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Buyer's guide

How to choose hotel management software in Kenya

A plain guide for owners and managers of guesthouses, lodges, hotels and resorts. What the system has to do, what to ask a vendor to show you, and what to check before you pay a deposit.

For hotels and lodges10 min read

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What hotel software has to do

A hotel system is run by the front desk all day and read by the owner at night. It has to keep every room, every guest and every shilling in one place, so that nobody asks the kitchen, the cashier and the receptionist the same question. For each area, ask the vendor to show the thing on the right.

What a hotel system has to handle
Area What it has to handle Ask the vendor to show
Reservations and rates Room types, rate plans, seasons, company rates, groups, deposits and cancellations. A booking changed after a deposit was paid, and the rate it keeps.
Front desk Check-in and check-out, room assignment, guest bills, moves between rooms and late departures. A guest moving rooms mid-stay with charges already on the bill.
Housekeeping and maintenance A board of room status and tasks, updated by the people doing the work. A room going from dirty to clean to inspected on a phone.
Restaurant, bar and extras Charges from the point of sale (POS) in the restaurant, bar, spa or laundry posted to the guest's bill. A dinner charged to a room from the restaurant till.
Billing and payments Split bills, deposits, M-Pesa, cards, cash and refunds. A bill split between a company and a guest and paid partly by M-Pesa.
Online bookings A booking page on your own site and links to online travel agencies. A booking made online appearing at the front desk, and the room being taken off sale everywhere.
Reports Arrivals, guests in the house, occupancy, average room rate, revenue per available room and the night audit. Last night's audit, and how it was closed.
Accounts The day's takings posted to the ledger, with taxes and levies kept apart. Where one day's money ends up in the books.

What matters for the size of your property

A guesthouse and a group of resorts need different things from the same list. Decide which column is yours before you look at a price.

What matters, by kind of property
Property What matters most Usually not worth paying for
Guesthouse or small lodge Simple screens, bookings from your phone, M-Pesa deposits, a clean bill for each guest. Deep reports and many modules you will not open.
Mid-size hotel Housekeeping, restaurant and bar charges on the room bill, a night audit, roles for each department. Features for a chain, such as central reservations for many sites.
Resort or group Several properties in one system, group and company billing, a channel manager, approvals and a full audit trail. A system built for one small property that you will outgrow.

Online bookings and channel managers

A guest who books through an online travel agency and a guest who walks in must never be given the same room. How the system prevents that is the question to press hardest.

Booking engine
The page on your own website where guests choose dates and a room and pay a deposit. It saves the commission that online travel agencies charge on their bookings.
Channel manager
Keeps the rooms and rates you have on sale the same across your site and the online travel agencies. Ask whether it connects in both directions: a booking anywhere should update every other place at once.
Rate parity
Selling the same room at the same rate on every channel. Ask whether the system lets you set a different rate for each channel on purpose.

Test a double booking

Ask the vendor to book the last room on one channel and then try to book it on another. The second attempt should fail, or the room should already be off sale, within moments.

Payments, money and guests from abroad

A Kenyan hotel may take M-Pesa, cards, bank transfers and cash on one bill, and may have guests who pay in another currency. The guide to M-Pesa integration explains the ways to take M-Pesa.

  • M-Pesa: can a guest pay a deposit by STK push or a paybill, and does the payment land on the right booking without anyone typing it in?
  • Cards: does it work with the card processor you already use, and who holds the card details?
  • Currencies: does it show and bill in more than one currency, and how is the exchange rate set and recorded?
  • Deposits and refunds: are they tied to the booking, with the rules for cancelling written into the system?
  • Taxes and levies: are they calculated and shown on the bill, and can you report on them separately? The Tourism Fund's page says the tourism levy is collected from all regulated hotels, restaurants and any regulated tourism activities. Ask your accountant whether it applies to you, and ask the vendor to show a report of the sales it is worked out on.
  • Tax invoices: KRA's page on eTIMS says that all persons engaged in business are required to sign up to eTIMS and issue electronic tax invoices. Ask the vendor how the system issues them, and to show one with your own details on it.
  • End of day: does the system's total agree with the M-Pesa statement, the card settlement and the cash counted?

Power cuts and poor internet

A front desk that cannot check a guest in because the internet is down is a vendor's problem only until the guest is standing in the lobby.

