From Spreadsheets and Emails to a Reservation System That the Whole Team Can Use

Booking intake

Reservations came in by phone, email, and a booking platform. Each channel was handled separately. Phone bookings were written on paper and entered into a shared spreadsheet the same day — unless the owner was busy, in which case entry happened the next morning.

Availability tracking

The spreadsheet was the source of truth for availability. Staff on reception checked it at the start of each shift. There was no lock on the file, so concurrent edits caused occasional overwritten entries. Two double-bookings occurred in the 18 months before switching.

Pricing

Seasonal rates were in a separate tab. Extra-person charges, tourism tax, and cleaning fees were listed in a reference document that staff were expected to memorize. Inconsistencies in how fees were applied came up in guest feedback roughly once per month.

Reporting

End-of-season reporting was a manual exercise that took two to three days. The owner extracted data from the booking spreadsheet and built a summary in a separate file. Year-on-year comparison required finding and reconciling two years' spreadsheets.

The unit list was cleaned up first — removing duplicates, standardizing names, and assigning type categories. Import took one afternoon. The owner described this as the most valuable part of the exercise because it forced a review of the unit structure that had not been done in years.

Seasonal rates, minimum stays, and extra fees were configured in Manage.Camp using the pricing rule interface. The owner used the CSV import for base rates and entered seasonal overrides manually. Total setup time was approximately six hours across two days.

Only current-season bookings were migrated — approximately 60 reservations. Historical data was retained in the old spreadsheet as an archive. Migration took half a working day.

Reception staff were shown the reservation timeline and booking flow during a 2-hour walkthrough. They were asked to create five test reservations and cancel two before the go-live date. No formal training materials were needed.

No double-bookings reported after switching

Conflict-detection at booking time addressed the category of error that had caused the previous incidents. Staff no longer needed to cross-check a spreadsheet before confirming a unit.

More consistent pricing

Fee-related guest complaints were no longer a recurring issue. Staff no longer needed to remember fee rules — the system calculated them at booking time.

Faster end-of-season reporting

The manual spreadsheet exercise that had previously taken days was replaced with built-in occupancy and revenue reports. The operator described this as one of the most immediate improvements.

Less owner involvement in daily bookings

Staff handled reservations, cancellations, and guest changes with less need to involve the owner for routine queries. The operator noted a meaningful reduction in daily interruptions during peak season.