Checkfront

Pros

After years of use, my favorite thing about Checkfront is the helpful support team. They always provide detailed, competent and helpful answers.

Cons

Our only real issue is that they seem to be falling behind on channel integration (especially OTA's) compared to other reservation systems. But the functionality and usability of existing features is very good.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Checkfront

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

There are many things that I love about Checkfront. It's online booking capability and ease of use when training employees how to use it once it is setup. With a little coding expertise you can make the booking process for clients very easy and reduces the friction toward payment, so you can concentrate on operations.

Cons

The Guest form and Guest information are essentially useless and would be better if it was removed altogether. I have been hoping that over the last 2 years since its implementation there would have been improvements to this portion of checkfront, but it has not been improved. There are no triggers if guest have not filled out the info, nor is there anyway to use the information in dashboard or organize it using the daily manifest or send the information somewhere else to be used in another program via automation.The email suite lacks any organizational capability I have created so many that it is nearly impossible to figure out what triggers them and we run many different trips to many different locations and it creates choas when I don't know if clients are getting the correct emails about those trips. Then you get into the creation of emails, there is no way to send test emails to check your formatting. Also you cannot create html emails in the notifications editor. I have to create email templates in Mailchimp and then export them and import them into checkfront. this might be the most ridiculous thing that I can think of. There should be a way to catogorize your emails into folders, and there should be email templates that allow you to design emails in checkfront that have mobile friendly options. If there was a way to see all the triggers without having to open every email to see that would be amazing.

Pros

simple efficient. keeps track of chats easy to cancel and make bookings. very helpful online troubleshooting the techs are very knowledgeable and easy to follow their help.i love the banners paid and unpaid or cancelled very cool.

Cons

the home page is clunky. would be better if your arrivals and departures were in list form on this page. the calendar would work better if you could drag and drop bookings to gain a day here and there.

Pros

The booking management was easy and the customer storefront to book flowed nicely. There are a lot of integrations, and the product is always evolving. The price was actually pretty good compared to other products.

Cons

Some complex booking processes were difficult to set up and felt "hacky" where we had to make dummy products to act as in-between triggers. The system was not designed for what we were looking to do, but it was still able to do it.
Integrations would sometimes break, causing errors on the booking page.
Some features were blocked behind using their payment provider tool instead of an alternative they allowed. For instance, if you used Square instead of Stripe, customer were not able to book directly from the Google search results page.
Reporting was also very difficult to deal with and lacked the ability to customize it. I had to export all the data to a database daily in order to see everything.

Pros

I liked that it was easy to use, back office is ok but website integration needs work

Cons

I didnt like the website provided and if you added Checkfront to your own website it didnt intergrate well.

Pros

It's an affordable booking system for our small business. The PC version of Checkfront is very easy to use.

Cons

The mobile/app for checkfront. Difficult to use and navigate.

Pros

Checkfront offers a number of key features that make it fully customisable and suitable for a range of businesses including activity companies, rental companies and hotels. If you run a combination of things, then it is the perfect solution as you can adapt different parts of the system to the needs of your staff and guests.

Cons

Checkfront's front-end booking portal plug-in is fairly ugly and is not particularly customisable (even with the new upgrade to this). If there was greater customisation to this, we would likely look to use the booking page option. For the moment we will stick with the API integration, however this is also not particularly great with no updates made to the API for years now (which our web developer mentions frequently).Checkfront's new prices raised an eyebrow - Their previous pricing felt very competitive however the new pricing tiers have made us really question whether Checkfront is value for money

Pros

Checkfront has been a game changer for our industry and especially the company. The online booking has freed up time to focus on other necessary duties and the price allows us to run our business more effectively and efficiently.

Cons

The glitches of trying to change a reservation and sometimes it just won't. That's a little time consuming and annoying but it doesn't happen that often. Sometimes the reports can be cumbersome.

Pros

As someone who makes decision on the last minute, i like to have the option to book last minute or probably make a booking in advance if we have planned everything early. Checkfront offers that and I love that. It makes booking convenient even for older people. And I love that I can use Apple pay as a mode of payment.

