General features and capabilities are highlighted below. 

Varying parking rates:

• Brochure
• General "off the street" customers
• Travel Agent Employee
• For approved travel agencies and based on referrals in last six months
• Yearly rate
• Yearly member pays a one-off fee to gain free outdoor and discount undercover parking for a year
• Corporate
• Registered Member who frequently parks
• Corporate Employee
• An employee of a registered corporate company 

Parking Contracts:

• Enter phone reservations including any cleaning or servicing they require;
• Enter car into system when checking in from reservation or create new contract;
• Make payments on contract;
• Enter car, customer, returning date and time details at counter;
• Allocate parking to travel agent who referred customer;
• Select various service options from a list of options;
• Point of Sale cash/visa/credit entry;
• Entry of member's details in order to calculate the rate s/he will receive.

 

 

Travel Agents and Accounts:

• Allow corporate companies to have an account;
• Every month an invoice is created for this account;
• Allow entering of payments for accounts;
• Accounts can cover any of parking, servicing and/or cleaning;
• For every contract, if there is a referral by a travel agent, the commission they should receive can be calculated;
• If the travel agent keeps the commission they should get, allow the contract to balance;
• Allow the billing of contracts balance to the travel agent.

Security:

• Screen security based on three levels of user roles, Admin, Manager and staff;
• User's role determines what screens and functions to which they have access;
• A log is kept of all major record changes including the date/time, and who did what.

Cleaning:

• Cleaning type and cost included in parking contract;
• Recording of the staff members who completed the cleaning;
• Printout a list of cleaning to be done on selected date;
• Allow off-street cleaning for people not parking; this includes recording of payment and printing of receipt.
• Report on the amount of cleaning by an employee and how much they should be paid between two dates.

Back Office:

• Back Office functions for only administration to use;
• Function to edit closed contracts to fix any incorrect information;
• Function to edit payments to correct amount, date entered or the payment type;
• View Travel agent and Corporate account invoicing;
• View and edit the DBR (Daily Banking Record);
• View the various reports;
• Enter payments to/from travel agents and corporate companies.

Lookup Screens:

• Lookup screens for current reservations, current cars parked, cleaning, cars checked out and cars to be checked out;
• Each lookup screen contains searches based on dates, customer names, contract id and car registration;
• The Main Menu contains a list of customers waiting to be picked up and a list of cleaning to be done when car is due back in less than two hours.

Workload Analysis:

• Workload report by month allowing planning of resources - seasonal trend analysis;
• Same as above for weekday analysis;
• An example of this is a report on how many cars will be parked in next month based on reservations and cars currently parked.

Sales Analysis reports:

• Consolidate reporting of income by categories e.g. parking, services, etc;
• Report of % of sales from repeated visits vs. first timers for any period, allowing comparisons from year to year;
• Report of sales by travel agency indicating agencies with most to least referrals;
• Report of sales by customer or car for any period.

 

Other modules not in the base software

Web Access:

A web server function can be implemented in-house to allow customers to login, change their return days and service options required, interfacing directly with the system as if internal staff are entering the information. Only some data is changeable or viewable by customers. They are also able to book a car park before their travel. A first-time customer can be allowed to enter their own details in and obtain customer logins. Internal staff will be able to monitor and validate these new customers. This website can be an alternative website to  one that is already functioning. The car booking function can be moved off an existing site and a link created on the old website to go to a new in-house site that allows interfacing with the database. 

Alternatively the whole website can be moved in-house and redesigned to give better image. Both options require web database software, Coldfusion server edition.

Airport Pickup Alert Function:

This module  allows customer to dial a number, enter the pin number issued when first booking the car in, therefore notifying the desk staff via the monitor of the pickups as they are booked. The customer alternatively may choose to talk to an operator in cases when he does not know pin number. The automated calls are logged to database and pickup list generated on the screen. 

Wireless Handheld Communication:

These units can be programmed to communicate to the central system to facilitate process of check-in, check-out, movement of cars and servicing.

