9 Functions of Property Management System To Choose the Right One

Several things should be considered when discussing the functions of a property management system (PMS). 

A good PMS is just as important as having a great staff to manage your operations. 

It is crucial for managing reservations, check-ins, housekeeping tasks, and optimizing activities that generate revenue and room rates. 

Every hotelier’s dream is to streamline every part of their workflow, making your team more efficient and increasing revenue. 

By knowing what functions are needed, you can use technology to your advantage.

In this article, we’ll list some key functions to help you understand what your software should include to choose the right PMS for your business.

Let’s begin!

How Can a PMS System Help Your Business?

A property management system (PMS) is software that helps you organize, schedule, and manage your accommodation business’s daily tasks. 

Depending on the software, it can handle reservations, front and back office tasks, channel and revenue management, guest communication, maintenance, housekeeping, and so on.

While PMS software has traditionally been used by hotels, it is now used by various types of properties, including:

• Hotels
• Hostels
• Apartments
• Villas
• Holiday homes and vacation rentals
• Permanent and residential properties
• Student accommodation, etc.

Your software needs will differ depending on the type of property you manage. 

Many PMS systems allow you to choose the modules and functions that best suit your property’s size and type.

The question is: Which modules and functions are best for you?

Let’s take a closer look at the key features and functions of a property management system.

9 Functions Of Good Property Management System

1. Reservation Management

Managing reservations is a key part of a property management system (PMS) because avoiding overbooking is crucial for keeping your business running smoothly. 

A good property management system (PMS) lets you handle guest bookings online. 

You should be able to easily handle online bookings, keep track of reservation details and special requests, and check room availability.

When picking a PMS, choose one that: 

• Lets you automate tasks and manage reservations from any device, as modern hotel managers are often on the move. 
• It provides you with a great design, so it’s easy to see and search for reservations based on different criteria to avoid missing details. 
• For group bookings, ensure the system can handle large groups, including room blocks, sending booking links, and managing billing information effectively.

Pro tip:

With OTA Sync’s property management, you can easily manage your daily operations from one place.

Our multi-property dashboard allows you to easily manage multiple properties from a centralized dashboard.

Whether you run hotels, hostels, villas, rentals, or other properties, the dashboard shows all your properties and additional booking information.

2. Online Booking Engine

Selecting a PMS software with a booking engine that doesn’t charge commissions can be crucial for your hotel’s growth. 

It simplifies the booking process, helping you attract more direct bookings and lessen dependence on OTAs. 

This gives hotels more control over their inventory and pricing.

Besides that, it makes booking easier, reduces reliance on online travel agencies (OTAs), and increases revenue by avoiding intermediary fees.

With a PMS including a booking engine, integration concerns are minimized. 

Ensure the booking engine integrates smoothly with your website and social media, prioritizing fast loading and user-friendliness, particularly on mobile devices.

Pro tip:

With OTA Sync’s booking engine, you can allow your guests to see live availability and rates, along with special offers, to boost direct bookings on your website.

Just connect it with your website, set your offer and the information you want to show, and you’re ready to go.

3. Channel Management

A great PMS function that can help you improve your business allows you to share your inventory across online distribution channels and sync information with your PMS in real-time. 

A channel manager helps you increase your online visibility and bring more bookings and profit. 

Whether you need to update availability or change rates, you can do everything in your PMS and have it automatically updated across booking channels. 

What’s great is that new online bookings go directly to your PMS, so you’re always in control of your occupancy and can act quickly if needed. 

You should look for a channel manager with strong two-way connections to major online travel agents (OTAs) such as Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, GDS providers, and more.

Pro tip:

With OTA Sync channel manager you can easily manage all your listings from one place.

Just connect and synchronize your OTA channels, and you’re ready to go.

4. Payment Processing

If a PMS you’re considering lacks a payment processor or payment gateway that accepts various credit cards or integrates with a point of sale system (POS), you’ll need to handle payments manually. 

This involves tasks like reporting, reconciliations, and managing chargebacks, all of which increase the risk of errors when done manually and the amount of tasks you have to deal with.

Having an integrated payment processor with your PMS can help you simplify guest payments and accounting while also ensuring more accurate reports. 

It will help you remove the unnecessary tasks so you can focus on what you do best – running your business and improving your guest service.

Pro tip:

With OTA Payments, a fully integrated payment gateway, you can instantly process payments on automation with just a single click.

When your future guests make a reservation, they can easily and reliably pay the accommodation charges and other fees, such as taxes and extra services.

