Zero-Night / Half-Day Reservations (Cloud)
Hotels sometimes need to accommodate stays that don’t span an overnight—such as early check-ins, late check-outs, or day-use bookings. While VM Cloud requires reservations to include at least one night, you can still manage these short stays by creating a standard reservation and checking the guest out the same day.
In VM Cloud, arrival and departure dates must differ, meaning every reservation must include at least one night. A “zero-night” stay isn’t possible, but same-day checkout provides the flexibility needed for half-day or day-use scenarios.
Overview
How Reservation Dates Work
VM Cloud does not allow identical arrival and departure dates. Reservations must span at least one night in the system.
How Same-Day Checkouts Are Tracked
If a guest checks out on the same day they checked in, VM Cloud automatically adjusts the stay to zero nights. On the Daily Report, the reservation appears as an early checkout, ensuring records accurately reflect the guest’s actual stay length.
1. Make the Reservation for one night and complete the check-in.
If your property does not use the feature that automatically posts room and tax charges at check-in, you’ll need to post them manually. To do this, select Post Room & Tx from the folio toolbar. This ensures room and tax charges are properly recorded on the guest’s folio during their stay.
2. Post the Payment in the Folio
Because the guest will be checking out earlier than the scheduled departure, make sure to post the payment in the folio before completing the checkout.
Because the guest will be checking out earlier than the scheduled departure, make sure to post the payment in the folio before completing the checkout.
3. Check Out the Room
3a. When you select Checkout, a prompt will appear: “The reservation is not due out until [departure date]. Do you wish to continue?” Select OK to proceed. This confirmation step ensures you are intentionally checking the guest out before the scheduled departure date.
3a. When you select Checkout, a prompt will appear: “The reservation is not due out until [departure date]. Do you wish to continue?” Select OK to proceed. This confirmation step ensures you are intentionally checking the guest out before the scheduled departure date.
3b. Enter the Early Checkout Reason
Before completing the checkout, enter an Early Check Out Reason in the reservation and click OK. This records why the guest is leaving early, supporting accurate records and better guest service management.
Before completing the checkout, enter an Early Check Out Reason in the reservation and click OK. This records why the guest is leaving early, supporting accurate records and better guest service management.
4. Reservation Updated to Zero Nights
After checkout, the reservation automatically updates from 1 night to 0 night, with the departure date set to match the arrival date. This ensures the system accurately reflects the guest’s actual stay duration.
After checkout, the reservation automatically updates from 1 night to 0 night, with the departure date set to match the arrival date. This ensures the system accurately reflects the guest’s actual stay duration.
Make sure the "Set Room Dirty on Check Out" option in Housekeeping Setup is enabled.
If this setting is not turned on, a room that was occupied will remain marked as Clean until the night audit runs. For day-use stays, this creates a risk: after checkout, the room may still appear as available and clean to the front desk, even though it should be out of service for cleaning.
Enabling this setting ensures that rooms are immediately updated to Dirty at checkout. This prevents staff from accidentally assigning a room that hasn’t yet been cleaned.
Path: Housekeeping > Setup > Time Allotment
Still need help with this topic?
Ask Yourself:
- Am I aware that arrival and departure dates cannot be the same?
- Did I check out the reservation on the same day it was checked in to set it as zero nights?
- Did I manually post room and tax charges if auto-posting was not enabled?
- Did I record a reason for early checkout if prompted?
- Did I confirm the housekeeping setting “Set Room Dirty on Check Out” is enabled?
Support May Ask You:
- What were the arrival and departure dates of the reservation?
- Did you manually post charges to the folio?
- What message appeared when you tried to check out early?
- Is the room still showing as “Clean” after checkout (housekeeping setting issue)?
- Did the reservation appear correctly on the Daily Report?
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