Rate Manager

For: Agents with the Rates Engine add-on and the Manage rate sheets permission Where to find it: Sidebar → Rates Engine → Rate Manager

The Rate Manager is one table of every rate you can see — the ones you uploaded yourself and the ones suppliers have shared with you — with your cost, your selling price and the rule behind each price side by side. It is the quickest way to answer "what do we sell this room at, and why?", and to change it.

It is a layer on top of the rates: the supplier's rate itself never changes here. You set what you sell it at — by typing a selling price, a GP margin or a markup, whichever you think in — and the rest is worked out.

Selling prices are worked out by your selling rules. The Rate Manager shows the result and lets you write new rules while looking at the rates they affect.

Who can change selling prices

Anyone who can open the Rate Manager can view the table. Setting a selling price, markup or margin, setting commission, pricing many rates at once and removing a rate's own price all need the Manage pricing permission as well. Owners and super admins have it automatically. Without it the selling prices are still shown, but nothing in the table can be typed over, there are no tick boxes and no Price these button.

The table

Each row is one rate for one season, and is either a RACK line or an STO line. That comes from the rate itself: a rate with an STO (net) price is an STO line, even if the supplier also gave a rack price; a rate with only a rack price is a RACK line. The columns are:

Column What it shows
Property The property or service provider.
Rate (name) The rate's name, a Special badge for special rates, and the season, unit and type underneath.
Rate (price) The supplier's rate the line is sold from, marked RACK or STO. On an STO line that also has a rack price, the STO % sits underneath. This figure is never changed here.
Cost What the rate costs you. On an STO line it is the net itself, so the column just says Net is cost. On a RACK line it is the rack less your commission — or the full rack while no commission is recorded — with the commission underneath. Type what the rate costs you and the commission is worked out.
Markup % The markup on the line's own rate: on a RACK line, +10% sells at rack + 10%; on an STO line, at net + 10%. Typed over in place. When rounding moves the earned markup, that figure sits underneath.
GP Margin % Your gross-profit margin: the share of the selling price left after your cost. Typed over in place.
Selling Your selling price, in the currency you are viewing. Typed over in place, with the price calculator beside it.
Priced by Which rule set the price (or No rule), what it does, and any warnings. Click it to change that rule.

A negative markup or margin marks a rate down — for example, to sell below rack to push volume. It is allowed, and flagged Below rack.

Cost, Markup % and GP Margin % are shown to everyone in your agency. Your cost, commission and margin never reach a client — the quote PDF shows selling prices only.

Every figure with a pencil beside it is edited where it sits: click it, type, and press Enter (or click away) to save, or Escape to put it back. There is no dialog to open for the everyday change.

The table works like a spreadsheet: Enter saves and opens the same cell on the next row, Tab saves and moves to the next figure along the row (Shift+Tab goes back). To change forty margins, click the first one and type a column of numbers.

A small dot beside a selling price marks a rate with its own price — a rule set for that rate alone. The Σ button beside the price shows how it was worked out: cost and where it came from, the rule, the exchange rate and buffer, and the rounding.

After a markup, margin or selling price is saved, the message offers Undo for a few seconds. A rule the save created is removed again; one it changed is put back exactly as it was, including a flat amount.

Finding rates

  • Search by property, rate or supplier. Picking a suggestion narrows to that property, service or supplier alone.
  • Filter by Supplier, by Property / service and by Type (Accommodation, Activity, Transfer, Service, Levy, Tax).
  • Filter by Pricing to answer the questions a rates manager keeps asking: Has its own price (rates you priced by hand), No rule applies, No commission, Selling below rack and Needs attention (any of no commission, no exchange rate, below rack). Each option shows how many rates it would keep. Tick more than one to narrow further. The Needs attention button above the table is the same option as one click.
  • The filters, sort and list are kept in the page's address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked or sent to a colleague, and survives a refresh.
  • Views saves the current filters, sort and list under a name in this browser. Apply one to get back to it in one click.
  • Sort by property, rate, the supplier's rate, cost, selling price, markup, GP margin or Priced by (how narrowly a rate is priced: its own rule first, then property, supplier, organisation, none) by clicking the column heading.

