hope this new tool will simplify guest arrival for busy day-trip outfitters and rental operations, making it easier to quickly check in guests and ensure that all information has been received and processed for each guest.

If you want to enable the check-in view on your installation, contact support.

For the last 18 months, we have been hard at working reimagining the features and functionality of the ideal reservation and customer relations management system. Based on over seven years of experience working with outdoor adventure companies, we wanted to create a new version of Arctic Reservations that truly addresses the needs of adventure outfitters. There are many challenges to managing scheduling and inventory in the industry, such as sharing inventory across trips and rentals, managing permits and compliance, running multi-location businesses, filing waivers, communicating with guests, etc. Arctic Reservations has long been a leading tool for the industry, but we thought we could do it even better.

Version 2 represents that labor come to life. We have worked to create a new version from the ground up that is even easier to use, but able to rise to the complex challenges that many outfitters have to tackle on a day-to-day basis. The new version introduces many powerful features, including:

• Manage independent business units through one installation. Finances and configurations are kept separate, while reports and data can be run across the whole organization. User accounts can be specific to one business group, meaning reservationist will be able to easily manage the reservations relevant to their focus.
• Customize forms and reports to add and remove fields as you see fit. It is possible to tailor Arctic Reservations to your exact business needs.
• Remarkable new design editors. Customize the look and feel of the guest-facing website and emails in seconds – no coding needed.
• A powerful new inventory engine that allows you to manage and allocate your limited resources across all sectors of your business: tours, rentals, lodging, retail and more. In addition, rental inventory can now be shared with trip inventory, so that you can better manage your scarce resources.
• Accept online rentals of rooms and equipment.
• A full retail POS interface and e-commerce store (coming Spring 2013).
• And much more…We can’t wait to share the hundreds of new features. Email or call to setup a guided tour.

Today we have started setting up the first version 2 installations for some new and for some existing customers. Over the coming weeks, we will be revising the software, creating a public demonstration installation and working to transition more of our existing customers over the new version.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact us to schedule a guided tour.

With an increasing number of guests completing their registration forms online these days, many outfitters have been similarly seeking to move waivers and agreements into an automated electronic format. Arctic Reservations has long offered the ability to get guests to complete their trip waivers online, but we have often recommended using this in conjunction with paper waivers. Due to increased demand for electronic waivers, we have been in contact with some of the large industry insurers to discuss the exclusive reliance on electronic waivers. We are happy to announce that you can now greatly simplify the paperwork and compliance demands by taking advantage of the new e-waiver module in Arctic Reservations.

The e-waiver module offers the following safeguards:

• The program complies with the requirements of the U.S. Federal ESIGN act, and most state regulatory requirements (please contact us regarding your specific state).
• Each electronic signature is stored in an encrypted, date-stamped format that is uniquely linked to the original customer.
• The system can handle waivers for minors, as well as allow users to opt for a traditional paper waiver at any time.
• All completed waivers are securely stored and are fully retrievable for at least seven years.

We have rolled out a number of exciting new features in Arctic Reservations over the last several months. We want to briefly highlight some of these new features here:

• Automatic e-mail triggers – Send invoice reminders, launch reminders and launch follow-up e-mails automatically by creating and configuring custom e-mail triggers. With extensive configuration options, you can custom tailor and send e-mails to specific customers at certain times. Alternatively, automatic e-mails can be saved to the outbox for a quick manual confirmation before sending. This reduces time spent on invoice reminders or launch notifications for office staff, and helps boost customer relations by staying in touch with guests.
• Booking agent support – Booking agents can now book reservations through the online system. Commissions can be tracked automatically in Arctic for easy reconciliation.
• Keyword manager – Review, edit and delete the list of keywords being used within Arctic, as well as getting quick access to the customers associated with each keyword.

The above list highlights just a few of the many ongoing changes and improvements we have been working on. In the last year, over 572 updates have been pushed into the live version of the software. With a list of new features in development, we are excited about what’s next and will be highlighting it here soon.

This post is one of a series, highlighting old new features (these are additions to the software that have been made in the last few months, but were never described on the blog). For more information, view the original post.

In the past, one of the most time consuming tasks for reservation staff of rafting and adventure companies has been collecting and entering guest information, either into reports or into their reservation system. This is especially true for overnight trips, where a substantial amount of information is required. Often, the process would require printing forms, postage, waiting for a response and then deciphering the guest’s handwriting to type the information into the reservation system.

A new module for Arctic Reservations, called Complete Reservation, helps cut down on waiting time to collect such vital guest information and, more importantly, saves your reservation staff time in terms of having to enter that information. Once a guest has booked a reservation, the staff simply sends them an e-mail containing all the trip details and the invoice. The e-mail will include a personalized invitation URL, that will allow the guest to visit the company’s website and fill in all their guest information.

All this works through the My Module functionality of Arctic Reservations, which allows you to integrate Arctic with your company website. Through an extensively customizable template system, the website will match the design of the rest of your site. In addition to booking new reservations and sharing photos, this website can be used by guests to access trip details, download invoices and liability agreements and enter all needed personal/group details.

Details entered automatically appear in the appropriate customer record, and a notification appears on the home page log, allowing you to review the details and ensure that all information is correct.

The information collected can range from basic details (contact information), to extensive food preferences and emergency contact information. And the module can be configured to collect different information for different trips.

Of course, due to the variety of group types (families, couples, groups of friends), the module seeks to accommodate all configurations. For families, most details entered are common to all guests (such as contact information). While, for a group of friends, each person can fill in their own details. And the primary contact can view who still needs to enter their information, and even send them a personalized link to the website as well.

This new module will help increase efficiency and help ensure all guest details are accurately collected, while freeing up office staff to pursue new reservations, instead of spending time collecting data. If you are interested in trying this new module or adding it to your installation, contact a sales representative.