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In a guesthouse with nobody on reception, the booking itself can let the guest in. The registration number given when booking lifts the barrier at the entrance and at the car park, a code sent by text message opens the room door, and after checkout everything expires on its own. Nobody has to sit up until midnight or collect keys. In TraxSystem this is done by the Room booking module, and opening the barrier by number plate needs a camera at the gate.
A guest books a room for three nights, enters their registration number and arrives after eleven at night, while reception closed at six. Without a mechanism like this, someone has to lift the barrier for them, show them where to park and hand over the key.
Staying on duty until midnight, an open barrier, a key safe
Small properties usually deal with this in one of three ways:
- someone stays on duty until midnight, which is the most common and the most expensive option, because with a handful or a dozen or so rooms, a member of staff for late arrivals easily eats up the profit from occupancy,
- the barrier is left open, so the property’s car park becomes a public car park, and in the morning someone phones to say there is nowhere to park,
- the key is left in a key safe with a code, which works as long as there is one code for everyone and nobody passes it on; the key safe doesn’t know who opened it or when.
Each of them stems from the fact that the booking has no connection to the barrier or the lock.
How the booking opens the barrier, the car park and the room
In TraxSystem a stay booking is a permission that covers three points at once: the barrier at the entrance, the barrier at the car park and the room door.
The guest gives their registration number when booking. When they arrive, the camera at the gate reads the plate, the system checks whether there is a valid stay covering that gate and lifts the barrier. The guest gets into the room with a code sent by text message, and on the way the doors into the zone open too: the stairwell, the floor, the lift.
After checkout the code and the plate stop working, each after its own margin of time. Nothing needs to be taken back, because nothing was granted permanently.
Time margins for the car and for the room door
Time margins, meaning the leeway before check-in and after checkout, are set separately in TraxSystem for the door and for the car. For the room door, a quarter of an hour is enough. For the barrier, a quarter of an hour isn’t enough at all, because the guest arrives earlier, parks, unloads the luggage and only then goes to the room.
That is why the vehicle has its own, wider margins: usually an hour before check-in and an hour after checkout. Without this separation, either the guest is left waiting at a lowered barrier, or the room door opens for someone an hour early.
A booking counted in nights
A stay at a guesthouse is counted in nights. Friday to Sunday is two nights, even though in hours it comes to forty-six, so a calendar that counts in hours will be wrong for every booking.
The checkout time is deliberately earlier than the check-in time. That way one guest leaving at noon and the next arriving at two fit side by side instead of being flagged as a clash, and at an accommodation property changeover day happens every day.
What a stay booking will not take care of
TraxSystem won’t sell accommodation. Room rates, billing, invoices, booking channels and the booking engine on your website stay where they are, and the system handles the stay and access.
It won’t open the barrier without a camera, because recognising the plate needs a camera at the gate. Nor will it let in a guest who didn’t give their registration number, because it can’t guess it.
It won’t replace hotel locks if the property already has its own keycard system on the doors; that is a separate conversation about integration. Nor will it check whether the guest stayed the night: it sees vehicle passages and door unlocks, but doesn’t record presence in the room.
Questions and answers
Does the guest’s number plate stay in the system after they leave?
No. The registration number lives only as long as the booking and doesn’t go into the vehicle records. After checkout the same car is as unknown as it was before arrival.
Could a booking hijack somebody else’s entry?
No. The booking is only checked when the vehicle hasn’t been recognised by the vehicle records or any vehicle group, so it only handles an entry that would otherwise have ended with the message “unknown vehicle”.
What if the guest arrives a day early?
The barrier won’t lift, because the stay hasn’t started yet: the margins are counted from the check-in time.
Can we start without a camera at the gate?
Yes. The stay calendar on its own works without any hardware, and the door code works without a camera. The camera is added when vehicle entry starts causing trouble.
How much does it cost?
Room booking is a module added to the base package, and its price depends on the number of rooms. For a guesthouse, what counts is the number of guest rooms, because that sets the module tier; the tier prices are on the pricing page.
See also: TraxSystem for hotels and guesthouses · Booking meeting rooms and guest rooms · What is ANPR: number plate recognition explained