Front desk - arrivals, check-in and check-out

The Front Desk app is where the desk runs the day: who is arriving, who is leaving, who is in which room, and the paperwork in between. Front Desk, Night Auditor and Hotel Admin users see it. Making bookings is covered in Reservations.

Before you start

1. Set your check-in and check-out times. Settings → Stay policies → Check-in & check-out. They print on the registration card and on the guest's online check-in page.
2. Decide how self check-in links go out. Settings → Front Desk → Arrivals. Leave Send pre-check-in links automatically off to copy each link by hand, or turn it on to send them every morning (see Send the self check-in link).
3. Open your till before you take money. A walk-in that pays at the desk, or a deposit, goes through your cashier session: Finance → Cashier → My Till. See Billing.

Read the Today screen

Front Desk → Today is the home screen. It refreshes itself every 30 seconds.

• The six counts across the top: Arrivals, Departures, In-house, Occupancy, Revenue (with RevPAR) and Open tasks for housekeeping.
• Arrivals and Departures list today's stays. Each row shows the source (Website, Phone, OTA, AI Agent…), a payment chip (Paid, ₹… due or Unpaid) and Pre-checked-in when the guest has filled in the online form. "via Priya (Assistant)" means someone booked on the guest's behalf; hover it for the booker's phone.
• Room board shows every room by floor. An occupied room is dark green; click it to open that guest's registration card. Click any other room to move its housekeeping status on one step: Dirty → Clean → Inspected → Out of Order → Dirty.
• In-house guests lists everyone staying, their balance and when they leave. Click a row for the registration card.

Check a guest in

1. On Today, find the guest under Arrivals and click Check in.
2. Read the Registration chips: online check-in, ID on file, Address proof, Phone and Email. A green tick means it is there. Nothing here stops the check-in; it shows you what to collect. Open GRC opens the registration card in a new tab if you want to capture the ID first.
3. Pick the room. If the booking has a room, it shows as Room 203 is assigned. If not, Kamra suggests one with its reason (for example "First free room of the type"). Click the suggestion, or choose another free room of the same type under Or pick another room. Each room shows its housekeeping status.
4. Click Check in to 205 (the button names the room).

The room turns occupied, the guest folio opens, and any deposit taken before arrival moves onto the stay's bill.

If you pick a room that is still Dirty, Kamra warns you and lets you go ahead; housekeeping sees the room flip to occupied.

You can also check in from the reservation itself: Reservations → click the booking → Check in. That button only appears once the booking has a room.

Check in a walk-in

For a guest standing at the counter with no booking, use Walk-in in the top bar. One screen books the stay, records the ID, checks the guest into a room and takes the payment.

1. Click Walk-in (or switch New booking to Walk-in).
2. Type the Guest name. If the guest has stayed before, pick them from the list so the stay joins their profile. Add the Phone.
3. Choose the ID type, type the ID number and check the Nationality. The ID types come from your country pack.
4. Pick the Room type, then the Room. The list shows rooms free tonight, clean ones first.
5. Set Nights and the party size. For a few hours' stay, switch Overnight to Day use and set the time slot.
6. Under Payment, pick how the guest pays and the Amount collected. It starts at the full total; lower it for a part payment, or set it to 0 to put everything on the bill.
7. Click Check in & collect ₹2,940 (or Check in when nothing is collected).

It is all or nothing. If the room was just taken, or your till is closed, nothing is saved and the screen tells you why. After it succeeds, Open bill takes you to the guest's folio.

Send the self check-in link

Guests can fill in their registration before they arrive: ID type and number, a photo of the ID, address, arrival time, and a signature on the registration card.

• By hand: on Today, click copy check-in link on the arrival row and paste it into your message to the guest. Hover the link first: it tells you whether to send it to the guest, the booker, or both. The link shows for confirmed arrivals that have not filled the form yet.
• Automatically: turn on Settings → Front Desk → Arrivals → Send pre-check-in links automatically. Each morning Kamra sends the link to guests arriving within Send links this far ahead (2 days by default).

When the guest submits the form, the arrival shows Pre-checked-in. Before you hand over the key, compare the ID with the person: open the booking (Reservations → click it) and click Verify identity in the Identity card. After that, the guest can no longer change what they sent.

Complete the registration card

Every stay has a printable guest registration card (GRC). Open it from GRC on an arrival row, from a room on the room board, from an in-house guest, or with Registration card on the booking.

1. Work down the Registration checklist on the right: Guest ID on file, Address proof (optional), Occupants registered and Signature.
2. Under Documents, click Capture next to Guest ID or Address proof. On a tablet or phone this opens the camera.
3. To correct the guest's nationality, click edit next to Nationality.
4. If the guest arrived or left at a different time than planned, click edit next to Actual check-in or Actual check-out.
5. Below the card, fill the Occupant register: one row per person in the room, with their own ID. Click Add occupant for more rows, then Save register. Once a row is saved, Capture ID on that row takes the occupant's ID. A child's row asks for name and age only, unless your country's register needs children's IDs too.
6. Click Print GRC and have the guest sign. A guest who signed online already has their signature on the card.