Cons

So far Im enjoying using it, couldnt think of anything that I dont like.

Pros

The overall use is great. It takes time to learn and set up but pays itself back ten fold once in play making your small business run professionally.

Cons

Limited items unless you upgrade which doesn’t make sense for small seasonal businesses. We don’t run in the winter so let us keep being able to hibernate the account in the winter and not pay full price.

Pros

The interface is very easy to use and straight forward for our customers. This software has definitely increased and enhanced our online booking procedures.

Cons

The system is very robust and there is definitely a bit of a learning curve on the back end, but once you figure it out it's easier to use.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Checkfront

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

Lots of great stuff about this. Pretty easy to use..

Cons

The app is awful. Kicks me out daily. Needs to be improved big time.

Pros

Ease of use and excellent customer service

Cons

Integration with websites is somewhat limited. WOuld love to have it be a bit more customizable.

Pros

User friendly, more information than other software

Cons

We have no dislikes about this software.

Pros

After operating our business for years without an online, pre-paid bookings system we had no idea of the positive impact Checkfront would have, not just for our business but for our lives. Red Star Music is a recording studio and rehearsal spaces and there was initial concern that introducing this type of system would 'scare away', deter or frustrate existing customer but to our surprise, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It has been a win/win situation for everyone.

Pros for customers:

* No longer have to rely on getting in touch with us to book and check availability.
* No longer have to request invoices.
* Checkfront with the addition of digital access to the spaces means we are able to be open 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Pros for us:

* Protection from financial losses due to people not showing up for bookings, cancelling last minute and refusing to pay. With Checkfront's pre-paid system and our compulsory terms of agreement, the responsibility is placed entirely on the customers to organise themselves.
* Protection from human error during the bookings process (on our part).
* We are now open 24hrs/7 days a week and no longer are required to have onsite staff members collecting payment whenever there are bookings.
* We have more time to focus on other aspects of the business and our lives rather than having to be on call around the clock. Our phones are very quiet these days and we have more bookings than ever.

Cons

Understanding that our needs are fairly complicated when it comes to a customised bookings system, there are really only a few very minor things:

It'd be nice to be able to set a rule that a certain time slot booking can only be booked when another before it is in place. For example - we'd like to run a 2hr discount session from 9-11pm as a gap filler on week days but we only want customers to be able to book that session if a 5-9pm session is already booked so that we aren't blocking a potential 4hr 7-11pm, higher value session. Does that make sense? No biggie though!

There are a couple of things with the mobile app however:

1. If I'm away and I want to check tomorrow's bookings on my phone to see whether I need to be there or not, I can open the app and see in the list of customers from earliest to latest (top to bottom), but I have to tap into each individual customer to see what time they are actually booked, making it difficult for me to get and overall visual of how I'm going to organise the day, hire gear etc.
2. I often want to be able to contact customers when I'm away to give them instructions but there doesn't seem to be any way for me to access contact details, phone/email for the bookings in the mobile app. Being able to tap copy their phone numer and send a quick text would make life much easier.

Pros

Flexibility to meet our business processes, automated customer communications via "Notifications" (which you can tailor to your needs), calendar functions, ability to specify requirements for the booking page and guest lists. We also like the different look and feel options for your booking page.

Cons

If I had to make a criticism, and I mean "had to", I would say that because Checkfront is so flexible in its design features, there is a learning curve to understand how the functionality works. That is why you need good customer support, which you also get with Checkfront.

Pros

Online booking, automated inventory control, powerful and flexible customer communications, plug-ins to enable integration with a wide range of other systems

Cons

Can’t think of any meaningful cons or problems with the software

Pros

The software is great value for the money. Best out there in my opinion. Great telephone software support during the set-up/onboarding. Ongoing support via email is extremely good, with tech support promptly replying with step-by-step detailed explanations and screen videos of how to address the issues.

