Overview

Lodgit Desk is a shareware with the primary purpose of helping hotels and other kinds of accommodation facilities (such as motels, hostels and guesthouses) by simplifying the reservation process. Everything that this program has to offer is based on the appealing visual scheduling feature that makes booking easy, fast and organized in contrast to old and outdated methods. However, it has many other fine features as well, which make it a complete solution for managing hotels.

Installation

Installation is performed normally without any problems. One thing that we should note is that this software has some requirements that are not easily met in an older computer. It needs a decent central processing unit, at least 2GB of RAM (although 4GB is recommended) and a minimum of 1024x768 pixels screen resolution. The supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X (Mac version here).

Interface

At a first glance it might seem like a complex program, but you’ll get familiar with it while you use it. When you launch it for the first time the preferences window will pop-up so you can make the starter settings. It has a lot of categories and options to configure, so it might take a while to check all of them out. When you finish making those settings, you will see that most space of the window is taken up by the calendar, in which you can see all the bookings and information about them. Different statuses of the guests (checked in, checked out, etc.) are highlighted with different colors for easier viewing. On the sides there are many different options and information about the current condition of your hotel, as well as searching and filtering tools are avaialble for faster display of data.

Pros

All the information about your guests can be stored in particular forms so that you can create a profile for each one of them. You can then keep track of their actions during their stay or their booking history.

With Lodgit Desk you can also manage your facilities and keep all the data about them in one place. Description, pricing, equipment, and other information about your rentable units will be available to you or any online visitor who wishes to view it, provided that you have synchronized it with Lodgit online booking system.

All the financial reports are kept so you can view all the detailed statistics about them anytime you want. There are sorting options to see which is the most profitable service or room, plus charts that explain visually things like statistics like the revenue over a set period of time.

Cons

This software has way too many features to be used by really small businesses, as it needs constant dedication and a big effort to keep everything organized and updated, not to mention that many of those features would remain unused unless your facilities have quite a lot of traffic.

Alternatives

ASI FrontDesk (Free, Pro) is a nice alternative with which you can manage your hotel or motel and includes numerous features to administrate everything, from room pricing to online reservations. It is simpler than Lodgit Desk but its interface is not quite user friendly. MIDAS is another alternative that, in contrast to both of the above programs, is web-based but has a great deal of features that make it a powerful competitor against Lodgit Desk. ScheduleVIEW and Netsimplicity are also worth looking into.

Conclusion

Lodgit Desk is indeed capable of significantly improving the management of your accommodation by increasing efficiency in your services and decreasing discomfort for your guests, allowing them to have a more pleasurable and satisfactory stay.