The hospitality operator's
dictionary.

Application-to-Person messaging over 10-digit long codes — the modern carrier framework for businesses sending SMS in the US. Requires brand registration, campaign approval, and content review by The Campaign Registry (TCR) before a number can send at scale. Hotel Central handles 10DLC registration on the hotel's behalf.

An à-la-carte feature module (Hotel Central Payment Processing tipping, Marketplace, Ship-to-Guest, etc.) added on top of a Plan Tier for a separate per-month fee. Hotels can pay-now and cancel or refund any add-on within a 7-day refund window — designed for experimentation without commitment.

Total room revenue divided by the number of paid occupied rooms over a given period. The headline pricing metric for any hotel. Excludes complimentary rooms, day-use, and out-of-order inventory. Pairs with Occupancy to produce RevPAR.

Hotel-trained multi-model AI (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI) that answers guest questions, drafts staff replies, triages maintenance photos, and translates inbound messages. Per-feature provider routing so the right model handles the right task; all usage tracked in `ai_api_usage_logs` for cost attribution. See AI Concierge.

Total room-nights divided by total arrivals. A higher ALOS reduces turnover cost (one stay-over costs ~30% of what a Checkout (room-status)/check-in cycle costs in housekeeping labor). Group bookings typically lift ALOS.

A platform fee taken on each Direct Charge (Hotel Central Payment Processing) payment. Hotel Central's application fee is 1% on tip transactions. Set per-payment, not per-month, so hotels only pay when staff are actually being tipped.

Authorization = the card issuer holds funds against the guest's available credit without moving money. Capture = the merchant actually pulls those funds. Hotels typically authorize at check-in (incidentals) and capture at Checkout (room-status). Unused authorizations expire and fall off the guest's statement in 5–30 days depending on the card network.

The lowest publicly available unrestricted rate at the hotel for a given date. The reference rate that OTAs, GDS, and corporate negotiated rates are anchored against. Often dynamically priced by an RMS.

The periodic pressure/temperature/water-level check on a hotel's boiler system, logged for insurance and brand compliance. Done daily at most full-service properties. Captured with photo evidence in Hotel Central's Boiler Readings, exportable by date range for the insurance auditor.

An email rejection from the recipient mail server. Hard bounces (invalid address, blocked domain) auto-suppress the address forever. Soft bounces (mailbox full, temporary failure) are retried by SendGrid for up to 72 hours.

The first step of A2P 10DLC — the hotel's legal business identity is registered with The Campaign Registry, including EIN, address, and authorized representative. Approval typically takes 1–7 days.

The second step of A2P 10DLC — the actual message use case (transactional, marketing, mixed) is reviewed against carrier policies. Reviewers want to see sample messages, opt-in language, and the consent flow. Approvals can fail for vague messages or unclear opt-in disclosures.

Capex (capital expenditure) = big multi-year investments (renovations, FF&E purchases, building systems). Opex (operating expenditure) = day-to-day spending (linens, cleaning supplies, repair labor). Hotels track them separately because they hit P&L and tax differently.

End-of-shift count of physical cash in the drawer against the system's expected balance, with variance logging, photos of the count, and manager sign-off. The audit trail your accountant needs and your front-desk supervisor wishes she had years ago.

The middleware that syncs rates and availability between the PMS/CRS and every OTA/booking channel. Prevents overbookings by debouncing inventory updates across 20+ channels in near-real-time.

When a cardholder disputes a charge with their bank, the bank pulls the money back from the merchant pending investigation. Hotels lose chargebacks that lack signed authorization forms or check-in records. Hotel Central's Digital Authorizations exist specifically to win these disputes.

A room being vacated today that needs a full turn — strip, deep clean, restock, inspect. The room goes from "dirty checkout" → "clean inspected" → "ready" before the next arrival can be assigned. The most labor-intensive single task in housekeeping.

Industry term for the system that tracks Work Order and PM schedules. Hotel Central's Maintenance module is a hospitality-specific CMMS layered on top of the room/asset graph.

A pre-approved schedule of remedies (refund X dollars, comp Y night, upgrade to Z) that front-desk staff can apply without manager approval for specific complaint types. Speeds up service recovery and bounds liability.

The system that distributes inventory and rates outward to OTA, GDS, and brand websites, and pulls bookings back into the PMS. Often bundled with the PMS in modern stacks.

