Receiving Bookings

When a guest books on an OTA, Channex notifies Innvera and the booking is imported as a reservation within seconds. It appears on the Calendar and in Bookings like any other reservation, tagged with the channel it came from, with a folio opened and a room assigned. Modifications and cancellations made on the OTA flow through the same path and update the reservation in place.

This page describes what arrives, how it looks, and the few things staff still need to do by hand.

How a booking arrives

1. The OTA sends the booking to Channex; Channex sends a webhook (booking_new, booking_modification or booking_cancellation) to Innvera.
2. Innvera fetches the booking revision from Channex, resolves each room in it against the channel's mappings, and creates or updates the reservation.
3. Innvera acknowledges the revision to Channex. Until it does, Channex keeps re-sending for about 30 minutes; a booking still unacknowledged after that raises the notification Booking not acknowledged.
4. A notification such as New booking from Booking.com links straight to the reservation.

Imports are idempotent: the same booking re-sent by Channex updates the existing reservation rather than creating a second one.

How it looks in the PMS

Status

A new OTA booking is created as Confirmed. A booking that arrives already cancelled is created as Cancelled with no folio. Innvera does not create pending or on-request states for OTA bookings.

Guest

The lead guest is created or matched from the name and contact details the OTA sent. Some OTAs send an alias email or no phone; where a name is missing, the guest is recorded as Unknown Guest so the booking still imports. Check and complete the profile under Guests.

Room assignment

Innvera assigns a free room of the mapped room type for each room line, never placing two lines of one booking in the same physical room. If every room of that type is under an out-of-order block for the dates, the booking imports Unassigned and the front desk assigns it later. If rooms are genuinely all occupied, the import waits and retries as rooms free up.

Folio and payment

A folio is opened for every non-cancelled OTA booking. When the OTA collected payment (Collected by OTA), an OTA prepayment is posted so the folio balance reflects what the guest still owes at the property — usually nothing but extras. When the property collects, the folio carries the full stay charge.

Card details

The Guarantee tab shows the card type, last four digits, cardholder name and expiry, plus a Virtual card badge for OTA virtual cards and any Activation rules the OTA attached (when the card may be charged and for how much). Innvera never stores the full card number or CVV. To charge the card, open the booking in Channex, which is the PCI-certified system of record. Airbnb sends no card; the tab says so.

Modifications from the OTA

A modified revision is always applied — the OTA is the system of record for its bookings — but never silently:

• Innvera compares the incoming booking with the reservation and records the field-level changes (dates, room type, rate plan, room count, occupancy, total, guest name and contact) in the Revisions tab and in Settings → Logs as Reservation modified via Channex. Changes to dates, room type or rate plan are logged as warnings because they can contradict front-desk actions already taken.
• The folio receives an adjustment for any price difference, so it keeps tracking the revised total.
• Room lines are rebuilt and rooms re-assigned for the new stay.
• The notification Booking modified on Booking.com (or the relevant channel) is sent.

Cancellations from the OTA

A cancellation sets the reservation to Cancelled, releases the inventory, pushes the freed availability back to Channex so other OTAs can sell it, and sends Booking cancelled on …. The folio is left as it is: what to charge for a cancelled OTA booking is the property's decision.

What staff must do

• Review new OTA bookings. Open the notification, check the guest, dates and rate, and confirm the assigned room suits the request (or assign one if it says Unassigned).
• Keep the OTA as the place to change stay shape. Before check-in, a channel booking can be moved only to another room of the same room type; changing the room type or the dates is blocked with Channel bookings cannot change room type before check-in — Channex does not update the OTA. After check-in, upgrades are the front desk's call.
• Report no-shows on Booking.com. Marking a Booking.com reservation as No show in Innvera reports it to Booking.com through Channex. Other channels' bookings cannot be marked as no-show from Innvera; handle them on the OTA.
• Charge cards in Channex. Innvera shows what the card is, not the number.

Recovering missed bookings

If you suspect bookings were missed during an outage, use Pull future reservations on the Booking.com connection card. It imports future bookings for that channel without changing availability; the toast reports imported and skipped counts. Pulled bookings may omit taxes, fees, guest contact details, commission and card data.

Common mistakes

• Editing dates on an OTA booking in the PMS. Blocked before check-in; amend on the OTA and the modification will arrive by itself.
• Assuming a folio balance means the guest owes money. Check Collected by OTA first — prepaid stays show the OTA prepayment on the folio.
• Ignoring an "Unmapped room on booking" notification. The booking will not import until the mapping exists; add it within 30 minutes or pull the reservation afterwards.

Related

• Mapping rooms and rates
• Guest messaging
• Reservations