5. Housekeeping & Maintenance Management

When a property management system includes a housekeeping function, tasks like assigning room cleaning to the right staff and updating room status become easier. 

A housekeeping report is part of this functionality. 

It ensures that hotel rooms have an adequate supply of toiletries, soap, shampoo, and clean towels. 

This feature enables housekeeping staff to manage room status efficiently and ensure guests have the necessary bathroom supplies.

With the OTA Sync PMS, you can assign employees to clean specific rooms. 

Just create a maintenance report of what needs to be changed or cleaned, and you can easily print this report and provide it to your housekeepers. 

Once they’ve completed their tasks, you can update room statuses, simplifying guest check-ins.

6. Guest Management

Customized service plays a vital role in building customer loyalty within the hospitality industry. 

Guest profiles and engagement tools can help you customize your services to meet each guest’s preferences and requirements, ensuring that every guest feels valued and respected. This personalized approach enhances the overall guest experience, boosting the likelihood of repeat bookings and positive feedback.

Opt for a solution offering messaging functionality and upsell capabilities to streamline this process, deliver exceptional customer service, and increase revenue through upgrades and additional services.

By delivering personalized service, you can cultivate a sense of loyalty and belonging among guests, leading to increased customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Pro tip: With OTA Sync, you can provide personalized services to your guests, optimize menu pricing, and attract them with upsells while driving more revenue to your hotel.

To make everything easier, you can also send them a confirmation email or an invoice directly from the app.

7. Revenue Management

Managing revenue is one of the most critical features because a hotel or any business can’t thrive without making money. 

A good PMS should simplify revenue management by helping you get direct bookings and increase profits by reducing costs. 

Look for reporting features that let you see and analyze if your strategy is effective.

With the ability to see and analyze results, you can easily tweak your revenue strategy as needed. 

This includes managing group rates, package deals, and customized rates.

8. Reporting and Analytics

Reports are fundamental elements of a property management system. 

They provide valuable data to enhance your property’s performance and help you make smart decisions.

Your PMS stores reservation details, rates, and occupancy data, making it easy to generate reports.

These reports cover various aspects of hotel operations, from revenue and occupancy rates to guest satisfaction and operational efficiency, providing a complete view of your performance.

Pick a tool that makes data management and reporting easy and lets you customize reports and access real-time data. 

With a cloud-based PMS, you can easily access this data, respond to demand shifts, adjust strategies, and optimize operations to boost revenue and efficiency.

Make sure the system lets you set target metrics so you can track progress toward your business goals.

Pro tip:

Imagine you’re advertising your properties using OTA channels such as Airbnb, Booking and others.

With OTA Sync Statistics, you can easily track your performance in real-time, create reports, and understand what channel brings you the most of bookings and revenue.

You can also analyze the performance Month over month and discover from which countries you have the most arrivals.

Based on this acknowledgment you can adapt your strategies, run Ads within those countries to maximize your bookings.

9. Integration Capabilities

Efficient communication with other hotel systems and third-party apps is essential for improving workflow efficiency. 

Modern PMS allows you to connect with various systems, such as POS (Point of Sale), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and channel management platforms.

Ensure your PMS is equipped with numerous features and a user-friendly interface, which can significantly enhance operational efficiency and enhance guest satisfaction for modern hotels.

Pro tip:

You can integrate OTA Sync with various platforms easily and manage data or functions your customers have straight from the app.

Just choose to customize the native widgets we provide or use our API to develop your own solution.

Choose the Best Property Management System

Choosing the best property management system for your needs can be a crucial move in running your hotel business.

Not all property management software are the same. 

If you’re still unsure which PMS to choose, check out this article on the 7 Best Hotel POS Systems to help you choose the perfect solution for your business. 

Modern systems combine many functions into one piece of software to make managing guests and the hotel easier and smoother.

That’s how OTA Sync was founded – to help hoteliers and rental managers get everything their need for their rental property in one place.

Besides providing you with each of these functions, OTA Sync helps you:

• Do Advanced Invoice Operations and split or merge them by item, room, guest, amount, etc.
• Easily set up different taxes, adjusting to different markets to avoid legal disputes.
• Do Fiscalization and automate communication with digital fiscal machines and Government tax.
• Check the Cash Register at the start and end of each day to see revenue, deposits, withdrawals, and so on.

Ready to explore our free trial account before making a decision?

Sign up for a 14-day free trial and discover how OTA Sync can help you automate your hotel and vacation rental business today!