A scheduled detailing service that goes beyond daily housekeeping — moving furniture, treating upholstery, descaling fixtures, washing baseboards. Tracked separately from per-night assignments because it's planned (typically monthly per room). In Hotel Central, deep cleaning and a checkout on the same room+date are independent work items — they can legitimately coexist. See Housekeeping & Deep-Cleaning.

Self-serve sandbox accounts pre-seeded with a fictional hotel ("Sunset Boulevard Inn"), realistic operations data, and live AI features. Lets prospects experience the product without onboarding their own data. Demo users are flagged in Intercom and excluded from real billing.

A grouping of staff by function (front desk, housekeeping, maintenance, F&B, management). Used for task routing, notification fan-out, scheduling, and permissions. See the five Departments we built the product around.

A guest-facing form (delivered by email or SMS link) where the guest enters card details and signs a credit card authorization that the hotel can hold and reference in a Chargeback dispute. Replaces the paper form scanned at the front desk. Reduces chargeback loss rates by 60–80% in the hotels we've measured.

A payment made directly on a hotel's connected Hotel Central Payment Processing account, where Hotel Central takes only an application fee. Used for tips and other staff-facing funds where 100% of the payment (minus our 1% application fee) needs to be available for payout to staff rather than swept to the hotel's bank.

Guest-set signal (door hanger, mobile app, in-room button) that suppresses housekeeping, room service, and turn-down for the day. Tracked because consecutive DND days are a service-quality and welfare flag.

The chip-card standard (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) that shifted liability for in-person card-present fraud from issuers to merchants in 2015. Online and keyed-in (card-not-present) transactions like digital authorizations carry separate fraud-handling rules.

A feature flag tied to a hotel's plan tier and active Add-On set. Determines which UI sections, API endpoints, and background jobs are available to the hotel. Source of truth lives in `server/services/entitlement-service.ts`; the frontend respects it through the `useEntitlements` hook.

The depreciable physical assets in a hotel that aren't part of the building structure — beds, desks, lamps, TVs, art. Replaced on rolling cycles (5–10 years for most items). Tracked because brand standards require minimum quality and condition levels.

The operational financial surface in Hotel Central — weekly P&L pulse, labor cost per occupied room, OTA reconciliation, and Daily Expenses with GL-coded receipts. Not a general ledger. Financial Hub carries a $500 onboarding fee for Haven tuning against your reports. See Financial Hub.

The guest's running bill — room charges, taxes, F&B charges, incidentals, less any pre-payments and deposits. Closes at Checkout (room-status). The number people argue about at the front desk.

Pre-internet B2B booking networks (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, Worldspan) used primarily by corporate travel agents and TMCs. Smaller volume than OTA today but higher-rate, higher-ADR business.

Gross operating profit (revenue minus operating expenses, excluding fixed charges) divided by available rooms. Tells you whether revenue growth is actually profitable after labor, utilities, and operating costs. A high RevPAR with low GOPPAR means you're buying revenue with discounts or labor.

A reserved chunk of inventory held for a wedding, conference, or corporate event under a single contract, usually at a negotiated rate. Released back to general inventory by the cutoff date if not picked up.

Cross-property record of formally documented guest incidents (theft, damage, harassment) inside a multi-property tenant — so a guest banned at the sister property cannot quietly book the third. Fed only by signed Incident Reports with management sign-off; not by complaints or AI inference. Single-property tenants do not see this surface.

A passwordless, link-based mini-app the guest receives for self-service tasks during their stay — check-in, room-ready notification, maintenance request, lost-item report, post-stay survey. No download, no account, expires after the stay.

The housekeeping role that walks every "clean" room before it goes "ready," catching missed dust, hair, or restock errors that a tired room attendant might let slip. The last line of defense before a guest enters.

The number of complete linen sets a hotel keeps on hand per room — usually 3 (one on the bed, one in the laundry cycle, one in the linen closet). Drop below par and you stop being able to turn rooms.

The system of record for items left behind by guests — captured by housekeeping at Checkout (room-status), photographed, logged, and matched against guest claims. Items can be shipped back to guests via USPS or Shippo through Hotel Central's Ship to Guest flow. Surprisingly high-value: a returned wedding ring becomes a 5-star review.