  1. The connection drops

    The desk can still see today's arrivals and in-house guests.

  2. Work goes on

    Check-in, bills and room status can still be recorded.

  3. It catches up

    When the connection returns, what was recorded is sent without anyone retyping it.

  • Ask exactly what works with no connection, and what does not, in the demo.
  • If it is hosted in the cloud, ask where, and how often it is backed up and when a restore was last tested.
  • If it runs on a server in your office, ask who looks after backups, updates and repairs, and what happens when the machine fails on a Friday.

Moving from a paper register or an old system

A hotel cannot close for a week to change its system, so the move is planned around the guests who are already booked.

  1. List your rooms and rates

    Room types, numbers, rate plans, seasons and company rates, written down once and checked by the person who sets prices.

  2. Load the future bookings

    Every booking from the day you start, with its deposit and rate, checked against your old register by someone who knows the guests.

  3. Choose a quiet day to start

    Start after the night audit of a day with few arrivals, not in a holiday week.

  4. Run the night audit twice for a while

    Close the day in both the old and the new system and compare the totals until they agree.

  5. Train each department on its own tasks

    The front desk, housekeeping, the restaurant and the owner each practise the work they will do on the first day, on a copy.

What it will cost

Prices are not comparable until every vendor has answered the same questions.

What to ask about cost
Cost What to ask
Licence Is it charged by room, by month, by property or by module? What happens when you add rooms?
Modules Is the restaurant till, the channel manager and the booking engine included, or priced one by one?
Set-up Who enters your rooms, rates and bookings, and is it included?
Hardware Which printers, card machines and screens does it need, and can it use what you have?
Hosting Is it included, and in whose name is the account?
Payment, SMS and email charges Are they passed on at cost or marked up?
Training and support How many people, how many sessions, and what hours and response times?
Leaving Can you export every guest, booking and bill, and does it cost anything?

Compare three years, in writing

Ask each vendor for the total over three years, and a list of what is left out, before you compare one price with another.

Red flags in a demo

You learn most of it in the first hour.

  • The demo uses its own data, and never one of your own awkward bookings.
  • A booking can be changed with no trace of who changed it.
  • Restaurant and bar charges cannot be posted to a guest's bill.
  • A room can be sold twice and nobody is warned.
  • Only the vendor can change a rate, a tax or a report.
  • There is no export, and nobody can say when a restore was last tested.
  • They cannot name a property of your size that uses it.

Keep reading

Common questions

What is the best hotel management system in Kenya?

There is no single best. The right system is the one that suits the size of your property, handles your rates, bookings and M-Pesa payments, and lets you leave with your data. Give every vendor the same awkward bookings and compare what they show you.

What is hotel management software?

Hotel management software is the system a hotel, lodge or guesthouse uses to take reservations, check guests in and out, keep room status, bill guests, take payments and report on the business. It is also called a property management system, or PMS.

What features should hotel software have?

Reservations and rates, a front desk, a housekeeping board, restaurant and extra charges posted to the guest's bill, payments including M-Pesa, online bookings and reports such as occupancy and the night audit, with roles and an audit trail.

Can hotel software take M-Pesa payments?

Yes. A system can send an STK push to a guest's phone or receive paybill payments, and match each payment to the right booking. Ask the vendor to show a real payment arriving on a booking, and whose name the M-Pesa credentials are held in.

What is a channel manager?

A channel manager keeps the rooms and rates on sale the same across your own website and online travel agencies, so that a room booked in one place is taken off sale in the others and is not sold twice.

Does hotel software work without the internet?

Some does and some does not. Ask exactly what the front desk can still do with no connection, and how what was recorded is sent afterwards. A system on a server in your office and a cloud system fail in different ways.

How much does hotel management software cost in Kenya?

There is no standard price. Vendors charge by room, by month, by property or by module, then add set-up, hardware, hosting, support and payment charges. Ask each vendor for the total over three years in writing, with a list of what is not included.

Is cloud hotel software better than a system on a local server?

Neither is better for every property. Cloud software moves backups and updates to the provider and needs a connection. A local server works without one but makes you responsible for backups, power and repairs. Choose by how reliable your connection is and who will look after it.

Choosing a system for your property?

Tell us how your front desk, housekeeping and restaurant work today and we will say plainly which kind of system would suit it.

Talk to us about your hotel