Table or calendar

Use the Table / Calendar switch above the rates. The calendar lays each rate's seasons out across the months, so gaps and overlaps are easy to see; use Earlier months and Later months to move along, and click a season to set its selling price. Tourium remembers which view you prefer in this browser.

Setting one rate's selling price

Markup, GP margin and selling price are one decision said three ways, so type whichever is in front of you straight into the table — "I want a 20% margin" is typed as 20 in GP Margin %, and the markup and selling price follow:

  • Markup % or GP Margin % — type the figure in its column. Edits apply to, above the table, decides where it goes. This rate (the default) gives the rate its own price and the broader rule stops applying to it, with no question asked. Its rule changes the rule that priced the row instead — which reprices every rate that rule covers — so the cell asks first and says how many. The choice is remembered for the session.
  • Selling price — type the price you want, in the currency you are viewing. It is always saved for that rate only, as the markup on the line's rate that produces it, so it still moves with exchange rates. A rate with no exchange rate into the currency shown cannot take a typed price until one is added.

A price set for one rate takes priority over your property, supplier and organisation rules, and nothing else changes.

The calculator beside the selling price opens Set the selling price against the row (a season in the calendar opens the same form in a dialog) for working a figure out before committing to it: type any one of Markup % (on RACK or on STO, as the line is), GP Margin %, Multiply by or Selling price and the others are worked out. The form shows the line's rate and your cost while you work. Apply to this rate saves it for that rate only. If the rate already has its own price, the dialog also offers Remove this rate's own price, which deletes the single-rate rule so the rate goes back to your most specific broader rule: property, then supplier, then organisation.

Pricing many rates at once

  1. Tick the rates you want. Ticks are kept as you move between pages, so you can gather a set.
  2. Click Price these (or Set margin to state a target margin instead of a markup).
  3. Choose how wide the rule goes: Just these, Every rate at this property, Every rate from this supplier or Every rate.
  4. Set what the rule does — Add %, Multiply by, Add amount or Subtract amount — or the Target margin %, which is stored as the markup it means. With Just these, each rate's markup is on its own rack or STO rate, and a target margin is worked out from each rate's own cost.
  5. Click Preview. Tourium shows how many rates would change, how many would sell below rack, how many would be under your minimum margin, and the before and after price for each.
  6. Click Save the rule.

Saving replaces any rule you already had covering exactly the same thing — for example, pricing "Every rate from this supplier" again replaces your earlier supplier rule rather than clashing with it. The locked levy and tax rules are never replaced.

The selection bar also offers Set commission (one commission for the ticked rates, every property they sit at, or everything from their suppliers — each written once) and Remove own prices (each ticked rate goes back to its broader rule).

Commission and cost

On a RACK line, your cost is the rack less your commission. Click the Cost figure, type what the rate really costs you, and choose whether the commission that works out to applies to Just this rate, Every rate at this property or Everything from this supplier — the wider choices say how many rates they reach. For example, on a ZAR 5,100 rack, a cost of ZAR 5,000 is a 1.96% commission. See Commission.

While no commission is recorded, the cost is the full rack and the line says No commission on file. It still prices — at a GP margin worked out over the full rack — and the No commission filter finds every such rate.

The supplier's rate is not changed here

The rack or STO rate itself is never edited in the Rate Manager — not even on rates you uploaded yourself. Change those on Properties & Services. The Rate Manager only sets what you sell each rate at.

Warnings

A rate with something worth checking carries a badge in the Rule column:

Badge Meaning
No commission No commission recorded on a rack rate, so its cost is taken as the full rack.
Below rack The selling price is lower than the rack rate.
Check this price The selling price is further from cost than your flag threshold — possibly a mistyped rate.
Rule currency differs A fixed-amount rule is in a different currency from the rate, so it was skipped.
Base rate missing A rule works from a rack or net price this rate does not have, so it was skipped.
Margin unknown The cost is not known, so no margin can be shown.
No exchange rate There is no exchange rate for this currency pair. Add one in Pricing settings.

Warnings never block anything — they are there so a problem is found in the Rate Manager rather than on a client's quote.

For suppliers

Suppliers don't use the Rate Manager. A supplier edits its rates on its property in Properties & Services and publishes them to its network, and never sees what an agent sells them at.

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