The Money box shows charges, payments and the balance; Open bill goes to the folio.

Move a guest to another room

1. Open the move from any of these:
   • Change room on the registration card,
   • Change room (or Assign room) in the booking's Room card,
   • the guest's bar on the tape chart.
2. Pick a room. Same type lists rooms of the booked type; All types (upgrade) shows every type. Free, clean rooms come first; booked rooms are greyed out.
3. Check the price line at the bottom. Moving to another type re-prices the stay, and Kamra shows the difference and the new total before anything changes.
4. Pick a reason (Guest request, Upgrade, Maintenance, Noise / complaint, Other), add a note if you like, and click Move to 303.

When the guest is already in-house, the old room is marked Dirty for housekeeping. Every move is written to the activity log with its reason.

Check a guest out

1. On Today, find the guest under Departures.
2. Click Check out.

Before it checks the guest out, Kamra posts any nights the night audit has not posted yet, then looks at the bill:

• If the guest still owes money, check-out stops and says how much. Collect it on the folio first (Billing).
• If the guest has paid too much, check-out stops until you refund it.
• If a company with credit pays for the stay, the company's share moves to the city ledger and the check-out goes ahead.

After check-out the room is marked Vacant and Dirty, and housekeeping gets a high-priority checkout clean. The same Check out button is on the booking's detail panel.

Look up a guest

Front Desk → Guests lists every guest with their bookings, stays, nights, lifetime value and last stay. Search by name or phone, and click a guest to open their journey.

The journey shows every stay and event, with:

• Book a stay to start a booking already attached to this guest,
• Notes & preferences and the VIP tick (VIP guests get a star on every screen),
• Profile actions: Blacklist guest, Merge a duplicate, Anonymize profile and Export guest data.

Settings

Setting	Where	Default	What it does
Check-in time / Check-out time	Settings → Stay policies	14:00 / 11:00	Printed on the GRC and the online check-in page.
Send pre-check-in links automatically	Settings → Front Desk → Arrivals	Off	Sends the self check-in link to upcoming arrivals each morning.
Send links this far ahead	Settings → Front Desk → Arrivals	2 days	How far ahead of arrival the automatic link goes out.
Require pre-check-in before access details	Settings → Front Desk → Arrivals	Off	Holds back the Access instructions (door codes, Wi-Fi) until the guest has checked in online.
Guest ID retention	Settings → Privacy & data	Verify & Discard	Verify & Discard masks ID numbers to the last 4 digits and deletes ID photos at check-out. Store keeps them.
Security deposit	Settings → Stay policies → Deposits	0	A refundable amount to hold during the stay. While it is held, the booking warns you before check-out.

Good to know

• Check-in never waits for an ID. The ID chips and warnings tell you what is missing; the register wants it before the night audit.
• A walk-in always arrives today. For a future date, make a normal booking.
• A booking needs a room before check-in. Whole-villa stays check in as one unit.
• The balance on Today includes nights the night audit has not posted yet, so it matches what the guest owes at check-out.
• A room whose guest is due out today but still checked in is not offered for a check-in or a walk-in until that guest checks out.
• Blacklist guest is for Hotel Admins. A reason is needed both to add and to lift it, and it goes to the activity log.

Troubleshooting

"Cannot check out: ₹… is still owed." Open the bill (Open bill on the GRC, or Open folio on the booking), take the payment, then check out again. For a company that pays later, transfer the balance to the city ledger on the folio.

"Assign a room before check-in." The booking has no room. Use Assign room on the booking or the GRC, or check in from Today, where you pick the room in the same step.

"NO_OPEN_SESSION: open your till under Finance → Cashier first." You tried to take money (a walk-in payment or a deposit) without an open till. Open it under Finance → Cashier → My Till, or set the walk-in's Amount collected to 0.

"Room … is still occupied by … Check them out first, or choose another room." The guest before is still checked in to that room. Check them out on Today (under Departures), or pick another room.

The check-in panel says "No free room of this type for these dates". Every room of the type is taken. Open the tape chart to move another stay or upgrade this one.

For developers

The check-in panel is kamra.api.checkin_context and kamra.api.check_in; the walk-in is kamra.api.walk_in; check-out is kamra.api.check_out; room moves use kamra.api.movable_rooms, kamra.api.room_move_preview and kamra.api.move_reservation. AI agents use the front_desk_today, check_in, check_out, move_room, guest_lookup, guest_journey and update_occupants tools. See MCP tools and the API reference.