Policies

Check-in and check-out windows, cancellation tiers, pet, smoking and children rules, deposits and custom policies — and which of them the PMS enforces.

Hotel Policies (/policies) is where you write down the terms guests agree to: when they can arrive and must leave, what cancelling costs, whether pets and smoking are allowed, what a deposit looks like, and anything else you want shown at booking time. The page is guest-facing by design — its subtitle reads "Manage guest-facing policies shown on OTAs and your booking engine" — and everything on it appears on the property's booking engine pages and confirmation emails.

Only some of it changes how the PMS behaves. The operational settings that drive fees and check-out rules live in Settings → Property → General; the OTA-facing policy record that Channex syncs lives in Settings → Property → OTA Policy. The table at the end of this page shows which is which, because the three overlap in name.

Key terms

Cancellation tier — a rule "if cancelled N hours before arrival, charge X", where X is No charge, 1 night charge, a % charge or Full charge. One tier is the Default.

Deposit — the amount the guest is expected to pay at booking: a percentage of the total, the first night, or a fixed amount.

Custom policy — a free-text title and description under Additional Policies for anything the standard sections do not cover.

Edit policies

Open the page

Go to /policies. The page has four tabs: Check-in & Cancellation, Rules, Deposit and Additional. Changes on the first three are held locally until you click Save All Changes at the top right (the button reads "Saved!" for a moment afterwards).

Check-In & Check-Out

Check-in from (earliest guests may check in), Check-in until (last accepted check-in time) and Check-out by are required times. Switch on Early check-in available and Late check-out available to expose an Early check-in fee and Late check-out fee ("Charged per stay").

Cancellation Policies

Click Add tier, then the pencil on the tier to edit Tier name, Description, Hours before arrival, the Charge (No charge, 1 night, Percentage with a % value, Full charge) and the Default tier switch. Tiers show as badges: "1 night charge", "50% charge", "48h before", "Default". You cannot delete the default tier ("Cannot delete the default tier") or the last one, and exactly one tier must be default. Hours must be between 0 and 8,760; a percentage between 0 and 100.

Rules

Pet Policy: Pets allowed, Pet fee per night, Maximum pet weight. Smoking Policy: Smoking allowed in rooms, Designated smoking areas. Children & Extra Beds: Children allowed, Crib / baby cot available with Crib fee per night ("0 = complimentary"), Extra bed available with Extra bed fee per night.

Deposit

Deposit required at booking, then Deposit type (Percentage of total, First night charge, Fixed amount), the Deposit percentage or Fixed deposit amount, and Refund within (days) after check-out.

Additional

Click Add policy, enter a Policy title and Policy description, and click Save on the row. Each custom policy saves on its own; the trash icon deletes it after Delete this policy?.

What is enforced, and where

Setting	Where it lives	Effect in Innvera
Check-in Time, Check-out Time	Settings → Property → General	Drive the same-day check-in rule and the early/late fee cut-offs; synced to Channex as the property's times
Early Check-in Charge, Late Check-out Charge	Settings → Property → General	The bottom rung of the fee ladder — what an early arrival or late departure pays when no bracket on Stay Rules claims the time. Posted to the folio at check-in or check-out; "0 = never charge"
Early and late fee ladders, grace windows, the no-show fee and auto-marking	Settings → Property → Stay Rules	What the PMS actually charges at the edges of a stay. See Property Settings
Check-in from / until, Check-out by, early/late fees	Hotel Policies	Shown to guests on the booking engine; not used by the front desk — the charge the desk applies comes from Stay Rules
Cancellation tiers	Hotel Policies	The Default tier decides what a PMS cancellation inside its window, and a no-show, charge to the folio. The booking engine uses the tiers to tell a direct-booking guest whether they can still cancel and what it costs, and to block cancellation after arrival
Deposit terms	Hotel Policies	Shown to guests; the PMS does not collect or require a deposit at creation. Record one on the folio with Record Payment → Deposit
Pets, smoking, children rules	Hotel Policies	Shown to guests
Pets Policy, Smoking Policy, Adults Only, Max Guests, Internet, Parking	Settings → Property → OTA Policy	The Channex `hotel_policies` record pushed to OTAs

The default tier is the one the PMS charges

The Cancellation Policies section says "Assign a tier to each rate plan in the Rate Plans settings", but the rate plan form has no cancellation or deposit field — tiers are property-wide. The Default tier is not just a marker: when a reservation is cancelled inside its window, or a guest is marked a no-show, the stay is reversed and that tier's charge is posted to the folio as a fee. No charge on the default tier means cancelling costs nothing. See Cancellations and No-shows.

Two sets of check-in times

The times on Hotel Policies and the times on Settings → Property → General are stored separately. Keep them identical, or guests will read one time while the front desk charges by another.

Tips

Write descriptions for guests. Tier descriptions and custom policies are printed verbatim on the booking engine and in confirmation emails.
Tiers are matched by hours before arrival. The booking engine applies the tier with the largest Hours before arrival that the guest still qualifies for, and the strictest tier once inside every window. The Default flag is what the PMS reads when it has to charge a cancellation or a no-show, so set it on the tier you want to be the house rule.
Fees here are display only. Pet, crib and extra-bed fees are not posted automatically; add them as an Extra Charge on the folio.

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