Fast Printing Functions:

Receipts can be issued on business card size, allocating a unique pin number each time. Specialized receipt printing hardware can be sourced based on the format required.

Multiple Car Park Facility:

System has the ability to handle multi-car park facilities, allowing integrated view of car spaces available, integrated sales and management reporting, working across Wide Area Network either in Metro or to interstate via the Internet. Software used will provide a base upon which multi-location can be set up.

Airport Pickup Alert Function Extension:

• Airport pickup alert function allows future expansion allowing customer to carry transmitters that can be detected at base, and driver can be notified by radio allowing customer location by transmitter detectors in the car that indicate closeness to target based on distance.
• Real-time recording of entry, exit and operation events (customer pickups, service work, etc)
• With redesign of entry and exit points as well as operational bases, these events can be logged to database automatically.
• Transmitters in vans can be installed to scan customer cards relaying data back to base therefore marking cars to be picked up, minimizing the work of staff.

Online booking system

Introduction

The online booking system is designed to facilitate the easy booking of a car park via the Internet by aircraft travellers.  The online program includes essential information about the airport car park company, services, details for travel agents, location, contact details and rates, as well as the booking interface which is very easy to use by the travelling public, as well as by travel agents.  This means that in this modern age, when so many people use the Internet for their travel arrangements, new business may be only a few clicks away from the airport car park company !

Categories of users:

There are three categories of people who can use this online booking program, all with varying access rights.

General public:

The first and most general user is the member of the public, who would like to make a booking at the airport car park.  He/she simply gains access to the program via the Internet without any need for a user-id or password, and enters his/her personal details which include name, email address and contact phone number, as well as the parking details, such as departure date and time, as well as return date and time. If no places are available on that day, the system will generate an apology message and the potential customer is invited to make another booking. Otherwise, the potential customer will be able to view pricing and decide whether to accept the pricing, then he/she will be emailed a confirmation of the booking.

Travel agent:

The second category of user is the travel agent, and each travel agent who is registered with the airport car park company will be issued automatically with a unique user-id and password when they are registered into the system.  This is a very swift process, and can be accomplished in several minutes by one phone call to the airport car park company. When the travel agent logs on to the website, he/she will have several options available to them, including:

• Making bookings – the travel agent may make a booking for a customer, all they need to complete is the personal details of the customer such as name, and a contact number which is usually the travel agent’s, whether payment is by the travel agent or the customer, then parking details.  Costing may be viewed, and then the booking may be accepted.

• View bookings, the travel agent may list any bookings made, showing departure date, time, return details, customer name, contact number, type of booking and the travel agent’s name.  This is particularly useful if details need to be amended in the event of a change in travel plans, and to monitor their own bookings with the airport car park company.

Administrator

The third category of user is an administrator at the airport car park company, who has four options once logged in.  These include:

View/edit bookings – essential for making changes if customer rings in to change a booking, or to monitor usage of car parks, as well as to detect patterns of usage. If a prospective customer does not have Internet access, the administrator may make a booking on their behalf without any need to login as a user.  A booking may be deleted or edited; editable fields include departure and return dates and times, as well as contact details.  Existing bookings can be searched by date, and by travel agent if required.

 

Rates can be edited. Rates may be provided for individual days, and then for blocks of days after a set limit, and these rates may be edited as the need arises.

Travel agents may be viewed, edited or registered i,e added to the database, fields include company name, address, contact details such as phone number and email, and whether active or not.

The system can be notified when the car park is full, this may be done by the administrator as a result of manually monitoring usage, to complement the system’s own reporting mechanism.  The discrepancies arise because some travellers may simply drive in without booking by phone or Internet.

Integration

The online booking program can be integrated with any car park management system.

Hosted and monitored

Entimex may host the website, alternatively, it may be hosted on the client site, which would make integration with a car park management system easier.   Entimex may monitor its continuous performance, and enhance/develop the website as the airport car park company grows and expands.