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Guests Using a Resident's Meal Plan (for POS Dining Rooms)

Kevin U
  • Updated

Overview

For a POS dining room location, a resident meal plan can be configured to allow a guest to charge meals against it. If so, then the workflow on the POS is as follows:

  1. When a guest is seated (i.e., assigned), the system asks if the person is the guest of a diner. 

    assign_guest.png
     
  2. Upon clicking Yes, the Select Resident Account for Guest Billing popup appears to select the resident whose meal plan will be charged. 

    assign_guest2.png
     
  3. When a resident's meal plan is selected for the guest, the resident's name appears at the top of the order summary to indicate the guest meal is being charged to the resident's meal plan. 
    assign_guest4.png
     
  4. If wanting to change to a meal plan of another resident, then the POS operator can do so by tapping the edit icon and selecting the new resident. 
    assign_guest_edit.png

    change_resident.png
     
  5. If wanting to remove the guest from the currently-assigned resident meal plan, then the POS operator can do so by tapping the edit icon and tapping the Remove Guest of Diner button. 

    assign_guest_edit.pngremove_guest_of_diner.png

MealSuite Support Task: Enabling Guests to Use a Resident Meal Plan

A MealSuite Support representative has the ability to enable a guest diner to use a resident's meal plan. If you are MealSuite Support, complete the following steps to do so:

  1. Open the POS dining room location (POS Settings > Locations > click Edit).
     
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the Finance Settings section.
     
  3. Select the Allow guests charge to resident's meal plan option.

    guest_charge_meal_plan.png
     
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Save Location button.
     
  5. Open the meal plan.
     
  6. Select the Enable meal plan to be used by other diner option. 
     
  7. In the Enter number of guest meals that can be covered within meal plan's billing cycle, enter the number of meals that can be charged by guests during the meal plan's billing cycle. Note that if you do not enter a number here, then an unlimited amount of guest meals can be charged to a resident's meal plan. 

    guest_meal_Plan.png

    Note: On the POS, if the guest meal plan limit is reached, then the following message appears: "Error. Guest meal limit reached for this meal plan. This meal will not be covered by the meal plan,"

    guest_meal_plan_limit.png
     
  8. As an option, the GL Account and Billing Code fields are available to select a GL account and billing code, respectively, for financial tracking of meal plans charged by a guest. 
     
  9. Click Update Policy to apply your changes.

Tracking Guests Who Use a Resident's Meal Plan

You can use the Payment Transactions report to track how many guests use a resident meal plan. The report provides a breakdown of payment transactions, including meal plan transactions. Each transaction lists the diner who covered the transaction. If a guest had used the diner's meal plan, then the text Guest in parentheses is displayed below the diner name (screenshot below). 

payment_transactions_report_guests.png

By exporting the report to an Excel® file, the word Guest is listed in the Diner First Name column. which therefore allows you to filter the column by guest transactions to tally how many guests used a resident's meal plan. 

payment_transaction_excel.png

To filter the column by only guest transactions:

  1. Select the header row (i.e., the top row with the column titles).
  2. Click the Sort & Filter button in the ribbon bar (2) and select Filter (3). Each column header is then presented with a down arrow.
    filter_guests.png
  3. To filter only Guests in the Diner First Name column, click the down arrow of the column header and clear the names so that only Guest is selected, and then click OK (first screenshot below). Only guests are listed in the column (second screenshot below). 
    filter_guests2.png     
    filter_guests3.png

FAQs

If a product is set to be automatically when a meal plan is used, will that product also be added if a guest uses the meal plan?

Yes. A product that is set to be automatically added when a meal plan is used will be added for a guest diner.