In-property store managed in Hotel Central — sundries, branded merchandise, late-night snacks, parking add-ons — posted to the guest's Folio from a tablet at the front desk. Includes inventory tracking, low-stock alerts, and supplier insights powered by Amazon Business integration.

The unique ID assigned by a payment processor to a merchant for routing and settlement. Hotel Central Payment Processing gives each hotel its own connected-account MID so funds (including Tip Pool direct charges) land directly in the hotel's balance.

Guest-side check-in flow on the guest's own phone, before they arrive at the property. ID capture, signed Digital Authorization, room-ready push notification. No shared kiosk to clean, no front-desk queue. See Mobile Check-In.

Average elapsed time from a Work Order being opened to it being resolved. Drops dramatically when work orders are routed to the right tech with a photo and clear location, instead of bouncing between WhatsApp and the front desk.

The surface that powers portfolios of 3+ properties — side-by-side dashboards, Page Access Control governing who sees which property, and Franchise SOPs codifying brand standards. Owners read one briefing; operators run one console. See Multi-Property.

Google and Apple block OAuth flows initiated from inside webview-based native apps. Hotel Central's iOS and Android apps use a server-side nonce-based bridge that opens the OAuth flow in the system browser, completes auth there, and hands the session back to the native shell. Invisible to the user; required to ship social sign-in inside Natively-built apps.

Haven's morning briefing. Ingests last night's PMS report (Opera, SynXis Property Hub, HotelKey, and more, via email, PDF, or CSV) plus the operational ledger — work orders, complaints, incidents, authorizations — and produces a single sourced narrative for owners and GMs. Every fact cites its source ticket; Haven does not hallucinate revenue or guest counts. See Night Audit Intelligence.

A reservation where the guest never arrives and never cancels. Hotel typically charges the first night per the cancellation policy. The reason credit card guarantees exist.

Survey metric: "How likely are you to recommend us, 0–10?" Promoters (9–10) minus Detractors (0–6) = NPS, expressed as a number from -100 to +100. Industry benchmark for hotels is +30 to +50; brand flags want +50+. Correlates with repeat bookings more than star ratings.

Paid occupied rooms divided by available rooms, expressed as a percentage. Excludes house use and out-of-order rooms from the denominator at most hotels (definitions vary). Pairs with ADR to compute RevPAR.

A room intentionally pulled from inventory for a longer-term reason — major renovation, asbestos abatement, room held for the GM's family. Usually excluded from the Occupancy denominator.

A room temporarily unavailable due to a maintenance issue (broken AC, plumbing, carpet damage). Counts against revenue (RevPAR denominator) and tracked as a Work Order until resolved.

Third-party booking sites like Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda. Take 15–25% commission per booking but deliver discoverability and conversion the hotel can't replicate alone. The eternal tension: dependence vs. cost.

The monthly process of matching OTA commission statements against actual bookings — catching short-pays, double commissions, and channel chargebacks. Done by hand in a spreadsheet at most independents; automated against the PMS report in Hotel Central's OTA Reconcile.

The structured handoff between outgoing and incoming shifts — VIP arrivals, open tickets, guest incidents, operational anomalies. A clean pass-down is the single highest-leverage operational artifact in a hotel. In Hotel Central, pass-down lives inside the Shift Dashboard and Daily Notes — every shift writes one, the next shift sees it the moment they clock in.

The security standard every business that touches card data must meet. Levels 1–4 are determined by annual transaction volume. Hotel Central never stores raw card numbers — Hotel Central Payment Processing (PCI Level 1) handles all card data — which keeps hotels in the lower SAQ tiers.

The base subscription level (Essentials, Pro, Enterprise on the Pricing page). Determines core feature access, room-count caps, and per-month base price. Tier upgrades and downgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing.

Scheduled work done before something breaks — quarterly HVAC filter changes, annual elevator inspections, monthly fire-extinguisher checks. Costs less than reactive repairs and prevents OOO revenue loss.

The hotel's system of record for reservations, room assignments, folios, and billing. Hotel Central is not a PMS — it sits alongside your PMS and handles the operational layer (Maintenance, Housekeeping, Guest Hub, Lost & Found, Deep Cleaning) that PMSs handle poorly or not at all.

