Statuses and Lifecycle

The six reservation statuses, which transitions are allowed and by whom, and what each one does to rooms, the folio, housekeeping, notifications and channels.

A reservation is always in exactly one of six statuses. Most start as Confirmed the moment they are created; a tentative booking starts as On Hold and becomes Confirmed when someone confirms it. From there a reservation moves forward through check-in and check-out, or sideways into cancellation or no-show. Every transition is a single action from the status chip in the reservation header or the Actions menu, and every one of them is recorded in the activity log and raises a notification.

Statuses

Label	Meaning	Colour
`On Hold`	Tentative. The rooms and the inventory are taken, and released again when the hold expires.	Amber
`Confirmed`	Booked firm, not yet arrived. Editable and movable.	Indigo
`In-House`	Guest has been checked in. Rooms are occupied.	Green
`Checked Out`	Stay finished; folio closed. Terminal.	Grey
`Cancelled`	Booking withdrawn before arrival; inventory released. Terminal.	Red
`No Show`	Guest never arrived; inventory released. Terminal.	Orange

The internal codes (HOLD, CONFIRMED, CHECKED_IN, CHECKED_OUT, CANCELLED, NO_SHOW) appear only in exports and the API.

Transitions

From	To	Action	Permission
`On Hold`	`Confirmed`	Confirm Booking	`reservation → write`
`On Hold`	`Cancelled`	Release Hold	`reservation → cancel`
`Confirmed`	`In-House`	Check In	`reservation → write`
`Confirmed`	`Cancelled`	Cancel Reservation	`reservation → cancel`
`Confirmed`	`No Show`	Mark as No Show	`reservation → write`
`In-House`	`Checked Out`	Check Out	`reservation → write`

Nothing leaves a terminal status. A cancelled or no-show booking cannot be reinstated in Innvera, and a checked-out guest cannot be checked back in; create a new reservation. Repeating an action that already happened (confirming a booking that is already Confirmed, checking in an In-House guest) is simply ignored rather than refused.

The status chip in the header is a dropdown while transitions remain — Confirm Booking and Release Hold for On Hold; Check In, Mark as No Show and Cancel Reservation for Confirmed; Check Out for In-House — and a static chip once the status is terminal.

Tentative holds

A hold is a real booking that has not been committed to. It takes sellable inventory and a physical room exactly as a confirmed booking does, so the chart shows the room as spoken for and the channels see one unit fewer — and then it lets go of all of it by itself if nobody confirms it in time.

Create the hold

In the New Reservation sheet, turn on Tentative hold: "Takes the room and inventory now but releases them automatically if not confirmed by the expiry. Defaults to the property's hold length." Use Hold until (optional) to set your own expiry date and time.

From the Calendar, sweep across the nights you want in a room and choose Courtesy hold — "Keep the room for a caller; name and number only. Releases itself when it lapses." That form asks only for the guest's name, phone, email, rate plan, adults, Hold until and a note, and files the booking with the note "Courtesy hold from the calendar" (or your own text after "Courtesy hold — ").

Let it run, or confirm it

The booking shows the amber On Hold badge in Bookings, on the Calendar (an amber bar with diagonal hatching) and on the reservation, where the header adds "Releases 12 Oct, 18:00 unless confirmed".

Click Confirm Booking on the status chip or in Actions to make it firm. Nothing is re-priced and nothing moves — the hold already took the inventory, the room and the folio lines when it was made, so confirming only removes the expiry. The activity log records "Hold confirmed".

Or release it

Release Hold opens Release this hold? — "The held room and inventory go back to availability. No cancellation fee is charged for a hold." Confirm with Release Hold, or back out with Keep hold.

Expiry. If you do not set Hold until, the hold lapses after the property's default hold length (24 hours out of the box). An expiry in the past is refused with "A hold must expire in the future".

Automatic release. A background sweep runs every few minutes and releases every hold whose expiry has passed, down exactly the path the front desk uses: inventory and room given back, the stay reversed off the folio, availability pushed to the channels — and no fee, because a hold is not a commitment. The reversal lines read "Hold released: Room charge — Deluxe King — …" so the ledger says why the stay came off. A hold that was confirmed in the meantime is left alone.

Confirm a hold before the guest arrives

Check In is offered only for a Confirmed reservation; the server refuses a held one with "Only confirmed reservations can be checked in". The arrivals board is a work queue of confirmed stays, so a hold does not appear on it either. Confirm the booking first, then check the guest in.