Cons

1. For vacation rental managements, this software in it's current version is very awkward & time consuming to update rates, descriptions, etc if the property falls in more than one category, such as a being 4 bedroom, ski-in/ski-out, base area location, private hot tub & pet friendly. For each category, rates need to be added for that property each time a rate change or new set of dates is added. It seems to be that there should be a main listing that communicates with each of the categories the property is listed under. In the initial set-up, an "alias" can be used, but once the property is up, new rates, fees, taxes, etc have to be added to the property in each category it is listed under. Takes way too much time to do things this way. Needs to be an option to "link" the same property throughout each category it is listed in so rate adjustments can be done with just one entry.

2. Wish they had ongoing telephone support though the email support works well

3. Wish Checkfront had calendar connections with other vacation rental sites such as VRBO, HomeAway, AirBnB, Expedia, Booking.com and so one so once a reservation is made on one site, all the other booking calendars updated at the same time.

Pros

A relatively simple system to use and easy to navigate. The layout is good on the calendar pager and the reports offer valuable information.

Cons

I find the system very inflexible to my needs, eg. Can not offer Room only and Rooms with breakfast from the same inventory stock.
There are no error messages when you are clearly not setting things up correctly. Eg, Setting up an event, you have to go to the help page all the time to ensure you are doing it right. Pop ups with helpful tips would be better & time saving.
Item Event Rules/rule sets are too complicated and open to user error, the software doesn't make it user friendly, there are too many pages to refer to. The software allows you to enter dates that overlap other events, this should not be allowed, its frustrating when setting up seasonal prices. The system is too time consuming and requires manual input when it should be cross checking dates and pop up an alert if incorrect, quite often the event doesn't work....Frustrating!
Having to import every booking that goes through a channel manager and unlock it first ! Time consuming ! Why doesn't it go into the calendar automatically?
Unable to change the price on the initial page when making a new booking, this has to be amended afterwards.....frustrating that you can not enter it right first time !
Unable to set up more than one policy. This is so inflexible when you are selling services and accommodation which have different policies for bookings.
I have been waiting 6months for you to fix my inventory errors and minimum stay rules.. Poor communication and no urgency whilst I lose money & bookings.

Pros

It is easy to use once you have everything set up. Your bookings are on automation. Booking comes in, emails and confirmations are set. Follow-up emails can be set up. Easy search functions for bookings and daily manifest sheets are clear. Nice to use.

Cons

It doesn't always fit your specific needs, but the support is always there to help with a workaround. It takes ages to get specific items added to the updates.

Pros

Multiple configurations allow us to customize our back and front facing reservation database even though we are not a traditional hotel. Support is usually very detailed and forward thinking. If what we want can’t be accomplished, we always get good insight on workarounds and temporary solutions, that sometimes work better than what we had planned. CF constantly works to improve itself. We get monthly updates that bring new funtctions and extension platforms into the mix. It’s about 75% of the way to eliminating the rest of our internal support platforms - loyalty rewards, staff scheduling, & customizable customer profiles are the remaining topics we’d like to see incorporated into CF.

Cons

We hold little hope that our feature requests will ever be developed. Configuration on the backend comes with a significant learning curve. One can get lost in the labyrinth of configuration options. I understand it’s necessary for all the functionality on the front end but if hotels are configuring this themselves, the labyrinth could be a little less complicated (topics re: parameters, & alias are very confusing).

Pros

There are A LOT of ways to customize booking forms on check-front. We run a multi-purpose community center, with multiple rooms at different rates. This software is able to handle all of it and is one of the few programs available where I can adjust payments manually.

Customer service is also excellent - I've received so much help from the team online. The customized videos that they have sent to me have been most helpful. All of my queries have been answered within an hour or two of asking.

Cons

- We hire out on space on an hourly basis to limited English speakers. Our customers repeatedly say that the red and green days (for customer online booking calendar) are unclear. It would be great to have a yellow option that shows SOME times are still available during a day if the whole day isn't booked.

- Very difficult to set up from the beginning

- Would like more report functionalities (ie. basic monthly breakdown of who booked how many times, income generated for a particular period, calendar print out of bookings)

- A drag and drop feature for adjusting bookings would be appreciated.

Pros

Checkfront offers the best value for money of any online reservation software I've explored. They offer great functionality for very reasonable monthly rates - and they offer prices in CAD, which is rare.

