Should we build a custom PMS or buy an off-the-shelf product?
For most single properties, buy. Opera, Mews, Cloudbeds, and similar products cover standard operations for less than a custom build costs. Building makes sense in three situations: your operating model does not fit standard PMS assumptions, such as mixed-use, serviced apartments, or hybrid residential and hotel inventory; you are a group needing central control that vendor multi-property tiers handle poorly; or your differentiation depends on guest experience workflows the vendor will not build. If none of those apply, we will tell you to buy and help you integrate instead.
Can you extend or integrate with our existing PMS rather than replace it?
Yes, and this is often the better project. Many operators need a specific capability their PMS lacks, a better booking engine, a mobile check-in flow, a group reporting layer, rather than a new PMS. We build that capability against your existing system's API, which is a fraction of the cost and risk of replacement.
What does a PMS actually need to integrate with?
At minimum: a channel manager or the OTAs directly for availability and reservations, a payment provider for deposits and settlement, and the POS systems in your restaurants and bars for room charge posting. Commonly also: door lock systems, telephone and Wi-Fi billing, revenue management tools, accounting, and your CRM or loyalty database. Each integration adds real scope, so we confirm which are genuinely needed in the first release.
How do you prevent overbooking across channels?
A single authoritative inventory record in the PMS, with every channel reading from and writing to it, plus atomic transactions on the booking write so two simultaneous reservations cannot claim the last room. Where channels sync rather than call live, the sync interval becomes your overbooking exposure window, so we keep it short and make the reconciliation behavior explicit. Getting this wrong is the most damaging defect a PMS can ship.
What about rate and availability complexity?
This is usually underestimated. Real hotel pricing involves rate plans, seasons, day-of-week variation, length-of-stay rules, occupancy-based pricing, packages, corporate and negotiated rates, and channel-specific parity requirements. We model this explicitly in discovery, because retrofitting a rate engine after the fact typically means rebuilding it.
Does a PMS need to work offline?
Front desk check-in and check-out should degrade gracefully rather than stop when connectivity drops, because guests are physically waiting. We usually implement local queuing for critical front-desk actions with reconciliation on reconnect. Full offline operation is expensive and rarely justified, so we scope the specific actions that must survive an outage.
How long does a PMS project take?
A focused PMS covering reservations, front desk, housekeeping, rates, and billing with two or three integrations typically takes six to nine months to a production-ready first property. Multi-property group deployments run longer, driven by integration surface and per-site operational testing rather than by additional feature work.
How do you handle guest data under GDPR?
A PMS holds identity documents, payment details, stay history, and preferences, which makes it high-value personal data. We implement role-based access so housekeeping and front desk see different fields, retention rules that purge documents after the legal holding period, audit logging on record access, and encryption at rest and in transit. Our information security management is ISO 27001:2013 certified.
What engagement models are available?
We offer a Dedicated Development Team for long-term product work and Staff Augmentation to extend your in-house team. Share your requirements and we prepare a tailored proposal within 48 hours, including team composition, timeline, and cost estimate.