A hold can be moved, re-dated and re-roomed on the Calendar like a confirmed booking, but Edit and Note are offered only for Confirmed reservations — confirm the hold first if you need to change its rate plan or occupancy.

Check In

Only on the arrival day

Check In is enabled only when today, in the property's timezone, is the reservation's check-in date. Otherwise the menu explains: "Check-in opens on the arrival day (Sep 22, 2026)." or "Arrival day (Sep 20, 2026) has passed — amend the dates before checking in." The server enforces the same rule, so a stale page cannot bypass it. To check in a late arrival, move the check-in date on the Calendar first.

Work through the check-in dialog

Check-in is not one click. It opens the same three-step dialog the arrivals board uses — Booker, Guests, Review — so identity, the guest register and the signature are captured wherever you start from. The last step shows one row per room and who is still unnamed, and finishes with Check in. Full detail in Arrivals and Check-in.

What happens:

Status becomes In-House.
Rooms assigned to the reservation are set to Occupied.
Early check-in fee: if the guest arrives before the property's check-in time (less the grace window), the early-arrival ladder on the Stay Rules settings tab decides the charge and an Early Check-in Fee line is posted — "Early check-in fee (before 09:00)". At most once per stay, even if the line is later voided. A ladder that charges nothing, or an arrival inside the grace window, posts nothing.
Housekeeping: any open (Pending or Assigned) arrival-prep task for those rooms today is cancelled.
Notification "Guest checked in"; audit entry "Guest checked in".

A reservation without an assigned room can still be checked in; nothing is marked occupied until a room is assigned.

Check Out

Open the check-out dialog

From the status chip or Actions. The dialog shows the live folio balance, the settlement override and the late-fee waiver in one place. If the balance is zero or the guest has overpaid, check-out completes straight away.

Settle an outstanding balance

If money is still owed, the server refuses with its own message ("Cannot check out: 120.00 USD is still outstanding on the folio"). The right fix is to record the payment on the Folio tab and try again. If the property allows it, enter an override reason and check out with the balance; the reason goes to the audit log. See Departures and Check-out.

What happens:

Late check-out fee: if the clock is past the property's check-out time plus its grace window on the departure day — or the departure day has passed altogether — the late-departure ladder on Stay Rules decides the charge and a Late Check-out Fee line is posted before the balance is judged, so it counts toward what is owed. Once per stay, and waivable in the dialog with a reason.
Folio is set to Closed; no further postings are accepted.
Rooms are set to Vacant and Dirty and removed from the assignable list until housekeeping marks them ready.
Housekeeping raises a Full clean departure task for each room (skipping rooms that are out of order today).
Status becomes Checked Out; notification and audit entry "Guest checked out", with the overridden balance recorded when there was one.

Cancel and No Show

Both are covered in detail in Cancellations and No-shows. In short: both require Confirmed, both confirm first, both release the inventory of every room on the booking, queue an availability update to Channex, cancel open arrival-prep housekeeping tasks and raise a notification ("Reservation cancelled" / "Guest no-show"). Both also take the stay off the folio and post the fee the property's policy charges, if any.

What each status allows

	`On Hold`	`Confirmed`	`In-House`	`Checked Out` / `Cancelled` / `No Show`
Edit (rate plan, occupancy, guest, notes)	No — confirm it first	Yes	No	No
Move dates / room on Calendar	Yes	Yes	Partly (see Modifying Reservations)	No
Assign / unassign room	Yes	Yes	Assign or change only	No
Check in	No	On the arrival day	—	No
Post to folio	Yes	Yes	Yes	Folio is `Closed` after check-out

Hints shown on disabled controls: "Checked-in reservations can't be edited here.", "Checked-out reservations are read-only.", "Cancelled reservations are read-only.", "No-show reservations are read-only."

Tips

Set the property timezone correctly (Settings → Property → General). The same-day check-in rule, the hold sweep, the no-show sweep and the early/late fee ladders all use it.
Use a hold, not a second booking, when a caller needs thinking time. The room is genuinely off the market and comes back on its own, which a note on a confirmed booking cannot do.
Looking for a hold in the list? The Bookings status filter offers Confirmed, In-House, Checked Out, Cancelled and No Show; holds show under All statuses, and the Calendar's status legend has an On Hold swatch.
Departure cleans depend on check-out. A guest who leaves without being checked out keeps the room Occupied and generates no clean until you check them out.

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