Cons

I have virtually no complaints. As is the case with any software that isn't fully custom you will never find a perfect solution to match a unique business. I think Checkfront has done a great job of ticking enough boxes that I can workaround any challenges that they don't address directly.

Pros

The support has an amazing actitud and vibe. They are on top of things to help the user. So easy to learn how to use check front.

Cons

Love it, maybe just less complicated to add a tour or product.

Pros

I love many things about this software. Most of all, I love 2 things - that it is really easy to navigate from the back end, therefore allowing even our instructors who aren't necessarily the most techy to navigate it and make bookings. I also love love love the customer service. We use many different systems for our business and this always provide the best customer service - even personalised videos when needed.

Cons

Least - we have so many products it does take time to input them all. There is a little bit of a learning curve in setting up the fine details for each products, but i think this is inevitable.

Pros

It is quite user friendly and has intuitive features.

Cons

It feels a bit clunky and dated with some features. It badly needs to catch up with other systems in some areas such as dashboard management, photo galleries and itinerary layouts.

Pros

The systems are in place to send email reminders and confirmations of items booked. The booking is easy to set up so your customers can go through the form themselves

Cons

When checking on a customer name you have to be exact - it doesn't show similar names like it use to, would love that back

Pros

At first it took some time to understand the platform, but their people made that process easier with various videos and instructions

Cons

Kinda expensive on a monthly basis, and oftentimes I'll have no tours, but still have to pay Checkfront

Pros

The many reports and options available.

Cons

Two calendars are confusing. Making changes to reservations. Difficult to figure out even with directions creating frustration and lots of time spent trying. Not user friendly- too many terms that are not easy to learn. Sorry to complain.

Pros

Easy-to-use. Reports are helpful when reviewing my business

Cons

Changing an inventory item when aliased . It takes a long time to set up inventory items. If the parent number is changed, it would be good if aliased would automatically change.

Pros

I like the reservation calendar and online booking the most.

Cons

I think it would be beneficial to be able to mark rooms as they're cleaned. This would enable me to when to know when the room is clean and ready to be turned over to the next guest.

Pros

The reservation management feature is excellent as is the in-built facility to collect waivers from guests.

Cons

We have two separate components to our business and whilst Checkfront works seamlessly for the standard rental letting element, it does require some manual manipulation for the other components.

Pros

I managed to build an entire booking system from scratch and can maintain it without and army of tech prople.

Cons

I was being billed for users i did not require but the team have now resolved that issue.

Pros

Booking online featuresCalendar for overall management of resourcesReports but would like the customer reports of be in colourCategorising resources

Cons

Small organisation and to add more than 5 admins is a large increase in cost. Would like be able to add extra admin for a minimal fee per admin.Resources cannot be recursively booked in different features if they are more than two levels down..

Pros

Being able to adapt for our individual needs

Cons

Our pricing plan is excellent with Checkfront. But I recently received notice it was going to increase significantly. This is very disappointing. If we utilized of the abilities of the program I would pay more but we use a very minimal amount as I do most work in house. The program is great though.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

Checkfront have now added a how to section with images so you can pretty much work everything out just by following the very easy to use online guide.

Cons

Initially it took ages to get support on how to perform certain tasks but that has been rectified by the online guide.

Pros

This product was easy to set up and is very intuitive to use. The customer service is excellent.

Cons

I don't really have any cons to add.Integrating Checkfront into my website was very easy.

Pros

It does the job for bookings and storing information.

Cons

Almost zero consideration has gone into the marketing aspect of bookings.They are currently not GA4 compatible, despite being under a month out from the UA sunset.Email automations and design are abysmal. It only allows for HTML design. Poor automation and flow.The booking interface is ugly and not well optimized. This goes for the widget and booking page.

Pros

Customer service is generally helpful when the software or back end service fails. Unfortunately I need to use this a lot.

Cons

The user interface and user experience is entirely nonsensical. The most basic, basic thing a guide needs is to check in guests on a tour. Checkfront doesn't even show the guide how many people are on the tour. It doesn't alphabetize the guests, so the guide has to search through a list of randomly sorted names every time a guest comes in. Many guides in our company have refused to use Checkfront at all, and simply don't check in the guests. Many customers show up on our tour without booking, because they said they couldn't figure out the Checkfront booking system. How many customers and how much money have we lost because of the Checkfront UI? We'll never know.

