The latest update brings EFSTA Portugal integration, flexible refunds, and smarter payment handling to your day-to-day workflows.
What’s new for hoteliers?
1. Meet Portuguese fiscal rules with EFSTA integration
HotelFriend now supports integration with EFSTA for Portugal, making it easy to create fiscal receipts that meet local legal requirements. This solution ensures your point-of-sale data is stored securely and, if necessary, automatically forwarded to the tax authorities.
EFSTA is a trusted compliance provider in 17 European countries, and this new feature helps you stay fully aligned with Portuguese regulations directly within your HotelFriend PMS.
2. New DATEV export for invoiced positions is available
We’ve introduced a new version of the DATEV export that includes only debtor accounts and leaves out any payment data. Now you can work with a cleaner and more focused export when reviewing sales activity or handing over data to your accounting team. Payment data (including prepayments) is fully excluded from this export to make the report easier to process.
3. Improved payment handling across the system
We’ve made several enhancements to ensure payments are processed more accurately and clearly both for your team and guests.
Payment comments are now shown based on the selected payment method, helping to prevent confusion and maintain cleaner records in the Accounting module and Payments view.
To improve the guest experience, any payment methods you’ve removed from your settings will no longer appear in the Booking Engine or Guest App. Guests will only see the valid options you’ve made available.
Lastly, we’ve fixed how Gastronovi bar (cash) payments are handled. These were previously treated as internal HotelFriend Cash payments with automatic entries in the Cash Book. With this update, Gastronovi payments are now processed separately, improving accuracy in your financial reports.
4. More flexible refund handling for special cases
You can now issue refunds to a different payment method than the one originally used. For example, if a guest paid via a payment gateway (like Stripe), you can refund the amount using a manual method (like bank transfer or cash). Enjoy more flexibility, especially in situations where the original method is unavailable or no longer valid.
5. Add Booking Engine links in booking confirmation emails
The “Manage Your Stay” button in booking confirmation emails now directs guests to the Booking Engine, if your property has one set up. If the Booking Engine is not available, the button will instead guide users to install the Guest App, as it did before.
6. Get guest and reservation data at a glance on the Front Desk calendar
Your Front Desk calendar now gives you more booking details at a glance. In addition to seeing check-in/out dates, you can now view the reservation number, guest name, booking status, and more. Hovering over a reservation reveals extra information such as room type, guest balance, and the primary guest.
7. New order management logic for more accuracy
When creating a new order, you can now link it to a specific inventory item, like assigning a meal order to a particular table. This helps you track activity more accurately and keep orders organized. We’ve also added safeguards: items with active orders can’t be set as inactive, and the system prevents creating orders for resources that are marked “Out of Service.”
8. Reset custom rates for specific date ranges with ease
You now have more control over custom room pricing by being able to reset it for all dates or for a selected date range. With this change, you can safely reset custom daily rates to base rates for a certain time period. This gives you more flexibility when planning seasonal or promotional pricing.
9. Clearer VAT details now shown in emails and offers
We’ve revised the VAT wording in booking offers and confirmation emails for better legal clarity. The phrase “VAT is included” has been replaced with “plus 7% VAT” to accurately reflect how taxes are applied.
10. Payment method shown in HotelFriend subscription confirmation emails
Subscription payment confirmation emails now clearly show the payment method used, making transactions easier to recognize. Guests will see user-friendly labels such as “Visa ****1234,” “PayPal,” or “Apple Pay.” If the card type can’t be identified, it will be labeled simply as “Card.”
11. Minor fixes and visual improvements
- The German terminology in the Communication module has been reviewed and updated.- Creating invoices that include tips is now fully supported within the system.
- Cash point closing now works smoothly when handling prepayment refunds in DSFinV-k hotels.
- Resources marked as “Out of Service” are now displayed correctly in the Resource Planner.
- Custom settings, such as disabled mandatory toggles in deal creation, are now consistently retained as intended.
We build our software with you in mind. If there’s anything we can tweak or improve, just let us know – we’re all ears!
