Hotel money: where everything lives

Why	Get your bearings on hotel money: where to see what a booking still owes, where to open the cash desk and the journal, where taxes are configured, and how to take a payment remotely.
Who	Administrators, front desk staff, and owners — everyone who takes payments and watches balances.
What you’ll get	A map of the money: the four places amounts live, and a clear route to the article that answers each question.
Limitations	This is an orientation overview, not a step-by-step guide: the cashier shift, recording a payment, the voucher, and taxes each get their own article (see “See also”). There are no PDF invoices in the system — see “Honest boundaries”.

Money in the HotelsCalendar PMS is not gathered into one “accounting” section — every amount lives where it gets used. A specific booking’s balance sits in its booking card, the cash desk and the journal live on the Finances screen, taxes come from the hotel settings and show up in the booking, and online payments arrive through a link from the card.

This overview is the map: what lives where, and where to go for each task.

Where the money lives

Four places, each with its own job:

• The booking card — the money of one stay: the “Amount / Paid / Balance due” summary, the booking’s payments, and the online payment link.
• The Finances screen — the cash desk and the journal: the day’s shifts and the money moving through the whole hotel.
• Rate plans — where the taxes inside prices come from: configured once, calculated automatically.
• The payment link — how to take money remotely, without waiting for the guest at the desk.

A booking’s balance: “Amount / Paid / Balance due”

The most common money question of the day is who owes what. The answer is always in the booking card:

• in the header — the “Finances” block: “Total”, “Paid”, “Balance due”, with an “Accommodation” / “Extras” breakdown;
• on the “Payments” tab — the “Amount / Paid / Balance due” summary and the list of the booking’s payments.

Totals recalculate on their own: add a service or record a payment, and the balance due updates immediately. When a guest at the desk asks about payment, the answer is already on screen — no sections to click through.

The debt is not hidden in the Planner either: above the grid sits the “Balance due” tile with the day’s total across bookings, and an unpaid booking’s bar carries a “partial” marker and an unpaid icon.

For a full tour of the card, see Inside the booking card.

The cash desk and the journal: the “Finances” screen

The hotel’s cash desk and its money journal live on a separate “Finances” screen in the left menu. It holds four tabs: “Money movements” · “Shifts” · “Documents” · “Payment types”. Two of them are the front desk’s daily tools:

• “Shifts” — the cashier shift: open it with an opening balance, add or remove cash during the day, then close it and reconcile the actual balance against the expected one. Step by step — in The cashier shift: open, take payments, close.
• “Money movements” — the journal: every operation on one line — date, source, type, payment method, amount, and the document it belongs to; quick filters separate card from cash, and cash-in/cash-out from payments. How to read the journal — in The money journal.

The other two tabs are “Payment types”, your hotel’s directory of payment methods, and “Documents”.

Taxes

Taxes in the system are calculated automatically — nobody works them out by hand for each booking. The configuration lives in the hotel settings (the “Settings → Taxes” section): VAT rates and city fee rules are set once, and every night then picks up its taxes on its own.

Inside a booking, taxes show up in two places: the “Taxes” column in the day-by-day breakdown on the “Rate” tab — you can see what each night’s price is made of — and a separate “City tax” tab with the fee calculated for the booking.

How to set it up once and what the guest sees — in Taxes and city fees.

Paying online

To take a payment remotely, use a link: on the “Payments” tab of the booking card there is a “Create payment link” button. The guest opens the link and pays on their own — the amount lands in the booking. The same tab holds the “Deposit hold” block, which secures the booking’s deposit.

How to ask for the right amount and what to keep in mind — in The online payment link.

Honest boundaries

A few boundaries worth stating up front:

• There are no PDF invoices. The document issued for a booking is the voucher — a booking confirmation for the guest. You can preview it, print it, and email it, but it is not an invoice and not a fiscal document. Details — in The booking voucher.
• The journal is not a report. “Money movements” is a live screen for the current month: what is moving through the hotel right now. It does not replace a report for an arbitrary period.
• A guest cannot make a payment in the Guest Portal. The portal is for viewing the booking and messaging; payments go through the payment link only.

See also

• The cashier shift: open, take payments, close — the cash desk’s working day, from opening balance to reconciliation.
• Record a guest payment: cash, card, at the desk — record a payment in the booking card.
• The booking voucher: preview, print, language — the booking’s document: preview it, print it, send it to the guest.