Pros

We have been with check front for 7 years now and we love everything about it. It's simple to use, training new employees to use it is easy, the booking process just flows nicely so it makes sense. Customers also compliment us on how simple and straightforward it is to use. I also feel like they are there when I need them to help me out with any issues I'm having.

Cons

I would like to use the waivers section but it didn't quite work for our set up. There's a couple of little things that would be nice to be able to do with the calendar etc. I also which the app was a bit more useful. I usually always send suggestions in when I come across something that I think would be beneficial for everyone.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

The software has many really useful functions e.g. waivers; group waivers; integration with Xero. The developements in terms of the calendar and manifest are great improvements but little tweaks in layout would declutter the view.

Some of the details functionality is brilliant - often not easy to find how to do something but just ask the Support folks and they usually have a very neat solution to offer.

The customer support is fantastic, so responsive and are very wiling to take a suggestion/issue back to the developers.

Cons

Find the Inventory calendar a bit cluttered and the mobile app could be done with a little refinement in terms of daily manifest.

Integration with Xero needs a little refinement - would be excellent if an admin could choose which Payment Methods are integrated, at the moment every transaction creates a Xero invoice which is not always appropriate (e.g. gift vouchers, cash, face-to-face card payments) so there can be quite a bit of voiding in Xero to correct position.

The Partner Accounts are too restrictive for the way we work with our partners so we had to provide User accounts to provide the functionality.

Pros

I have an IT background and was able to install and configure this system mostly on my own. I needed help with a few more complex configuration questions but pretty impressive that a system this sophisticated can be setup by the end user. It is very flexible and powerful but this also means that setup can get quite involved.

Cons

Reporting is a weakness with no custom reporting options. Ongoing development of the product is slow and currently with no transparency on the roadmap. They have promised to share more info on this though.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

if Checkfront was not available for me, I would be drowning in a sea of paperwork. For example, I started using the documentations app two years ago. It has allowed us to develop a social distancing booking system, that is touchless and COVID approved.

After an initial setup and learning process, our customer response has been very positive because we have eliminated the paperwork "Hassel" at the boarding gate. It has cut our boarding time in half because all the insurance required documentation is now done at their home or office. It has eliminated filing of the paperwork. It has made documentation look up easier.

Cons

I have been with Checkfront for almost 10 years. They have eliminate many of my concerns. However, currently my discount codes do not work like they use to. When I use multiple discounts on the same invoice.

For example, I might have 3 or 4 rental booking on the same invoice, representing 3 to 4 days of rental for that week. We offer a 25% discount on weekday rentals and a 10% rental on weekends. I should be able to have different discount rates for each booking by using the "per item" discount code. Unfortunately, it does not work that way. The total is the same but the software prorates the discount on all items on the invoice. This is very confusing to my customer.

Pros

First and foremost, Checkfront is affordable for a small business our size, and even though they are much more affordable than the high-cost competition, Checkfront doesn't scrimp on features and functionality. Checkfront takes a day or two to get used to but that's only because it's jam-packed full of useful and necessary features. Checkfront is a fully functional and complete booking system that won't leave you feeling like there's always something missing, as is the case with so many other low-cost providers.

Cons

I can't complain about a system that does everything the big high-cost alternatives do for a price that's affordable and cost-effective for small businesses like mine.

Pros

The invoicing and notification system is excellent. It allows for a sequence of events - the initial request and removal of item from inventory, the paying of a deposit and the sending out of a reminder for the balance. It has also allowed us to record bookings that come from another listing site. The notification system is good but , as with with all automatic sequences, you need to think carefully before setting a sequence in train because the same message notification might not be right for everyone. It takes a lot of thought to set up the generic sequence that will most often be used. However, it is very easy to make adjustments to the message before it goes out.

