In this article, we will explain the purpose of product groups and subgroups in Ulyses Cloud.
Products in Ulyses Cloud are production units that can be added as charges to invoices, either referring to consumption or referring to payments, discounts, commissions, or taxes, and on which the hotelier will later generate the production report.
Due to the large number of products and services that exist in the accommodation industry, Ulyses Cloud allows the distribution of all products into groups and subgroups that will later help us generate more grouped reports. Although Ulyses Cloud has some groups and subgroups already created by default, it is necessary to understand the following operations
Group Management
Product groups are the first level of categorization. To create new groups, go to the Groups menu under the Products menu in the Chain Configuration.
As a general rule, the most common groups are usually Accommodation, F&B, and Others.
When accessing a group record, we can define
- Product details
- Taxes applied to the product
- Actions allowed on this product
- Posting rules
- F&B breakdown
- Forecast
Subgroup Management
Subgroups correspond to a second level of product categorization in Ulyses Cloud. If we have said that the most common group could be Accommodation, Room and Room Supplements would correspond to the most common subgroups.
To create new product subgroups, go to Subgroups under the Products menu in the chain configuration menu.
From the subproduct record we define
- Subproduct code
- Name: Indicates the name for the subgroup. Its value is what appears in reports.
- Subproduct group: Indicates the group to which the subproduct belongs
- Description: Indicates additional information about
From the products tab, we can add and remove products that we have included in this category.
Production Report Configuration
The production report (ProductRevenue report) is probably one of the most relevant reports in hotel management. If you already have some experience in the industry, you will know that it is a report that breaks down all production between periods and compares it with the previous year and the budget. It is the report that most management teams use as a reference and base many of their strategic decisions on.
Although Ulyses Cloud already provides some display templates, below we will learn how to customize the display of the production report. The configuration of the different templates is done at a general level, as properties can later use the template they wish.
To complete the configuration, we must follow these steps
- Configure the content (products, subgroups, and groups)
- Print template configuration
Configure content
Content configuration consists of grouping all products into groups and subgroups in order to later break down the content of the production report.
To do this, from the general configuration, go to the Sort products option, from where you can add or remove product groups and subgroups. In each subgroup, add its products by drag & drop.
By default, Ulyses Cloud loads all products in order to avoid discrepancies between reports.
Design production report print template
In the previous section, we explained how to configure the content of the production report. However, Ulyses Cloud also allows you to configure up to 3 print templates to indicate which groups and subgroups you want to display itemized in the printout.
To do this, from the same view as before, click on the Template view mode, select the template you want to modify, and focus on marking the behavior of each group or subgroup using the selector.
- Hidden: If you mark a group/subgroup as hidden, it will not be shown in the report printout
- Grouped: If you mark a group/subgroup as grouped, you are indicating that only one line will appear in the printout, but not its full breakdown. In the previous example, if you marked the Accommodation group as grouped, you would not see the breakdown of the different subgroups Room, Room Supplement, and so on.
- Detailed:If you mark a group/subgroup as detailed, you are indicating that you want to see the breakdown of that group/subgroup, and as such, you will need to indicate the behavior of the subgroup since it has products.
Once the print template is configured, you can save and overwrite any of the existing templates.