The chemical, temperature, and clarity log every jurisdiction requires for swimming pools and spas. Typically filled by hand on a clipboard and lost when the binder walks off; captured with photo evidence and exportable in Hotel Central's Pool & Spa Log.

A hold placed on the guest's card at check-in to cover incidental charges (minibar, damage, smoking fee). Typically $50–$300 per night. Expires automatically if not captured. Most chargebacks-in-our-favor are won because the pre-auth was properly documented.

A walk-through list of small items that need to be finished or fixed — typically after a renovation, before a brand inspection, or when handing a room back from extended OOO.

The published "full" rate for a room, printed on the back of the door. Almost never the rate anyone actually pays — it's the legal ceiling that all discounted rates must be lower than.

Pricing-intelligence layer on the Management surface — rate-shopping ingestion, comp-set tracking, demand signals, and Haven-proposed rate adjustments. Not a full RMS — does not push rates to the channel manager. Pairs the daily ADR and Occupancy view with directional intel on tomorrow's pace. See Revenue Pulse.

Total room revenue divided by total available rooms (occupied + unoccupied). The single most important top-line metric in revenue management because it captures both rate (ADR) and occupancy in one number. RevPAR = ADR × Occupancy %.

A pricing engine that dynamically adjusts BAR based on demand forecasts, competitor rates, pickup pace, and historical patterns. Standalone (IDeaS, Duetto) or PMS-bundled.

A signed (ECDSA P-256) webhook payload SendGrid sends to Hotel Central for every outbound email event — sent, delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, marked as spam. Powers the delivery-status badges in the app so staff can see in real time whether a guest actually received an email.

The structured response to a guest complaint — acknowledge, investigate, compensate, document. The cost of recovering a guest who had a bad experience is 5–10× lower than the cost of acquiring a new one to replace them. Hotel Central's Complaints module times every step against a manager-defined SLA.

The canvas every shift writes against in Hotel Central — pass-down, incidents, VIP movement, open work orders, last-night revenue, AI-drafted briefing. Ingested by Haven's Night Audit Intelligence into the morning briefing the GM and front desk both see at 7am.

A recurring, auto-scheduled, often AI-assisted task that gets generated on a schedule and routed to the right department. Differs from a one-off Work Order in that it's predictable, planned, and template-driven (monthly fire-extinguisher checks, weekly grease-trap cleaning, daily lobby walk).

A guest who is staying another night — the room gets serviced but not turned over. Takes ~15 minutes on average vs. ~30+ for a Checkout (room-status). The dominant room-status in long-stay properties.

Carrier-required opt-out and help keywords. Replying STOP to any message must immediately suppress further non-emergency messages; replying HELP must return identifying contact information. Hotel Central honors STOP platform-wide — opt out at one hotel and you're suppressed across every hotel on the platform.

A persistent record that a recipient has opted out and must not be messaged. Hotel Central maintains both SMS suppression (per STOP / HELP) and email suppression (bounces, spam complaints, unsubscribes). Sending to a suppressed contact is prevented at the API layer, not just suggested in policy.

US federal law (47 U.S.C. § 227) governing how businesses can call and text consumers. Texting a guest without their prior express consent can carry penalties of $500–$1,500 per message. Hotel Central's SMS Terms and Terms of Service Section 6 spell out the hotel's consent obligations.

Staff-facing balance of tips collected via Hotel Central, payable to individual staff via Hotel Central Payment Processing. Critically, this balance is not the hotel's money — it's pass-through funds owed to staff. The Hotel Central Payment Processing account is set to manual payout to prevent automatic sweeps that would block staff cashouts.

Evening service in upscale properties — bed turned down, slippers placed, curtains closed, soft lighting on. Usually only offered to certain rate plans or loyalty tiers.

When the hotel sells more rooms than it has and has to "walk" the guest to a comparable nearby hotel at the original hotel's expense. Common enough that revenue managers budget for it; expensive enough that they try hard to avoid it.

A guest who arrives without a prior reservation and books at the front desk. Typically pays a higher rate (no OTA commission to absorb), but harder to forecast — walk-ins are noise on top of the booked occupancy curve.

A logged request to fix or maintain something — leaky faucet, burned-out light, broken TV remote. Captures the problem, photos, the assigned tech, status, and resolution. The atomic unit of maintenance operations. See Maintenance.