Cons

Checkfront may be used more for booking tours rather than holiday homes but it's flexibility allows for many different set-ups. Therein lies the problem with regard to the help pages. They are quite helpful with regard to what any particular feature is but most examples tend to be about booking tours rather than accommodation. I spent a lot of time working out what I could do and how I should do it, more or less by trial and error. In some ways that is a good thing because I learnt so much more about the system by the sheer repetition of trying so many ways to do something. However, it would have saved me a lot of time to have some real examples of how to set up and overcome particular problems.
So far, I have only two irritations with the software. One is the mobile phone app which could be much improved but is not actually a bother because I really do not need to carry my office in my pocket. The other is the Inventory calendar. I wish I could highlight the row that I am working on because it is very easy to start making alterations to the wrong row. I also wish that I could highlight a period of time to add or remove a property from inventory. You can only do that one day at a time which is tedious and non-intuitive. There are other ways round this and perhaps there is a good programming reason for the limitation.

Pros

Checkfront is very affordable relative to other tour booking platforms (they charge a flat annual fee rather than a percentage of sales - which I believe is the fair way to operate), and it works great for many purposes. There are lots of options for customization, and it is easy to learn how to configure and manage the platform using Checkfront's tutorials and documentation. There are lots of helpful integrations (Stripe, PayPal, Google Analytics, etc.) that are easy to set up. Checkfront support is always very responsive and helpful.

Cons

Checkfront is designed to work across many types of booking environments including hotels, hourly tours, daily tours, weekly tours, etc. Because these types of businesses have different needs, Checkfront balances those but, in my experience, isn't perfect for any one type of business. As a tour operator, sometimes we have needed to come up with workarounds to meet our specific needs or live with certain shortcomings. Checkfront support is always helpful, but if there is a feature that you need, the best you can do is submit a "feature request" and hope that enough other people request the same feature for development.

Pros

This is very user friendly, both on the back end/set up side as well as the user side. The reservation system we used to use is extremely limited. We love that we can create a reservation and easily make changes. Our old system was not as user friendly and we would have to delete a reservation and re-create it even if we wanted to something as simple as change a date.

Cons

The website version is awesome, but the mobile app is not as user friendly as we would like and we are not thrilled with the reports. For the app, we are unable to check booking documents or update the reservations. That's great that we can check them in, but if they need to add a feature or change their dates at time of check in, we have to switch over to the web version, then switch back for payment. Which is another issue. We have connected checkfront with square, and a lot of the payments don't register with checkfront, so we have to first take the payment, and then record the payment. Very frustrating. We already had a few issues with the checkfront reports, which we have been able to work around, but now that we have connected to square, we are finding it extremely difficult to balance and now our bookkeeper has to refer to multiple reports, which of course does not help. One huge thing that would help is that our items in checkfront be able to communicate with square directly. Right now they convert over and say 'Custom Amount'. In one square report the booking id is referenced, but not others. Very, very frustrating. But if an item, like snowmobile passes, could actually transfer over as snowmobile passes, that would be huge. There are a few other issues, but those are the main setbacks we have currently.

Pros

Checkfront allows us to customize our reservation system to fit our specific business needs

Cons

There is a definite learning curve to using this product.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Checkfront

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

The flexibility. You are in the condition to bend the software depending on your demand. And this is great!
Another GREAT quality is not the software but relate to that and is the customer service. one of the best I even dealt with. every time you have a doubt they are responsive and always will help you at the best of their abilities to achieve your goal. is this an ENORMOUS quality!

Cons

It's not totally optimized for a business like ours that sells cruise, there are software that give you the possibility to have a graphic visual of the boat with all the cabins. but Checkfront is young and I'm sure that in the future these features will be implemented!

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront

Pros

Checkfront is an easy-to-use reservation system that can be customized very well to fit the needs of almost any type of activity or experience provider. It's excellent value comes from the fact that it only has a monthly fee and no extra per booking or per user etc which can literally save you thousands of Euros per year compared to other products that often have lesser or similar functionality. The support team is also worth mentioning, they are always quick and friendly and looking to provide good solutions.

Cons

The number of OTA integrations could be higher and feature requests could be handled more quickly but other than that it's excellent.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Checkfront

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Checkfront